Today is Monday, Aug. 17, the 230th day of 2020. There are 136 days left in the year.
Today in history
On Aug. 17, 2017, a van plowed through pedestrians along a packed promenade in the Spanish city of Barcelona, killing 13 people and injuring 120. (A 14th victim died later from injuries.) Another man was stabbed to death in a carjacking that night as the van driver made his getaway, and a woman died early the next day in a vehicle-and-knife attack in a nearby coastal town. (Six suspects in the attack were shot dead by police, two more died when a bomb workshop exploded.)
Also on this date:
In 1915, a mob in Cobb County, Ga., lynched Jewish businessman Leo Frank, 31, whose death sentence for the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan had been commuted to life imprisonment. (Frank, who’d maintained his innocence, was pardoned by the state of Georgia in 1986.)
In 1960, the newly renamed Beatles (formerly the Silver Beetles) began their first gig in Hamburg, West Germany, at the Indra Club.
Fun fact
All of the blood in your body travels through your heart once a minute.
These three tweets
1. [3 years from now.] I can’t believe it’s still 2020.
@TwinSurvivalist
2. [Before animals were invented.]
Plants: “This is nice.”
@TommyRainmaker
3. If I’m at your house and you’ve got a grocery list on the fridge, I’m adding stuff to it and not telling you.
@Kateness8
Trending words
“Vivacious:” adjective; (vuh-VAY-shus). Definition: Lively in temper, conduct, or spirit: sprightly.
— Merriam-Webster
Today’s birthdays
Former MLB All-Star Boog Powell is 79. Actor Robert DeNiro is 77. Movie director Martha Coolidge is 74. Rock musician Gary Talley (The Box Tops) is 73. Actor-screenwriter-producer Julian Fellowes is 71. Actor Robert Joy is 69. Country singer-songwriter Kevin Welch is 65. Olympic gold medal figure skater Robin Cousins is 63. Actor Sean Penn is 60. Rock musician Gilby Clarke is 58. Rock musician Steve Gorman (The Black Crowes) is 55. Rock musician Jill Cunniff is 54. Actor David Conrad is 53. Actor Helen McCrory is 52. Singer Donnie Wahlberg is 51. College Basketball Hall of Famer and retired NBA All-Star Christian Laettner is 51. Actor Bryton James is 34. Actor Taissa Farmiga is 26. Olympic bronze medal figure skater Gracie Gold is 25.
The Edge is compiled by Dallas Marshall. She can be contacted at dmarshall@lmtribune.com.
