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Daily Almanac: August 17, 2023

Sunrise/Sunset:

RISE: 6:59 a.m.
SET: 8:43 p.m.

High/Low Temperatures:

HIGH: 80 °F
LOW: 59 °F

Today is…:

• National Nonprofit Day
• National Thrift Shop Day
• National Vanilla Custard Day

What Happened On This Day:

• 2008 Michael Phelps Earns his 8th Gold Medal in the 2008 Olympics. The American champion swimmer won the medal in the 4×100-meter medley relay race in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. With this medal, he broke the record for the most gold medals won by a person in a single Olympic games, a record previously held by American swimmer Mark Spitz.
• 1978 Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman become the first people to complete the world’s First Transatlantic Balloon Flight. The feat was accomplished in a balloon called the Double Eagle II. It took Abruzzo, Anderson, and Newman 6 days to fly from Preque Isle, Maine to a barley field near Paris.
• 1970 Venera 7 launched by the Soviet Union. Launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Venera 7 became the first spacecraft to land on another planet, Venus, and send data back to Earth. It entered Venus’ atmosphere in December 1970.

Births On This Day:

• 1943 Robert De Niro

American actor
• 1786 Davy Crockett

American soldier, politician

Deaths On This Day:

• 1935 Charlotte Perkins Gilman

American sociologist, novelist
• 1786 Frederick the Great

Prussian king