Local history

50 years ago

Aug. 17, 1973

The Blair County Law Enforcement Association met at the Family Host Cafeteria to discuss crime by motorcycle gangs or clubs, with Altoona Police Chief Jack Kuhn as chief speaker. The association comprised police from the state, Altoona, Logan Township, Williamsburg, Roaring Spring, Martinsburg, parole and probation officers and prison wardens.

25 years ago

Aug. 17, 1998

Altoona Mayor Tom Martin named former Altoona Mayor Daniel Milliron to head a committee to study crime problems in the city. Other members of the committee had not yet been named.

10 years ago

Aug. 17, 2013

Members of the local Laurel Divers Club, which had about 80 members, including Ashley Sorge and Tom Manion, recovered several 6-inch teeth from the extinct Megalodon Shark off the coast of North Carolina. The Megalodon was estimated to be 50 feet long and weigh 70 tons.

Compiled by Tim Doyle

World history

Today is the 229th day of 2023. There are 136 days left in the year.

Todays highlight in history:

In 1982, the first commercially produced compact discs, a recording of ABBAs The Visitors, were pressed at a Philips factory near Hanover, West Germany.

On this date:

In 1807, Robert Fultons North River Steamboat began heading up the Hudson River on its successful round trip between New York and Albany.

In 1915, a mob in Cobb County, Georgia, 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 had maintained his innocence, was pardoned by the state of Georgia in 1986.)

In 1978, the first successful trans-Atlantic balloon flight ended as Maxie Anderson, Ben Abruzzo and Larry Newman landed their Double Eagle II outside Paris.

In 1987, Rudolf Hess, the last member of Adolf Hitlers inner circle, died at Spandau Prison at age 93, an apparent suicide.

The Associated Press

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In the news on this date: Aug. 17 | News, Sports, Jobs - Altoona Mirror