July 28th
 

1741 ~ Death of Antonio Vivaldi, Italian Composer.

1750 ~ Death of Johann Sebastian Bach, German Composer.

1794 ~ Maximilien Robespierre, a leading figure of the French Revolution, was sent to the guillotine.

1866 ~ Birthday of Beatrix Potter, English Author. (The Tale of Peter Rabbit)

1904 ~ Birthday of Pavel Cherenkov, Russian Physicist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1958.

1914 ~ WWI develops: Austria Formally declares war on Serbia.

1973 ~ Watkins Glen, NY concert attended by 600,000 to see The Band, The Allman Brothers Band, and the Grateful Dead.

1996 ~ The remains of a prehistoric man, Kennewick Man, was discovered near Kennewick, Washington.

1998 ~ Monica Lewinsky was given blanket immunity from prosecution in exchange for grand jury testimony in the investigation of her relationship with President Bill Clinton..

2004 ~ Death of Professor Francis Harry Compton Crick, OM FRS, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1962.

July 28 1945
 

A US Army B-25 bomber crashes into the Empire State Building between the 78th and 79th floors. An engine plunges down an elevator shaft, sparking a fire in the basement. Eleven people in the building are killed, in addition to the three man bomber crew

July 29th
 

1856 ~ Death of Robert Schumann, Composer.

1890 ~ Death of Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter.

1905 ~ Birthday of Dag Hammarskjöld, UN Secretary-General.

1907 ~ Sir Robert Baden-Powell founded the Boy Scouts movement with the first scout camp at Brownsea Island.

1958 ~ The U.S. Congress created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

1974 ~ Death of Mama Cass Elliot, Musician.

1975 ~ Death of James Blish, Science Fiction Writer.

1981 ~ Lady Diana Spencer married Charles, Prince of Wales.

1993 ~ The Israeli Supreme Court acquitted Nazi camp guard John Demjanjuk of all charges.

1996 ~ The child protection portion of the Communications Decency Act was struck down as too broad in U.S. federal court.

July 29th
 

1921: Adolf Hitler is selected as leader of the National Socialist Party.

1968: Pope Paul VI issues encyclical Humanae Vitae, prohibiting all unnatural forms of birth control.

July 30th
 

1718 ~ Birthday of William Penn, English founder of the Province of Pennsylvania.

1729 ~ The city of Baltimore was founded.

1792 ~ The French national anthem ''La Marseillaise'' by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, was first sung in Paris

1818 ~ Birthday of Birthday of Emily Brontë, English Novelist.

1898 ~ Birthday of Henry Moore, Sculptor.

1941 ~ Birthday of Paul Anka, Singer and Composer.

1945 ~ World War II: Japanese submarine I-58 sank the USS Indianapolis.

1966 ~ England won the first televised Football World Cup, beating Germany 4 to 2.

1974 ~ Cyprus Crisis: Greek, Turkish and U.K. foreign ministers signed a peace agreement for Cyprus.

2003 ~ The last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle manufactured in Mexico.

July 31st
 

1099 ~ Death of El Cid , Spanish warrior.

1498 ~ Discovery of Trinidad by Christopher Columbus.

1556 ~ Death of Ignatius Loyola, Spanish priest, founder of the Jesuits.

1886 ~ Death of Franz Liszt, Hungarian Composer.

1912 ~ Birthday of Milton Friedman, awarded the Nobel Prize in economics, 1976.

1917 ~ The Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) started in Flanders. With casualties from both sides exceeding 550,000, the name Passcheddaele has come to be used as a synonym for pointless slaughter.

"...I died in Hell
(they called it Passchendaele) my wound was slight
and I was hobbling back; and then a shell
burst slick upon the duckboards; so I fell
into the bottomless mud, and lost the light"

Siegfried Sassoon

1941 ~ Hermann Göring ordered SS general Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question."

1964 ~ Ranger program: Ranger 7 sent back the first close-up photographs of the moon.

1991 ~ Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) signed in Moscow.

1999 ~ NASA intentionally crashed the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface.

August 1st
 

10 B.C. ~ Birthday of Claudius, Roman Emperor.

1774 ~ The element oxygen was discovered by Joseph Priestley.

