Today in History: August 21

1841: The first U.S. patent for the Venetian blind is issued John Hampson of New Orleans, Louisiana, who solves the problem of how to make the slats move together and stay in place.

1888: William Seward Burroughs of St. Louis, Missouri, gets a patent for the first successful adding machine.  His American Arithmometer Co. will eventually involve into the computer firm Burroughs Corp.

1856: New York City merchant Townsend Harris becomes the first U.S. consul in Japan, where he will eventually negotiate the first trade treaty between the two countries.  John Wayne will play him in the 1958 film The Barbarian and the Geisha.

1863: Confederate troops burn the antislavery town of Lawrence, Kansas, killing all the men and boys they find.  The town will rebuild, and three years later the University of Kansas will be founded there.

1947: Legendary automobile designer Ettore Arco Isidoro Bugatti, whose company, located in Alsace, was virtually destroyed by the Second World War, dies at age 65.

1959: Hawaii joins the Union as the 50th state.

1991: Latvia declares its independence from the former Soviet Union.