August 27, 1981 (Thursday)
- A team of divers recovered a safe from the wreckage of the cruise ship SS Andrea Doria, which sank in the Atlantic Ocean on July 25, 1956. The safe, from the Bank of Rome, was located in a lounge on the ship's foyer, 225 feet below the surface. On August 16, 1984, the safe was opened on live television as part of a syndicated program, Andrea Doria: The Final Chapter. A large audience tuned in to see the results on 160 stations in 45 countries, and when the safe was opened, it yielded a few thousand dollars worth of waterlogged American dollars and Italian lire.
- Born: Maxwell Cabelino Andrade, Brazilian footballer who currently plays for Spanish La Liga club FC Barcelona
- Died: Wilhelm Schafer, 72, German paleontologist; and Valeri Kharlamov, 33, Soviet ice hockey star, in an auto accident in Moscow
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Famous quotes containing the word august:
“In the old days, one married a wife; now one forms a company with a female partner, or moves in to live with a friend. And then one seduces the partner, or defiles the friend.”
—J. August Strindberg (1849–1912)