August 21

1192 - Minamoto Yoritomo founded the Japanese Shogunate.

I should know more about Japan, but like most Westerners this part of the world is a flaw in my historical knowledge.

That said, the Shogunate ruled Japan from this period until the 1868 Meiji Restoration...Shogun = "Barbarian-quelling Great General."

1858 - The Lincoln-Douglas Debates began:  Between Senatorial contenders Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas began.

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates are some of the most famous in American history...Douglas won the debates, but Lincoln made an excellent showing, and helped put the newly founded Republican Party on the map.

Douglas also won the Senatorial election in 1858, but Lincoln proved himself the eventual victor, however - winning the presidency in 1860.

1945 - President Truman ended the Lend-Lease program, which shipped about $50 billion in aid to America's allies during World War II.

$50 billion in Lend Lease Aid and from 1948-51 and another $13 billion from the Marshall Plan...Also, lets not forget it was the Americans who kept Hitler from conquering all of Europe in WWII, and the same Americans who kept Stalin from conquering all of Europe after WWII.

Yet many of the ungrateful Euro son's of bitches despise us...JEALOUSY will do that.

1987 - Sergeant Clayton Lonetree, the first Marine ever court-martialed for spying, was convicted in Quantico, Virginia, of passing secrets to the KGB after becoming romantically involved with a Soviet woman while serving as a U.S. Embassy guard in Moscow.

You'd think a Marine caught spying against the U.S. would be executed...Right?

Nah, he was let out of prison in 1996...What a pathetic joke.

By the way, hot, female spies have always been superb.  Which shouldn't be surprising considering many men in positions of power think more with their little head than their big one...This was one of the many problems with President Bill Clinton - and others like him.

1991 - The hard-line coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev collapsed in the face of a popular uprising led by Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin.

The Soviets were at the end of their rope...It's too bad they weren't swinging from it.