Today in History: August 16

1812: Massachusetts lawyer and militia general William Hull surrenders his whole army and Fort Detroit to a British and Indian force one-fifth his size.  He is later sentenced to be shot for incompetence, but is pardoned.

1819: At St. Peter’s Field in Manchester, England, troops attack a large mob gathered to advocate for free trade and political reform.  Eleven people die in what comes to be called the “Peterloo Massacre.”

1841: President Tyler vetoes the bill that would re-establish the Second Bank of the United States.

1911: Economist Ernst Friedrich Schumacher is born at Bonn, Germany.  He’ll write the popular Small is Beautiful, although he himself works for the 800,000-employee British National Coal Board.

1938: Blues legend Robert Johnson dies of pneumonia three days after being poisoned by a jealous husband.  The story that he sold his soul to the Devil at the crossroads of U.S. 61 and U.S. 49 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, is probably a legend.

1954: The first issue of Sports Illustrated magazine hits the newsstands.  It was originally going to be called Sport, but the owners of that name wanted $200,000 to release it.

1962: Pete Best loses his chance to become a near-billionaire when the Beatles fire him as their drummer.  His replacement is Richard “Ringo Starr” Starkey from Rory Storm & the Hurricanes.

1977: Elvis Presley dies on the floor of his bathroom at Graceland, his home in Memphis, Tennessee.  Today Graceland is a wholly owned division of CKX Corp. (Nasdaq: CKXE).

1979: Former Canadian Prime Minister John George Diefenbaker (Saskatchewan Law 1919) dies at Ottawa.  In life, he led the opposition to adoption of the Maple Leaf flag, but they put one on his casket anyway.