1779 ~ Birthday of Birthday of Francis Scott Key, Composer of The Star-Spangled Banner.

1819 ~ Birthday of Herman Melville, Writer.

1834 ~ Slavery was abolished in the British Empire.

1894 ~ The First Sino-Japanese War began between Japan and China over Korea.

1932 ~ Birthday of Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League.

1944 ~ Anne Frank made the last entry in her diary.

1957 ~ The United States and Canada formed the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).

1977 ~ Death of Gary Powers, Spy Plane Pilot.

August 2nd
 

216 B.C. ~ During the Battle of Cannae, in a masterpiece of tactical warfare, Hannibal destroyed the double Consular Roman army of Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Publius Terentius Varro.

1776 ~ Delegates to the Continental Congress began to sign the Declaration of Independence.

1876 ~ Death of James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, Gunfighter.

1921 ~ Death of Enrico Caruso, Italian Tenor.

1922 ~ Death of Alexander Graham Bell, Inventor.

1932 ~ Birthday of Peter O'Toole, Actor. (Lawrence of Arabia, The Lion in Winter).

1939 ~ Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program.

1943 ~ PT-109, commanded by Lieutenant John F. Kennedy rammed and sunk.

1976 ~ Death of Fritz Lang, Film Director.(Metropolis, M, Frau im Mond)

1990 ~ Iraq invaded Kuwait, leading to the Gulf War.

August 3rd
 

1900 ~ Birthday of John T. Scopes, defendant in the Monkey Trial

1904 ~ Birthday of Clifford D. Simak, Science Fiction Author.

1914 ~ First World War: Germany declared war against France.

1924 ~ Death of Joseph Conrad, Author. (Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim)

1924 ~ Birthday of Leon Uris, American Writer. (Exodus, QB VII)

1943 ~ Gen. George S. Patton slapped a private at an army hospital in Sicily, accusing him of cowardice.

1958 ~ The USS Nautilus traveled beneath the Arctic ice cap.

1972 ~ U.S. Senate ratified the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

1977 ~ Death of Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus.

2003 ~ The U.S. Anglican Church approved the appointment of an openly homosexual bishop.

August 4th
 

1704 ~ An Anglo-Dutch force seized the rock of Gibraltar.

1792 ~ Birthday of Percy Shelley, Poet.

1840 ~ Birthday of Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Sexologist.

1875 ~ Death of Hans Christian Andersen, Writer.

1901 ~ Birthday of Louis Armstrong, Jazz Musician.

1914 ~ The UK declared war on Germany.

1944 ~ Anne Frank and her family were betrayed to the Gestapo.

1964 ~ The bodies of three missing civil rights workers were found buried in an earthen dam in Mississippi.

1983 ~ New York Yankee Dave Winfield accidentally killed a seagull during a baseball game and was charged by police for his "act of cruelty to animals".

1984 ~ The African republic Upper Volta changed its name to Burkina Faso.

August 5th
 

1884 ~ The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty was laid.

1895 ~ Death of Friedrich Engels, Socialist Philosopher.

1930 ~ Birthday of Neil Armstrong, Astronaut.

1962 ~ Death of Marilyn Monroe, Actress.

1963 ~ The U.S., UK, and U.S.S.R. signed a nuclear test ban treaty.

1966 ~ The album ''Revolver'' by the Beatles was released.

1973 ~ Arab gunmen opened fire and threw grenades into a passenger lounge at Athens airport.

1981 ~ The federal government began firing air traffic controllers who had gone on strike.

1984 ~ Death of Sir Richard Burton, Actor.

2000 ~ Death of Sir Alec Guinness, Actor.

August 6th
 

1809 ~ Birthday of Alfred Lord Tennyson, Poet.

1881 ~ Birthday of Alexander Fleming, scientist.

1911 ~ Birthday of Lucille Ball, Actress, Comedienne.

1943 ~ Birthday of Jon Postel, creator of DNS.

1945 ~ A nuclear bomb codenamed Little Boy was dropped on the city of Hiroshima.

1961 ~ Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov spent a day in orbit.

