Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 August 5

Obverse

The York County, Maine, Tercentenary half dollar is a fifty-cent piece minted in 1936 as a commemorative coin to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the founding of York County, the southernmost county in Maine and the first to be organized. The obverse shows Brown's Garrison, a fort around which York County developed, while the reverse depicts the county's arms. A commemorative coin craze in 1936 saw some coins authorized by the United States Congress that were of mainly local significance; the York County issue was one of these, passing Congress without opposition in the first half of 1936. Maine artist Walter H. Rich designed the issue; his work has garnered mixed praise and dislike from numismatic authors. The Philadelphia Mint struck 25,000 for public sale. Less than 19,000 sold by 1937, more than half to Mainers; the rest were sold in the 1950s. As of 2021, the York County half dollar catalogs for around $200, depending on condition. (Full article...)

Alica Schmidt

• ... that German runner Alica Schmidt (pictured), who is running in the Women's 4 × 400 metres relay at the 2020 Summer Olympics, has won multiple European junior relay medals?
• ... that the title of the album Red by Taylor Swift refers to the tumultuous "red" emotions that were evoked from an unhealthy romance she was experiencing during the album's conception?
• ... that Donald R. Morris wrote most of The Washing of the Spears, his history of the Anglo-Zulu War, during a five-year CIA posting to Berlin at the time of the construction of the Berlin Wall?
• ... that the equipment situation for the National Pacification Army was so poor that some soldiers were armed with spears instead of guns?
• ... that British modern pentathlete Jo Muir qualified for the 2020 Summer Olympics despite missing the last qualification event due to COVID-19–related travel restrictions?
• ... that the short-lived Socialist Soviet Republic of Lithuania and Belorussia had a Yiddish-language state theatre?
• ... that Fallout was considered a risky project by developer Interplay Entertainment and was threatened with cancellation three times?
• ... that KICU-TV in Visalia, California, claimed to be the most powerful TV station west of the Mississippi River after a transmitter upgrade—and closed for good two years later?

Krystsina Tsimanouskaya

• Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya (pictured) travels to Poland on a humanitarian visa after attempts by the Belarus Olympic Committee to repatriate her against her will.
• In Olympic athletics, Venezuelan Yulimar Rojas breaks a 26-year-old world record in the women's triple jump, and world records are set in men's and women's 400 metres hurdles by Norwegian Karsten Warholm and American Sydney McLaughlin.
• Wildfires in southern Turkey kill at least eight people and injure more than 800 others.

August 5: Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day in Croatia (1995)

Bertha Benz's Patent-Motorwagen

• 641 or 642 – King Penda of Mercia defeated and killed King Oswald of Northumbria at the Battle of Maserfield, traditionally believed to have been fought in Oswestry, Shropshire, England.
• 1600 – Scottish nobleman John Ruthven, 3rd Earl of Gowrie, was killed during what was most likely a failed attempt to kidnap King James VI.
• 1888 – Bertha Benz made the first long-distance automobile trip, driving 106 km (66 mi) from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany, in a Benz Patent-Motorwagen (pictured).
• 1981 – U.S. president Ronald Reagan fired the 11,345 striking members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization en masse.
• 2011 – NASA launched the Juno probe to Jupiter as part of the New Frontiers program.