August 13, 1918 - Opha Mae Johnson became the first woman Marine. She was 1 of 305 to enlist on this day in the the United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve. Although World War I raged in France, the female Marines were not allowed to serve in combat, but many worked as a secretaries or cooks. It would not be until the 1940s that female Marines were allowed to serve in a war zone.  

August 15, 1914 - A male servant of renowned American architect Frank Lloyd Wright brutally murdered seven people at the architect's Wisconsin home, Taliesin. While Wright was away in Chicago working on Midway Garden, Julian Carlton bolted the doors of the dining room where Wright's second wife Mamah Borthwick, her two children and six other people were eating. Carlton poured buckets of petrol under the doors and set fire. He then waited axe in hand to attack those who tried to escape the flames. Borthwick and her two children, John and Martha, died along with Milwaukee draughtsman Emil Brodelle, 26; handyman David Lindblom, 38; Taliesin foreman Thomas Brunker, 68; and Ernest West, 13, the son of carpenter William Weston. The latter survived along with draughtsman Herbert Fritz. The survivors alerted townspeople and together found the culpret hiding near the burned-out building. Carlton was said to have swallowed acid but his suicide attempt failed. Seven weeks later he died in jail from starvation.  

August 16, 1960 - Joseph Kittinger parachuted from a balloon over New Mexico at 102,800 feet, setting records that still stand today. Captain Kittinger was assigned to the Aerospace Medical Research Lab at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. As part of Project Excelsior (meaning "ever upward"), which researched high altitude bailouts, Kittinger made a series of three extreme-altitude parachute jumps from an open gondola carried by large helium balloons. On this day he made the final record-setting jump from the Excelsior III, towing a small drogue parachute for initial stabilization. He free fell for 4 minutes and 36 seconds, reaching a maximum speed of 614 miles per hour before opening his parachute at 18,000 feet. He set historical records for highest balloon ascent, highest parachute jump, longest drogue-fall (four minutes), and fastest speed by a human being through the atmosphere. These are still current USAF records. 

-- Joseph Kittinger, as he jumped from the balloon gondola Excelsior III at 102,800 feet  

Heath is Reading

(to his girls)  

Harry Potter and the  

Prisoner of Azkaban  

by J.K. Rowling