1962 ~ Jamaica became independent.

1990 ~ The UN Security Council ordered a global trade embargo against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

1991 ~ Tim Berners-Lee released his idea for the "World Wide Web".

1991 ~ Death of Harry Reasoner, Reporter.

August 7th
 

1560 ~ Birthday of Elizabeth Bathory, serial killer.

1867 ~ Birthday of Mata Hari (Margaretha Zelle), spy.

1942 ~ Birthday of Garrison Keillor, radio host.

1947 ~ Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, arrived at the Tuamotu Islands after a 101 day 4,300 mile journey across the Pacific Ocean, proving that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America..

1957 ~ Death of Oliver Hardy, Comedian & Actor.

1960 ~ Côte d'Ivoire becomes independent.

1964 ~ U.S. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, giving President Johnson broad powers to deal with reported North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. forces.

1974 ~ French stuntman Philippe Petit walked a tightrope strung between the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center.

1998 ~ Bombing of the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya that killed 224 people and injured over 4,500.

2004 ~ Death of Red Adair, American oil well firefighter.

August 8th
 

1844 ~ Brigham Young was chosen to lead the Mormons following the killing of Joseph Smith.

1879 ~ Birthday of Emiliano Zapata, Mexican Revolutionary.

1902 ~ Birthday of P.A.M. Dirac, Physicist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1933.

1937 ~ Birthday of Dustin Hoffman, Actor (The Graduate, Tootsie, Kramer vs. Kramer).

1945 ~ The U.S. ratified the United Nations Charter.

1963 ~ Britain's Great Train Robbery took place when thieves made off with 2.6 million pounds in banknotes.

1966 ~ The Beatles' released “Revolver”

1974 ~ U.S. President Nixon announced his resignation effective August 9.

1988 ~ U.N. Secretary-General Cuellar announced a cease-fire between Iran and Iraq.

1996 ~ Death of Frank A Whittle, inventor of the Jet engine.

August 9th
 

1173 ~ Construction of the (Leaning) Tower of Pisa began. It took two centuries to complete.

1483 ~ Opening of the Sistine Chapel.

1896 ~ Birthday of Jean Piaget, Child Psychologist.

1902 ~ Edward VII was crowned king of England following the death of his mother, Queen Victoria.

1936 ~ Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal at the Berlin Olympics as the United States took first place in the 400-meter relay.

1945 ~ A nuclear bomb codenamed Fat Man was dropped on the city of Nagasaki.

1969 ~ Members of a cult led by Charles Manson murdered five people including Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring and, Abigail Folger.

1975 ~ Death of Dmitri Shostakovich, Composer.

1986 ~ The Headington Shark is erected in Oxford.

1995 ~ Death of Jerry Garcia, guitarist: Grateful Dead.

August 10th
 

1519 ~ Ferdinand Magellan's 5 ships set sail from Seville to circumnavigate the globe.

1675 ~ Foundation stone set of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.

1846 ~ The Smithsonian Institution was chartered following a $500,000 donation by scientist Joseph Smithson.

1885 ~ America's first commercially operated electric streetcar began operation in Baltimore.

1896 ~ Death of Otto Lilienthal, Aviation Pioneer.

1945 ~ Death of Robert Goddard, Rocket Scientist.

1985 ~ Michael Jackson purchased ATV Music (all the Beatle songs) for $47 million.

1990 ~ The Magellan space probe arrived at Venus.

1995 ~ Norma McCorvey, '”Jane Roe” in the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling which legalized abortion, announced she had joined the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue.

2003 ~ The highest temperature ever recorded in England, 38.5°C, recorded in Kent.

August 11th
 

3114 B.C. ~ Beginning of our current era in the Maya Long Count Calendar.

480 B.C. ~ Persians under Xerxes defeated Spartans under King Leonidas in the Battle of Thermopylae. The Spartans fight to the last man.

The Battle of Thermopylae has served as an example to officers and soldiers alike of what courage and self-sacrifice could achieve. It is still remembered, almost 2,500 years later, as a classic example of virtue.

1253 ~ Death of Saint Clare of Assisi, Patron Saint of television.

