KC and the Sunshine Band's first #1 hit Get Down Tonight reached the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 August 30, 1975. It was released on their second album KC and the Sunshine Band in February of that year. It also reached #1 on the Billboard Hot Soul Singles, Cash Box, and Record World.
The twentieth episode of the fifth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation,Cost of Living, won two Primetime Emmys at the 44th annual ceremony held August 30, 1992. Only four other episodes of TNG have achieved this. Cost of Living won for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Costume Design and Outstanding Individual Achievement in Makeup for a Series. It received a nomination for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Hairstyling for a Series.
Episodes Conundrum and A Matter of Time tied with a show The Last Halloween for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Special Visual Effects.
Episode Unification II was nominated for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Art Direction along with an episode of Murder, She Wrote, but they lost to Northern Exposure. Bummer.
Unification I was nominated for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore).
Power Play was nominated for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Sound Editing for a Series.
The Next Phase was nominated for Outstanding Individual Achievement for a Drama Series.
Star Trek: The Next Generation won three Primetime Emmys at the 40th awards ceremony, August 28, 1988. It had been nominated for seven awards total.
Episode The Big Goodbye had two nominations. It won for Outstanding Costume Design for a Series and nominated for Outstanding Cinematography for a Series.
The other two wins were for Outstanding Achievement in Makeup for a Series for Conspiracy, and Best Sound Editing for a Series for 11001001.
The other nominations were for: Outstanding Achievement in Hairstyling for a series for Haven; Outstanding Achievement in Makeup for a Series for Coming of Age; and Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Drama Series for Where No One Has Gone Before.
Christopher Sembroski, born August 28, 1979, went into space as part of Inspiration4 aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon Resilience in September 2021 as a payload specialist. He spent three days in a low Earth orbit before the crew and capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean.
The conclusion of Star Trek: The Next Generation's cliffhanger from the previous season The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2 won two Primetime Emmys at the 43rd ceremony held August 25, 1991, and was nominated for a third. Five more episodes were received nominations as well.
The first episode of the fourth season had the crew of the Enterprise trying to stop the Borg from destroying Earth and rescue Jean-Luc Picard from their clutches.
Part 2 won for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series, and Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Drama Series. It was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Special Visual Effects along with episode Part 1.
Episodes Brothers and Identity Crisis were nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Makeup for a Series. The episode Half A Life was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore). Devil's Due was nominated for Outstanding Costume Design for a Series.
Anna Lee Fisher, born August 24, 1949 in New York City, went into space aboard Discovery (STS-51-A) as mission specialist in November 1984. She is the first mother to go into space and was married to fellow astronaut Bill Fisher. She operated the Canadarm to successfully capture a satellite.
Fisher was scheduled to fly aboard STS-61-C but after the Challenger disaster, the mission was cancelled. She spent almost 8 days in space.
Just a few hours ago, India's Chandrayaan-3 landed on the moon near the south pole. It is the third lunar exploration untaken by the Indian Space Research Organization's (ISRO) Chandrayaan program. India is the first nation to successfully land a spacecraft near the south pole.
It contains a rover which will explore the lunar surface.
Cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, born August 23, 1983 in Russia, went into space aboard Soyuz MS-17 as flight engineer to the International Space Station in October 2020. He participated in Expeditions 63 and 64, spending over 184 days in space. He returned to Earth in April 2021.
He is scheduled to return to space on Soyuz MS-28, but no date has been set yet.
Miss Janet released Miss You Much, the first single from her iconic and legendary album Rhythm Nation 1814 August 21, 1989. It became her second top #1 in her career and spent four weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, being the longest running #1 in 1989.
It was nominated for two Grammy Awards and won the Billboard Award for Top Hot 100 Single of the Year. It also won American Music Awards for Favorite Dance Single and Favorite R&B Single. It has been certified platinum.
Sergeant Matlovich vs. the US Air Force, first televised August 21, 1978, is the true story of Sgt. Leonard Matlovich, who was dismissed from the Air Force for being gay and his fight to be reinstated. Matlovich worked to combat racism in the Air Force in the early 1970s and realized that gays also face similar discrimination. He became an outspoken advocate for the gay community and was given and general discharge from the force.
His fight to be reinstated became a groundbreaking episode that helped rally the LGBT community. He took a settlement from the Air Force and he became an activist for gay rights. He was the first openly gay person to be featured on the cover of a major newsmagazine Time.
The movie starred Brad Dourif in the title role. David Ogden Stiers, Rue McClanahan, Marc Singer, and Mitchell Ryan.
Matlovich died in 1988 just before his 45th birthday. His tombstone in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington DC (since he wasn't allowed to be buried in Arlington Cemetery) does not bear his name, but has the inscription:
"When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one."
George Orwell first published his satire of the Communist party, Animal Farm, August 17, 1945. The original title was Animal Farm: A Fairy Story but US publishers dropped the subtitle, but other variations included subtitles like "A Satire" and "A Contemporary Satire".
According to the author, Animal Farm reflects events leading to the Russian Revolution in 1917 and then the introduction of communism into the Soviet Union.
Time chose it as one of the 100 best English-language novels (1923-2005).
I'm going to let Sparky Sweets, PhD, give his unique perspective and review of Animal Farm below. Nobody says it like he does.
The black and white, stop motion, science fiction, action movie The Lost Continent was released in theaters August 17, 1951. It starred Cesar Romero as Major Joe Nolan in the lead role and Hugh Beaumont as Ward Cleaver Robert Philips, a minor role.
