21 years ago today
Hurricane Katrina Devastates New Orleans and the Gulf Coast
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the Gulf Coast as a Category 3 storm, triggering catastrophic flooding when the levee system protecting New Orleans failed. Floodwaters inundated 80 percent of the city, trapping tens of thousands of residents — many of them poor and elderly — on rooftops and in the Superdome. The storm killed an estimated 1,392 people and caused approximately $125 billion in damage, making it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history at the time. The federal government's slow and disorganized response — symbolized by the paralysis of FEMA director Michael Brown — became a defining scandal of the George W. Bush presidency. Katrina exposed deep fault lines of race and poverty in American society, and parts of New Orleans took over a decade to recover.
Michael Jackson
American Pop Singer & Dancer
The "King of Pop," Jackson began his career as a child prodigy with the Jackson 5 before launching one of the most successful solo careers in music history. Thriller (1982) remains the best-selling album of all time, and his moonwalk and music videos transformed popular music and MTV.
Ingrid Bergman
Swedish Actress
One of the greatest actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age, Bergman starred in Casablanca, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Gaslight, and Notorious, winning three Academy Awards over her career. Her natural, unaffected acting style broke from the highly stylized norms of her era and influenced generations of performers.
John Locke
English Philosopher
The founder of classical liberalism, Locke's Two Treatises of Government argued that governments derive their legitimacy from the consent of the governed and that individuals possess natural rights to life, liberty, and property. His ideas directly shaped the American Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
Charlie Parker
American Jazz Saxophonist
Known as "Bird," Parker was the primary architect of bebop — the complex, virtuosic jazz style that transformed the music in the 1940s. His improvisational brilliance and harmonic innovations made him one of the most influential musicians of the twentieth century.
John McCain
American Senator & War Hero
A Navy pilot shot down over Hanoi in 1967, McCain endured five and a half years of imprisonment and torture as a POW before being released in 1973. He served 35 years in the U.S. Senate and was the Republican nominee for president in 2008, winning bipartisan admiration for his personal honor and occasional willingness to cross party lines.
Battle of Mohács: Ottoman Empire Crushes Hungary
Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent defeats and kills King Louis II of Hungary at the Battle of Mohács in just two hours, bringing an end to the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. The battle opened central Europe to Ottoman expansion and its consequences shaped the region for 150 years.
Frederick the Great Launches the Seven Years' War
Frederick II of Prussia invades Saxony, beginning the Seven Years' War — a conflict that spread across five continents and is sometimes called the first truly world war. The war ultimately confirmed Prussia as a major European power and redrew colonial maps in America, India, and Africa.
Michael Faraday Discovers Electromagnetic Induction
Faraday discovers that moving a magnet through a coil of wire generates an electric current, a phenomenon he calls electromagnetic induction. This single discovery is the basis for every electric generator and transformer in the world today.
Treaty of Nanking Ends the First Opium War
China signs the Treaty of Nanking with Britain, ending the First Opium War and ceding Hong Kong Island to Britain in perpetuity. The treaty opened five Chinese ports to British trade and began what Chinese historians call the "century of humiliation" at the hands of foreign powers.
Gottlieb Daimler Patents the First Motorcycle
German engineer Gottlieb Daimler receives a patent for his Reitwagen — a wooden-framed vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine — widely considered the world's first true motorcycle. The invention laid the groundwork for the modern automobile industry.
Soviet Union Tests Its First Atomic Bomb
The Soviet Union detonates its first nuclear device — code-named Joe-1 by the West — at the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan, ending America's monopoly on the atomic bomb. The test shocked Western governments and accelerated the nuclear arms race that defined the Cold War.
John Cage Premieres 4'33" — Four Minutes of Silence
American composer John Cage premieres 4'33" at the Maverick Concert Hall in Woodstock, New York, in which a pianist sits at a piano for four minutes and thirty-three seconds without playing a note. The "music" is whatever ambient sounds occur in the hall — a radical challenge to the definition of music itself.
The Beatles Play Their Final Concert Before Paying Fans
The Beatles perform their last concert before a paying audience at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, concluding a touring career that had become impossible amid hysteria and death threats. They retreated to the studio and produced some of the most innovative music of the twentieth century.
Netflix Incorporated
Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph incorporate Netflix in Scotts Valley, California. The DVD-by-mail rental service would launch the following April; within a decade the company pivoted to streaming, and within two decades it became one of the most influential entertainment companies in history.
Hurricane Katrina Makes Landfall, Devastating New Orleans
Hurricane Katrina comes ashore along the Gulf Coast and triggers catastrophic levee failures in New Orleans, flooding 80 percent of the city and killing nearly 1,400 people. It remains among the deadliest and costliest natural disasters in U.S. history.
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Swedish Actress
Bergman died of breast cancer in London on her 67th birthday. Her career spanned five decades and three Academy Awards, and she remained active in film and theater until nearly the end of her life.
Atahualpa
Last Sapa Inca of the Inca Empire
The last sovereign emperor of the Inca Empire was executed by garrote at Cajamarca on the orders of the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro, despite having paid an enormous ransom of gold and silver for his life. His execution effectively ended the Inca state and consolidated Spanish rule over Peru.
Brigham Young
Second President of the LDS Church
Young led the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for 30 years after Joseph Smith's murder, directing the epic Mormon pioneer migration to Utah and governing the territory as its first governor. He built Salt Lake City and founded over 350 settlements across the American West.
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