1905 ~ Birthday of Erwin Chargaff, biochemist.

1919 ~ Death of Andrew Carnegie, Industrialist & Philanthropist.

1929 ~ Babe Ruth became the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs.

1943 ~ Birthday of Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani general & President.

1950 ~ Birthday of Steve Wozniak, Computer Pioneer.

1984 ~ U.S. President Reagan joked during a voice test for a paid political radio address that he had ''signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.''

2003 ~ NATO took over command of the peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, marking its first major operation outside Europe.

August 12th
 

30 BC Cleoptara, Queen of Egypt and former wife to Julius Caesar,
commits suicide by means of venomous snakebite to the
mammary gland.
1676 Wampanoag chieftain Metacom (or "Philip") is killed in a swamp
near Mount Hope. Thus ends King Philip's War, the first war
between Indians and European settlers.
1869 In San Francisco, Emperor Norton I issues a stern edict
outlawing both the Republican and Democratic political parties.
Violators face a prison term of five-to-ten years.
1951 Dr. Jean Vieu discovers two patients stricken with abdominal
pain and grotesque hallucinations in Pont St. Esprit, France.
They are just the first of more than 230 afflicted townspeople,
thanks to bread tainted with ergot.
1985 30 minutes after takeoff, JAL flight 123 loses all hydraulic
pressure, rendering the controls inoperable. The crew attempts
a return to Tokyo-Haneda airport by adjusting power to the
engines, but the 747 crashes into a mountain ridge near Mt.
Osutaka. When rescue workers arrive the following morning, they
find 4 survivors and 520 dead.

... also on August 12th
 

1851 ~ Isaac Singer was granted a patent for his sewing machine.

1859 ~ Birthday of Katherine Lee Bates, Poet (America the Beautiful).

1887 ~ Birthday of Erwin Schrödinger, Physicist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1933.

1927 ~ Birthday of Mstislav Rostropovich, Cellist.

1928 ~ Death of Leos Janacek, Czech Composer.

1953 ~ The Soviet Union detonated its first hydrogen bomb.

1960 ~ The first communications satellite, Echo I, was launched.

1964 ~ Death of Ian Fleming, Novelist.

1981 ~ The IBM PC was introduced.

2002 ~ Russian submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea.

August 13th
 

1521 ~ Tenochtitlán (present day Mexico City) fell to conquistador Hernán Cortés.

1860 ~ Birthday of Annie Oakley, Sharpshooter.

1899 ~ Birthday of Alfred Hitchcock, Director.

1942 ~ Walt Disney's animated cartoon Bambi premiered.

1946 ~ Death of H. G. Wells, Writer.

1948 ~ Birthday of Kathleen Battle, Opera Singer.

1961 ~ The Berlin Wall began to be built.

1966 ~ Beginning of China’s Cultural Revolution.

1997 ~ The popular, controversial animated series South Park debuted.

2003 ~ Libya agreed to set up a $2.7 billion fund for families of 270 people killed in the 1988 Pan Am bombing.

August 14th
 

1862 ~ Birthday of Ernest Thayer, Poet (Casey at the Bat).

1880 ~ After 632 years, Cologne Cathedral was completed.

1945 ~ Japan surrendered, ending World War II.

1947 ~ Pakistan & India gained independence from the UK at midnight, Pakistan commemorating the event on August 14 and India on August 15.

1951 ~ Death of William Randolph Hearst, newspaper magnate.

1971 ~ Rod Stewart released Maggie May.

1980 ~ Workers went on strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, in a job action that resulted in the creation of the Solidarity labor movement.

1988 ~ Death of Enzo Ferrari, Automobile Designer.

1994 ~ Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal, was captured.

2003 ~ A blackout hit the northeastern U.S. and part of Canada; 50 million people lost power.

August 15th
 

778 ~ The Battle of Roncevaux Pass, in which Roland was killed.

1769 ~ Birthday of Napoleon Bonaparte, general and politician.

1877 ~ Thomas Edison made the first-ever recording - "Mary Had a Little Lamb".

1890 ~ Birthday of Jacques Ibert, French Composer.

