Black - African American History Facts

A. P. Ashbourne, inventor, was awarded a patent for refining the coconut oil process on this date in 1880. Patent # 230,518.

Rafer Lewis Johnson, U.S. Decathlon champion, set a world record in the decathlon by scoring 8,302 points on this date in 1958.

The Rev. C. L. Franklin, activist, minister, gospel singer, and father of the "Queen of Soul," Aretha Franklin, died in Detroit, MI, on this date in 1984. Franklin lay in a comma his last five years after being shot during a home robbery.

Alice Hawthorne and a foreign journalist were killed during the "Olympic Park Bombing" on this date in 1996. This act of terrorism took place at night in a park that was constructed for the millions of visitors who flocked to the Olympics in Atlanta, GA.

Barack Obama gave his historic Keynote Address at the Democratic National Convention on this date in 2004.