This Day in History: Aug. 21

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This Day in History: August 21

Take a look at all of the important historical events that took place on August 21.

On this day, Aug. 21 ...

2018: Michael Cohen, President Trump's former personal attorney,  pleads guilty to campaign-finance violations and other charges.

Also on this day:

• 1609: Galileo Galilei demonstrates his new telescope to a group of officials atop the Campanile in Venice.
• 1831: Nat Turner launches a violent slave rebellion in Virginia resulting in the deaths of at least 55 Whites.
• 1858: The Lincoln-Douglas debates begin between Illinois senatorial campaign rivals Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, and Stephen A. Douglas, a Democrat. 

The "Mona Lisa," by Leonardo da Vinci, at the Louvre Museum in Paris. (Christophel Fine Art/UIG via Getty Images)

• 1911: Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" is stolen from the Louvre museum in France by an Italian waiter, Vincenzo Perruggia.
• 1912: The Boy Scouts of America name their first Eagle Scout, Arthur Rose Eldred of Troop 1 in Rockville Centre, N.Y.
• 1919: Sister Jean Schmidt, chaplain of the Loyola Chicago men’s basketball team, is born in San Francisco.
• 1945: President Harry Truman announces the end of the Lend-Lease Program.
• 1959: Hawaii becomes the 50th state in the United States.
• 1980: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) — which would become the world's largest animal rights organization, with nine affiliates and more than 6.5 million members and supporters worldwide — is founded in Takoma Park, Md
• 1983: The musical play “La Cage Aux Folles” opens on Broadway.
• 1992: An 11-day siege begins at the cabin of White separatist Randy Weaver in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, as government agents try to arrest Weaver for failing to appear in court on charges of selling two illegal sawed-off shotguns; on the first day of the siege, Weaver’s teenage son, Samuel, and Deputy U.S. Marshal William Degan are killed.
• 1995: ABC News settles a $10 billion libel suit by apologizing to Philip Morris for reporting the tobacco giant had manipulated the amount of nicotine in its cigarettes.
• 2000: Rescue efforts to reach the sunken Russian nuclear submarine Kursk end with divers announcing none of the 118 sailors had survived.

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• 2018: The body of missing college student Mollie Tibbetts is found in an Iowa cornfield, bringing an end to an intensive search that lasted more than a month and captured national headlines. Cristhian Bahena Rivera, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, would be charged with first-degree murder in her killing.

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• 2018: A federal jury in Virginia convicts former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on eight counts of bank and tax fraud, making him the first campaign associate of President Trump found guilty by a jury as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.