Wednesday, August 12

The final Islamic State fighter in Manbij detonated his suicide vest near the city's clock tower as the Syrian Democratic Forces closed in. For seventy-four days, a mixed force of Kurdish YPG fighters and allied Arab militias had advanced meter by meter through a city ISIS had spent two years fortifying. The SDF, backed by over 450 U.S. and coalition airstrikes, employed a tactic of gradual encirclement. They cut the last road to the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa in late June, trapping hundreds of militants inside with thousands of civilian hostages used as human shields.

Manbij mattered because it was a logistical and economic linchpin. The city sat on a crucial supply route between the Turkish border and Raqqa, a conduit for foreign fighters, weapons, and illicit oil revenue. Its capture severed ISIS’s main artery. The battle also proved the effectiveness of the SDF model, a U.S.-backed, locally grounded force that could take and hold urban terrain. This template would be used for the subsequent, larger assault on Raqqa itself.

The victory was strategically clean but morally complex. The SDF suffered significant casualties, with over 400 fighters killed. Civilian deaths numbered in the hundreds, caught between ISIS snipers and the advancing coalition. The aftermath revealed the fragility of the alliance; after liberation, Arab residents chafed under Kurdish administrative control, and Turkey viewed the YPG’s presence as a national security threat. The capture of Manbij did not end the Syrian war, but it permanently degraded ISIS’s territorial project and demonstrated the brutal, proxy-fueled mechanics of modern urban warfare.

The last out of August 11 was recorded. Players did not report to ballparks on August 12. The Major League Baseball Players Association strike, centered on owner demands for a salary cap, halted the season immediately. It canceled 920 regular-season games, the entire postseason, and, on September 14, the World Series. No championship had been awarded since 1904. The Montreal Expos, who possessed the best record in baseball at 74-40, saw their franchise-altering season vaporized.

The conflict was a pure labor dispute over economic structure. Owners claimed financial losses and sought cost certainty through a cap. Players, led by union chief Donald Fehr, viewed any cap as a direct assault on free agency and a precursor to lowered salaries. The strike lasted 232 days, wiping out the first 18 days of the 1995 season. Replacement players were briefly trained for use before a federal injunction restored the terms of the expired collective bargaining agreement, forcing owners to accept the players’ return.

The lasting impact was a deep scar on the sport’s relationship with its fans. Attendance dropped 20% in 1995 and did not fully recover for four years. The narrative of greedy millionaires versus billionaire owners alienated the public. It accelerated a realignment of baseball’s economics, however, leading directly to the 1996 introduction of revenue-sharing and the luxury tax—a soft cap that averted another collapse. The strike also exposed the Expos’ financial vulnerability, setting them on a path to relocation. The season that never ended fundamentally changed the business of the game, proving that its cultural permanence was not guaranteed.

Mobs moved through Colombo with voter lists in hand. The riots that began on August 12, 1977, less than a month after the United National Party’s electoral victory, were methodical. Tamil-owned shops, homes, and factories were targeted for looting and arson. Police and soldiers often stood by or participated. The violence spread from the capital to other Sinhala-majority areas over the next week. Official figures reported 300 Tamil deaths; Tamil groups placed the number closer to 1,000. More than 100,000 were displaced.

This was not the first ethnic riot in Sri Lanka, but it was the first under the new government of J.R. Jayewardene, who had promised a mandate for change. The violence followed years of rising Sinhala nationalism and Tamil political mobilization, including the 1976 Vaddukoddai Resolution which first called for a separate Tamil state. The state’s failure to protect its minority citizens, and evidence of complicity, convinced many Tamils that security could only be achieved through armed separatism. It directly catalyzed the growth of militant groups like the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The 1977 riots established a grim template. They demonstrated how electoral politics could unleash organized pogroms and how majoritarian rule could be enforced through street violence. The government appointed a commission of inquiry, but its findings were not made public. No significant prosecutions followed. This cycle of impunity repeated in the far worse pogrom of July 1983, which solidified the full-scale civil war. The events of August 1977 are less remembered than the Black July that followed, but they were the decisive fracture, the point when peaceful political coexistence became, for a generation, a lost possibility.

Pascual Perez of the Braves threw a fastball at the Padres’ Alan Wiggins. It was the top of the first inning on August 12, 1984, in Atlanta. Perez had angered the Padres two weeks prior by hitting three batters, and San Diego’s manager, Dick Williams, promised retaliation. After the pitch at Wiggins, home plate umpire Steve Rippley immediately ejected Perez. Braves manager Joe Torre argued. Then Padres pitcher Ed Whitson, from the dugout, shouted at Perez in Spanish. Perez charged the Padres’ dugout. Both benches and bullpens emptied.

The fight that ensued was unusually protracted and destructive. It rolled into the stands near the Padres’ dugout. Players used folding chairs and metal equipment buckets as weapons. Braves coach Joe Pignatano was knocked unconscious. A group of Padres, including star Steve Garvey, pursued Perez through the stadium’s service tunnels, attempting to reach the Braves’ clubhouse. Fulton County police officers in riot gear finally restored order after fifteen minutes. The delay lasted forty minutes total. The stadium suffered: a water cooler, six metal buckets, and numerous seats were destroyed.

This was not a typical baseball fight. It was a premeditated, multi-act riot that exposed the lack of stadium security. No players were seriously injured, but fourteen were ejected, and both managers received suspensions. The National League fined the Padres $10,000 for Williams’s public threats. The brawl had a curious footnote: it was broadcast nationally on ABC’s *Monday Night Baseball*, with Howard Cosell providing commentary. For one evening, America’s pastime resembled a chaotic, minor league wrestling match, a spectacle of pure, unmanaged hostility that forced leagues to reconsider dugout security and the consequences of televised vengeance.