On this day: August 27
POSTED: 02:55 PM PDT Aug 24, 2012
UPDATED: 11:00 PM PDT Aug 26, 2012
Krakatoa blows its top, The Guinness Book of World Records debuts, "Mary Poppins" premieres, The Beatles meet The King and a guitar great dies, all on this day.
Smithsonian Institution
1783: Jacques Alexandre César Charles, a member of the French Academy of Science, launches the first balloon inflated with hydrogen gas. The unmanned flight ascends from the Place des Victories in Paris to a height of nearly 3,000 feet and comes down some 15 miles away where terrified peasants attack and destroy it.
