Local

Aug. 27, 1989: The average price for gasoline in Albert Lea was $1.18 a gallon. Gasoline in Mason City was about 25 cents cheaper due to a gas war.

Aug. 27, 1969: I.J. Holton, executive vice president and secretary of Geo. A. Hormel Co., was named to succeed M.B. Thompson as president.

Aug. 28, 1969: Demolition began on Geneva Elementary School on old Highway 65. The school was built in 1905 and last used for class in 1957.

Aug. 28, 1969: The Rev. William D. Curtis, pastor of St. Theodore Catholic Church of Albert Lea, was elected national chaplain of the American Legion during a convention in Atlanta.

 

National

2014: Both Israel’s prime minister and Hamas declared victory in the Gaza war, though their competing claims left questions over future terms of their uneasy peace still lingering.

2009: Jaycee Lee Dugard, kidnapped when she was 11, was reunited with her mother 18 years after her abduction in South Lake Tahoe, California.

2008: Barack Obama was nominated for president by the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

2005: Coastal residents jammed freeways and gas stations as they rushed to get out of the way of Hurricane Katrina, which was headed toward New Orleans.

1989: The first U.S. commercial satellite rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida — a Delta booster carrying a British communications satellite, the Marcopolo 1.

1967: Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles, was found dead in his London flat from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. He was 32.

1963: Author, journalist and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois died in Accra, Ghana, at age 95.

1859: Edwin L. Drake drilled the first successful oil well in the United States in Titusville, Pennsylvania.

1776: The Battle of Long Island began during the Revolutionary War as British troops attacked American forces who ended up being forced to retreat two days later.