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Local history
50 years ago: Aug. 28, 1976
The FBI Uniform Crime Report said that Altoona went from fourth lowest to ninth lowest in crime in the country due to a 20% increase. Murder, rape, robbery, burglary, assault, larceny and auto theft were factors used in the statistics.
25 years ago: Aug. 28, 2001
The Ebensburg Borough Council voted to close the Ebensburg Regional Airport effective Jan. 1, 2002 because it was no longer "cost effective." The facility lost $114, 247 over the past three years and the borough contributed about $20,000 per year.
10 years ago: Aug. 28, 2016
The statue of President John F. Kennedy at Tuckahoe Park had its nose broken off and sculptor John Rita was to restore it. The Central Pennsylvania National Guard Veterans Association was restoring damaged monuments throughout Blair County.
-- Compiled by Tim Doyle
World history
Today is Friday, Aug. 28, the 240th day of 2026. There are 125 days left in the year.
Today's Highlight in History:
On Aug. 28, 1963, during the March on Washington, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech before an estimated 250,000 people in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
On this date:
– In 1845, the first issue of Scientific American magazine was published; it remains the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States.
– In 1862, the Second Battle of Bull Run began in Prince William County, Virginia, during the Civil War; the Union army retreated two days later after suffering 14,000 casualties.
– In 1898, pharmacist Caleb Bradham of New Bern, North Carolina, changed the name of the carbonated beverage he'd created five years earlier from "Brad's Drink" to "Pepsi-Cola."
– In 1955, Emmett Till, a Black teenager from Chicago, was abducted from his uncle's home in Mississippi by two white men after he had allegedly whistled at a white woman four days earlier; he was found dead three days later.
– In 1957, U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina notched the longest speaking filibuster in Senate history
(24 hours and 18 minutes), seeking to stall passage of the Civil Rights Act.
– In 1968, police and anti-war demonstrators clashed in the streets of Chicago as the Democratic National Convention nominated Hubert H. Humphrey for president.
-- The Associated Press