When a nuclear missile goes missing, Nolan, his crew, and a team of scientists go in search of the wayward missile. They track it down to a mysterious, uncharted island. They have to climb to the top of a mountain to reach the rocket, and the rock-climbing sequence takes up much of the movie. It became the source of critics' ire. The film could've been shortened considerably had this section been shorter and replaced with more action sequences. As one critic mentioned, you can see all the action in the trailer.
The men find the rocket in the midst of a lush tropical forest inhabited by dinosaurs. Many of the team become dinosaur food before they manage to retrieve the data from the rocket. Then, they have to climb back down the mountain and escape before the entire island blows up from a dormant volcano which has begun to erupt.
Joel and the bots skewered this one on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I remember this being fun to watch, despite the lag in the middle. I'm reminded of Congo with Laura Linney and Ernie Hudson, where they had to escape from an erupting volcano. In both movies, they ran through an abandoned village and some had to crawl over a river of lava on a downed palm tree.
Marion Lorne, who played the lovable, bumbling Aunt Clara on television's Bewitched, was born August 12, 1883, in West Pittston, Pennsylvania. She was nominated five times for a Primetime Emmy, twice for her performance in Bewitched, winning once.
She won for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Comedy in 1968, just ten days after she passed away from a heart attack. Elizabeth Montgomery accepted on her behalf, giving a touching acceptance speech.
R&B/Disco group Chic released their second studio album C'est Chic, August 11, 1978. It is the band's best-selling album, reaching #1 on Billboard's R&B charts and #4 on Billboard's album chart. C'est Chic was Billboard's 1979 R&B Album of the Year. It has been certified platinum by the RIAA for selling over a million copies.
It spawned two singles, Le Freak, which went to #1 in December 1978, and I Want Your Love, the successful follow-up which went to #1 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs.
One of my favorite episodes of Babylon 5, Babylon Squared, first aired August 10, 1994. Babylon 5's predecessor station, Babylon 4, reappears after it vanished mysteriously four years prior. I've only seen it once, so I need to go back and re-watch it. I do remember that Babylon 4 and its disappearance figured prominently throughout the series.
It was the twentieth episode of the first season of Babylon 5, so Michael O'Hare was still on cast as Commander Jeffrey Sinclair, and Andrea Thompson as Talia Winters, although she did not appear in this episode. J. Michael Straczynski wrote the episode.
South Korea launched its first satellite, Uribyol-1 (aka KITSAT-1, KITSTA-A, KITSAT-OSCAR 23), August 10, 1992. It was a product of the Korean Institute of Technology Satellite and given the nickname "Our Star". It was expected to have a lifespan of only 5 years but communications were maintained for 12 years.
At the time, South Korea became the 22nd country to operate a satellite.
Betty Boop made her first appearance in Dizzy Dishes, August 9, 1930. She was created by at Fleischer Studios and released by Paramount Pictures. Between 1930 and 1939, she was featured in 90 cartoons. Mae Questel provided the voice of Betty from 1931 on and she recreated the voice for Betty Boop in the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
In 2002, she was ranked #17 in TV Guide's 50 greatest cartoon characters of all time
We're still reeling from the death of Paul Reubens (aka Pee-wee Herman), but we can still celebrate his legacy! His big screen debut Pee-wee's Big Adventure was released across the US August 9, 1985. I guess I was in the 'wrong crowd' because I found most of his antics to be juvenile and not very funny, but I admitted, even at the time, that the movie had its moments.
I liked the part where he proved to his girlfriend he was in San Antonio by singing the opening lines of Deep in the Heart of Texas. I also liked the scene where he rescues all the animals from the pet store.
It has become a cult classic and I will have to watch it again. I forgot that Godzilla and King Ghidorah had cameos in it! Look for Milton Berle, Cassandra Peterson (Elvira, Mistress of the Dark), and Dee Snider from Twisted Sister.
Brian Hyland's recording of Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, August 8, 1960. It was his first and only #1 hit. He went on to have more hits over the years, but this one remains his biggest hit. The song was written by Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss.
Explorer 6, launched August 7, 1959 by NASA, took the first photographs of Earth from a satellite. On board it carried a Beacon (108 and 378 MHz) to measure electron density, Fluxgate magnetometer, an ion chamber and Geiger-Muller Counter, a micrometeorite detector, a proportional Counter Telescope, a scintillation counter, search-coil magnetometer, a TV Optical Scanner, and a VLF Receiver.
Explorer 6 operated until October 6, 1959 when the last contact was made with the satellite. It reentered the atmosphere on July 1, 1961.
Jose Hernandez, born August 7, 1962 in French Camp, California, went into space aboard Discovery (STS-128) as mission specialist to the International Space Station in August 2009. He spent almost 14 days in space. He retired from NASA in January 2011. He is one of about 14 Hispanic astronauts who have flown with NASA.
Gregory Chamitoff, born August 6, 1962 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, has been in space twice.
His first trip was aboard Discovery (STS-124) as mission specialist to the International Space Station in May 2008. He participated in Expeditions 17 and 18 spending about six months on the space station. He returned to Earth aboard Endeavour (STS-126) in November.
His second mission was aboard Endeavour (STS-134) to the International Space Station in May-June 2011. He spent almost 16 days in space. It was the last flight of Endeavour.
