Moments in Time

Jul 19, 20120

The History Channel

• On July 31, 1715, a hurricane strikes the east coast of Florida, sinking 10 Spanish treasure ships carrying tons of gold and silver coins and killing nearly 1,000 people. About 80 percent of the treasures was recovered within a year, but the rest remained lost until the 1960s.

• On Aug. 5, 1858, the first telegraph line across the Atlantic Ocean is completed. Four British and American vessels met in mid-ocean and successfully laid 2,000 miles of cable, often at a depth of more than 2 miles.

• On Aug. 3, 1861, the last entry of Charles Dickens’ serialized novel “Great Expectations” is published. Dickens’ father was thrown in debtors’ prison in 1824, and 12-year-old Charles was sent to work in a factory. The miserable treatment of children and the institution of the debtors’ jail became topics of several of Dickens’ novels.

• On Aug. 2, 1876, “Wild Bill” Hickok, one of the greatest gunfighters of the American West, is murdered in Deadwood, S.D. Hickok was playing cards with his back to the saloon door when a young gunslinger named Jack McCall walked into the saloon, approached Hickok from behind, and shot him in the back of the head.

• On Aug. 4, 1944, Jewish German-born Anne Frank and her family, who had been hiding in German-occupied Holland, are found by the Gestapo and transported to various concentration camps. The young girl’s diary of her time in hiding was found after her death and published in 1947 as “The Diary of Anne Frank.”

• On July 30, 1976, American Bruce Jenner wins gold in the decathlon at the Montreal Olympics and sets a world record in the event. After his win, Jenner was voted the 1976 AP Male Athlete of the Year. The 1976 Olympics was his last decathlon.

• On Aug. 1, 1981, MTV, the Music Television network, makes its maiden broadcast with the words, “Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll.” The roughly 80 different videos that made up that first week’s rotation on MTV probably represented nearly every promotional music video then available.