1945 ~ The Allies proclaimed V-J Day, one day after Japan agreed to surrender unconditionally.

1948 ~ Republic of Korea established south of 38th Parallel.

1951 ~ Death of Artur Schnabel, Pianist.

1967 ~ Death of René Magritte, Surrealist painter.

1969 ~ First day of Woodstock Music and Art Festival.

I was able to talk my cousin out of going to this. She had called me a month or so earlier and said she could get a couple of tickets if we wanted to go. It was inconvenient to get to, and when I said so, she agreed, and so….

1998 ~ A car bomb in Omagh, Northern Ireland, killed 29 people and injured 370. It was the single deadliest act of violence in 30 years of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.

August16th
 

1858 ~ U.S. President Buchanan inaugurated the new transatlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria.

1888 ~ Birthday of Lawrence of Arabia.

1896 ~ Gold was discovered in the Klondike.

1899 ~ Death of Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, chemist.

1930 ~ First color sound cartoon, called Fiddlesticks, was made by Ub Iwerks.

1948 ~ Death of Babe Ruth, baseball player.

1960 ~ Cyprus gained its independence from the UK.

1962 ~ The Beatles fired Pete Best and replaced him with Ringo Starr.

1977 ~ Death of Elvis Presley, Singer, Actor.

2003 ~ Death of Idi Amin, Ugandan dictator.

August 17th
 

1601 ~ Birthday of Pierre de Fermat, Mathematician.

1786 ~ Birthday of Davy Crockett, Frontiersman, Soldier.

1807 ~ Robert Fulton's steamboat left New York City for Albany, New York, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.

1863 ~ In Charleston, South Carolina, Union batteries and ships bombard Confederate-held Fort Sumter.

1882 ~ Birthday of Samuel Goldwyn, Hollywood producer.

1911 ~ Birthday of Mikhail Botvinnik, World Chess Champion.

1962 ~ East German border guards shot and mortally wounded 18-year-old Peter Fechter, who had attempted to cross over the Berlin Wall into the western sector.

1970 ~ Venera 7 was launched. It became the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from the surface of another planet, Venus.

1980 ~ Azaria Chamberlain disappeared, likely taken by a dingo, leading to what was then the most publicised trial in Australian history and one of the more famous wrongful conviction when her parents were found guilty of murder.

1998 ~ US President Bill Clinton admitted in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. On the same day he admitted before the nation that he "misled people" about his relationship.

August 18th
 

1227 ~ Death of Genghis Khan, Mongol leader.

1587 ~ Birthday of Virginia Dare; the first English child born in the Americas.

1750 ~ Birthday of Antonio Salieri, Composer.

1774 ~ Birthday of Meriwether Lewis, Explorer.

1877 ~ Asaph Hall discovered Phobos, the moon of Pluto.

1920 ~ 19th Amendment to US constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women's right to vote.

1958 ~ Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita was published in the U.S.

1963 ~ James Meredith became the first black to graduate from the University of Mississippi.

1969 ~ Jimi Hendrix played the unofficial last day of Woodstock.

1991 ~ Downfall of the Soviet Union: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was put under house arrest while he was vacationing in the Crimea.

August 19th
 

1871 ~ Birthday of Orville Wright, Aviator.

1902 ~ Birthday of Ogden Nash, Poet.

1921 ~ Birthday of Gene Roddenberry, creator of Start Trek

1934 ~ The creation of the position Führer approved in a German plebiscite.

1942 ~ About 6,000 Canadian and British soldiers launched a disastrous raid against the Germans at Dieppe, France, suffering about 50 percent casualties.

1960 ~ A tribunal in Moscow convicted American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers of espionage.

1977 ~ Death of Groucho Marx, Comedian & Actor.

1981 ~ Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi sent two Sukoi Su-22 fighter jets to intercept two U.S. F-14 Tomcats over the Gulf of Sidra. The American jets shot down the Libyan fighters.

1990 ~ Leonard Bernstein conducted his final concert, ending with Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony # 7.

1994 ~ Death of Linus Pauling, Scientist & Peace Activist.

