Daily Almanac: August 5, 2023

Sunrise/Sunset

RISE: 6:45 a.m.
SET: 8:58 p.m.

High/Low Temperatures:

HIGH: 90 °F
LOW: 70 °F

Today is…

• International Blues Music Day
• Mead Day
• National Disc Golf Day

What Happened On This Day:

• 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is Signed. Also known as the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the document was signed by the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States in Moscow. The treaty, which came as a response to the heightening tensions due to the frequent testing of nuclear weapons by the these 3 countries during the Cold War, banned the testing of nuclear weapons anywhere on land, over water or in space. Underground testing was still allowed under the treaty, until it was also banned in 1996 after the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty came into force.
• 1962 Nelson Mandela is Arrested. The South African anti-apartheid activist and adherent of nonviolence was arrested by the government at Rivonia, a suburb of Johannesburg. After a year-long trial, Mandela was imprisoned at the infamous Robben Island prison where we spent the next 18 years. He was released from prison in 1990 after spending 28 years as a political prisoner. In the early 1990s, after intense international and domestic pressure, in part from the efforts of Mandela, the South African government started taking steps to end apartheid – a government policy of racial segregation and discrimination. As a result, Mandela was elected the country’s first black president in 1994.• 1960 Burkina Faso gains its Independence. The landlocked West African country, known as Upper Vota until 1984, became a French protectorate in the late 19th century. In 1958, the Republic of Upper Volta was created as a self-governing French colony. After independence, Maurice Yaméogo became the first president of the country, whose name was changed to Burkina Faso in 1984.

Births On This Day

• 1930 Neil Armstrong

American pilot, engineer, astronaut, first person to walk on the moon
• 1906 John Huston

American director

Deaths On This Day

• 1962 Marilyn Monroe

American model, actress, singer
• 1895 Friedrich Engels

German philosopher