This Day in History

On Aug. 15, 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair opened in upstate New York; more than 460,000 people attended the three-day festival, which would become a watershed event in American music and culture.

Also on this date:

In 1057, Macbeth, King of Scots, was killed in battle by Malcolm, the eldest son of King Duncan, whom Macbeth had slain.

In 1914, the Panama Canal officially opened as the SS Ancon crossed the just-completed waterway between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

In 1935, humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post were killed when their airplane crashed near Point Barrow in the Alaska Territory.

In 1947, India gained independence after nearly 200 years of British rule.

In 1961, as workers began constructing a Berlin Wall made of concrete, East German soldier Conrad Schumann leapt to freedom over a tangle of barbed wire.

In 1989, F.W. de Klerk was sworn in as acting president of South Africa, one day after P.W. Botha resigned because of a power struggle within the National Party.

In 1998, 29 people were killed by a car bomb that tore apart the center of Omagh (OH'-mah), Northern Ireland; a splinter group calling itself the Real IRA claimed responsibility.

In 2003, bouncing back from the largest blackout in U.S. history, cities from the Midwest to Manhattan restored power to tens of millions of people.

In 2021, the Taliban regained control of the Afghan capital of Kabul after the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country.

Today's Birthdays: Actor Jim Dale is 90. Retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is 87. U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is 87. Author-journalist Linda Ellerbee is 81. Songwriter Jimmy Webb is 79. Actor Phyllis Smith is 76. Britain's Princess Anne is 75. Actor Tess Harper is 75. Actor Zeljko Ivanek (ZEHL'-koh eh-VAHN'-ehk) is 68. Celebrity chef Tom Colicchio is 63. Film director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (ihn-YAH'-ee-tu) is 62. Philanthropist Melinda French Gates is 61. Actor Debra Messing is 57. Actor Anthony Anderson is 55. Actor Ben Affleck is 53. Olympic gold medal beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings is 47. Rock singer Joe Jonas (The Jonas Brothers) is 36. Actor Jennifer Lawrence is 35.