He was a physical chemist, among the most influential chemists of the twentieth century, and one of the most important scientists of all time. He was one of the first quantum chemists, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954 for his work describing the nature of chemical bonds. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 for his campaign against above-ground nuclear testing, becoming one of only two people to receive the Nobel Prize in more than one field, the other being Marie Curie.

August 20th
 

1882 ~ Piotr Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuted in Moscow.

1890 ~ Birthday of H. P. Lovecraft, Horror Writer.

1923 ~ Birthday of Jim Reeves, country and western singer.

1940 ~ UK PM Winston Churchill paid tribute to the RAF, saying, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

1941 ~ Birthday of Slobodan Milosevic, former president of Serbia and Yugoslavia.

1968 ~ Warsaw Pact troops and tanks invaded Czechoslovakia to end the Prague Spring of political liberalization.

1991 ~ Downfall of the Soviet Union: Estonia declared its independence from the Soviet Union.

1998 ~ The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Quebec could not legally secede from Canada without the federal government's approval.

1998 ~ The U.S. launched cruise missile attacks against alleged al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical plant in Sudan in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

2001 ~ Death of Sir Fred Hoyle, Astronomer, Science Fiction Writer.

August 21st
 

1858 ~ The first of seven debates between U.S. Senate candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas was held.

1872 ~ Birthday of Aubrey Beardsley, Illustrator.

1904 ~ Birthday of Count Basie, Bandleader.

1923 ~ Birthday of Shimon Peres, Prime Minister of Israel.

1936 ~ Birthday of Wilt Chamberlain, Basketball Hall of Famer.

1940 ~ Death of Leon Trotsky, exiled Russian revolutionary.

1959 ~ Hawaii was admitted as the 50th U.S. state.

1983 ~ Assassination of Benigno S. Aquino Jr., Philippine opposition leader.

1986 ~ Suffocating gas erupted from volcanic Lake Nyos in Cameroon, killing more than 1,700.

1991 ~ A hard-line coup against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev collapsed in the face of a popular uprising led by Russian federation President Boris N. Yeltsin.

August 22nd
 

1485 ~ King Richard III was killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field, ending the War of the Roses.

1770 ~ James Cook's expedition arrived on the east coast of Australia.

1851 ~ The schooner America outraced the Aurora off the English coast to win a trophy that became known as the America's Cup.

1862 ~ Birthday of Claude Debussy, Composer.

1893 ~ Birthday of Dorothy Parker, Writer & Wit.

1910 ~ Japan annexed Korea.

1920 ~ Birthday of Ray Bradbury, science fiction author and fantasy author (Fahrenheit 451).

1962 ~ The Savannah, the world's first nuclear-powered ship, completed its maiden voyage.

1978 ~ Death of Jomo Kenyatta, first Prime Minister of Kenya.

2001 ~ For the Geeks among us, a sad day. The Trojan room coffee pot was switched off for the last time.

August 23rd
 

1305 ~ Execution of William Wallace.

1754 ~ Birthday of King Louis XVI of France.

1829 ~ Birthday of Moritz Cantor, Mathematician.

1912 ~ Birthday of Gene Kelly, Dancer & Actor.

1927 ~ Italian-born anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in Boston.

1951 ~ Birthday of Queen Noor of Jordan.

1962 ~ First live television connection between the United States and Europe, via the Telstar satellite.

1990 ~ Saddam Hussein appeared on Iraqi state television with a number of Western "guests”.

1990 ~ West Germany and East Germany announced that they would unite.

2000 ~ Richard Hatch won the $1 million prize in the first season finale of the reality show ''Survivor''.

August 24th
 

79 ~ Mount Vesuvius erupted. The cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae were buried in volcanic ash.

1456 ~ The printing of the Gutenberg Bible was completed.

1814 ~ British troops invaded Washington, D.C. and burnt down the White House and other buildings.

1880 ~ Birthday of Joshua Lionel Cowen, inventor of the toy electric train.

1929 ~ Birthday of Yasser Arafat, Palestinian leader.

1932 ~ Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the United States non-stop.

1951 ~ Birthday of Orson Scott Card, novelist.

1960 ~ Birthday of Cal Ripken, Jr., baseball player.

1981 ~ Mark David Chapman was sentenced in New York to 20 to life for the murder of John Lennon.

1992 ~ Hurricane Andrew hit South Florida.

August 25th
 

1609 ~ Galileo demonstrated his first telescope to the Venetian Senate.

1835 ~ The New York Sun printed The Great Moon Hoax.

1867 ~ Death of Michael Faraday, Scientist.

1875 ~ Matthew Webb became the first man to swim the English Channel.

1894 ~ Shibasaburo Kitasato discovered the infectious agent of the bubonic plague and published his findings in The Lancet.

1900 ~ Birthday of Sir Hans Adolf Krebs, Scientist. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1953.

1900 ~ Death of Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher.

1918 ~ Birthday of Leonard Bernstein, Conductor & Composer.

1944 ~ Paris was liberated by Allied forces after four years of Nazi occupation.

1982 ~ Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Neptune.

August 26th
 

55 B.C. ~ Julius Caesar invaded Britain.

1071 ~ The Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantine Empire at Manzikert.

1498 ~ Michelangelo commissioned to carve the Pieta.

1743 ~ Birthday of Antoine Lavoisier, Chemist.

1839 ~ The ship Amistad was captured off Long Island.

1847 ~ Liberia was proclaimed an independent republic.

1920 ~ The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote, was declared in effect.

1961 ~ The International Hockey Hall of Fame opened in Toronto.

1968 ~ The Beatles' Hey Jude was released as a single in the U.S.

1975 ~ Death of Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia.

August 27th
 

1776 ~ British forces under General William Howe defeated the Americans under General George Washington in the Battle of Long Island.

1813 ~ Napoleon defeated the Austrians, Russians and Prussians at the Battle of Dresden.

1828 ~ The Russians defeat the Turks at Akhaltzikke.

1896 ~ Anglo-Zanzibar War. With a duration of only 45 minutes, it holds the record of being the shortest war in recorded history.

1900 ~ British defeat Boer commandos at Bergendal.

1928 ~ Kellogg-Briand Pact, outlawing war, signed by sixty nations.

1939 ~ First jet aircraft flight; a Heinkel He 178, piloted by Erich Warsitz.

1945 ~ American troops began landing in Japan following the surrender of the Japanese government in World War II.

1962 ~ The Mariner 2 space probe launched to Venus.

1979 ~ An IRA bomb killed Lord Mountbatten and 3 others on holiday.

August 28th
 

430 ~ Death of Augustine of Hippo, Philosopher, Theologian.

1749 ~ Birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Philosopher, Scientist.

1828 ~ Birthday of Leo Tolstoy, Author. His “The Law of Love and the Law of Violence” influenced Martin Luther King, Jr.

1845 ~ First issue of Scientific American magazine published.

1850 ~ Richard Wagner's opera “Lohengrin” premiered, from which comes the Bridal Chorus, traditionally played at Western weddings, and commonly known as "Here Comes the Bride".

1897 ~ Birthday of Charles Boyer, Actor.

1963 ~ During a civil rights rally in at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “I have a dream ” speech.


1972 ~ During the Olympic Games of Munich, Mark Spitz won his first of seven gold medals in swimming events.

1990 ~ Iraq declared Kuwait to be a province of Iraq.

1996 ~ Britain's Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales were divorced.

August 29th
 

1261 ~ Urban IV became Pope, the last man to do so without first being a Cardinal.

1632 ~ Birthday of John Locke, Philosopher.

1885 ~ Gottlieb Daimler patented the world's first motorcycle.

1896 ~ Chop suey was invented in New York City.

1949 ~ The Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan.

1952 ~ Premiere of John Cage's 4'33" in Woodstock, New York.

1957 ~ Sen. Strom Thurmond, D-S.C., ended the longest filibuster in Senate history after talking for 24 hours, 18 minutes against a civil rights bill.

1966 ~ The Beatles performed their last concert, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

1991 ~ The Downfall of the Soviet Union: The Supreme Soviet suspended all activities of the Soviet Communist Party.

2005 ~ Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the Louisiana coast, overwhelming the levees protecting New Orleans and causing massive flooding.

August 30th
 

1797 ~ Birthday of Mary Shelley, Author (Frankenstein).

1871 ~ Birthday of Ernest Rutherford, Physicist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1908.

1918 ~ Birthday of Baseball hall-of-famer Ted William.

1935 ~ Birthday of John Phillips, American singer (The Mamas and the Papas).

1940 ~ Death of J.J. Thomson, English physicist, Nobel Prize in Physics 1906. Prof. Thomson identified the electron as a subatomic particle, the first one to be discovered. In one of the greatest ironies of modern physics his son, G.P. Thomson later received the prize for proving that the electron was also, in fact, a wave.

1941 ~ Siege of Leningrad began.

1963 ~ Hotline between U.S. and Soviet leaders went into operation.

1987 ~ Thurgood Marshall confirmed as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

1999 ~ East Timorese voted for independence in a referendum.

2003 ~ Death of Charles Bronson, Actor.

August 31st
 

1834 ~ Birthday of Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer (La Gioconda - It contains "The Dance of the Hours").

1879 ~ Birthday of Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel. This woman knew how to live!

1888 ~ Mary Ann Nichols murdered. She was perhaps the first of Jack the Ripper's victims.

1918 ~ Birthday of Alan Jay Lerner, American composer ( Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, My Fair Lady).

1935 ~ Birthday of Frank Robinson, Baseball Player, Manager.

1945 ~ Birthday of Itzhak Perlman, Violinist.

1945 ~ Birthday of Van Morrison, Irish musician (“Brown-Eyed Girl", "Moondance" and "Domino").

1962 ~ Trinidad and Tobago became independent.

1980 ~ Solidarity labor union formed in Poland.

1997 ~ Death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a car crash in Paris.

September 1st
 

1653 ~ Birthday of Johann Pachelbel, Composer. Remember the theme music of “Ordinary People”? That’s “Pachelbel's Canon” (which is not really a Canon).

1715 ~ King Louis XIV of France ("L'État, c'est moi") died after a reign of 72 years — the longest of any major European monarch.

1875 ~ Birthday of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Writer, creator of Tarzan.

1905 ~ Alberta and Saskatchewan join the Canadian confederation.

1914 ~ The last Passenger Pigeon died in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo.

1939 ~ Germany attacked Poland, beginning World War II.

1972 ~ In Reykjavik, Iceland, American Bobby Fischer beat Russian Boris Spassky and became the world chess champion.

1983 ~ Korean Air Flight KAL-007 shot down by a Soviet Union jet fighter when the commercial aircraft entered Soviet airspace.

1985 ~ A joint American-French expedition located the wreck of the RMS Titanic.

1991 ~ Uzbekistan declared independence from the Soviet Union.

September 2nd
 

31 B.C. ~ Battle of Actium: Off the western coast of Greece, forces of Octavian defeat troops under Mark Antony and Cleopatra. This date is often used for the beginning of the Roman Empire.

1666 ~ Great Fire of London started in Pudding Lane at the house of Thomas Farrinor near London Bridge. Samuel Pepys, a neighbor, was woken by the fire at around 1 AM. The fire burned for three days destroying 10,000 buildings including St. Paul's Cathedral, but only 16 people are known to have died.

1752 ~ The UK adopted the Gregorian Calendar, nearly two centuries later than most of Western Europe.

1898 ~ Battle of Omdurman: British and Egyptian troops led by Horatio Kitchener defeated Sudanese tribesmen led by Khalifa Abdullah al-Taashi, establishing British dominance in the Sudan.

1901 ~ Vice President Theodore Roosevelt offered the advice, "Speak softly and carry a big stick", in a speech.

1924 ~ Birthday of Daniel arap Moi, President of Kenya.

1945 ~ The official surrender of Japan was accepted by General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz from a delegation led by Mamoru Shigemitsu, aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay, bringing World War II to an end.

1964 ~ Death of Alvin York, Hero. He was the most decorated American soldier of World War I.

1969 ~ Death of Ho Chi Minh, Vietmamese Revolutionary, President & Prime Minister.

1973 ~ Death of J.R.R. Tolkien, British writer.