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August 22nd
1485 ~ The Battle of Bosworth Field ends the Wars of the Roses.
1770 ~ James Cook 's expedition arrived on the east coast of Australia. 1775 ~ King George III declared the American colonies to be in open rebellion. 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 Kenya's founding father, Jomo Kenyatta. 2001 ~ For the Geeks among us, a sad day. The Trojan room coffee pot is switched off for the last time. |
August 23rd
1305 ~ Execution of William Wallace.
1540 ~ French explorer Jacques Cartier landed near Quebec in his third voyage to Canada. 1754 ~ Birthday of King Louis XVI of France. 1829 ~ Birthday of Moritz Cantor, Mathematician. 1912 ~ Birthday of Gene Kelly, Dancer & Actor. 1940 ~ The Luftwaffe began bombing London. 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. |
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 several 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 (from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey). 1951 ~ Birthday of Orson Scott Card, novelist. 1960 ~ Birthday of Cal Ripken, Jr., baseball player. 1989 ~ Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose was banned from baseball for gambling. 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. Nobel Prize in Medicine 1953. 1900 ~ Death of Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher. 1918 ~ Birthday of Leonard Bernstein, Conductor & Composer. 1944 ~ World War II: Paris was liberated by the Allies. 1989 ~ Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Neptune. |
August 26th
55 BC ~ Julius Caesar invaded Britain.
1071 ~ The Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantine Empire at Manzikert. 1429 ~ Joan of Arc entered Paris. 1498 ~ Michelangelo commissioned to carve the Pieta. 1743 ~ Birthday of Antoine Lavoisier, Chemist. 1839 ~ The ship Amistad was captured off Long Island. 1920 ~ The 19th amendment to U.S. Constitution extended suffrage to women. 1944 ~ Charles de Gaulle entered Paris. 1968 ~ The Beatles' Hey Jude was released as a single in the U.S. 1975 ~ Death of Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia. |
August 27th
410 ~ The Visigoth sack of Rome ended after three days.
1776 ~ Battle of Long Island: British forces under General William Howe defeated the Americans under General George Washington. 1813 ~ Napoleon defeated the Austrians, Russians and Prussians at the Battle of Dresden. 1828 ~ The Russians defeat the Turks at Akhaltzikke. 1861 ~ Union forces attack Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. 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. 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. Do yourself a favor; take a quarter of an hour out of your busy day and listen to it. 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. 1907 ~ The Quebec Bridge collapsed during construction, killing 75 workers. 1949 ~ The Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan. 1952 ~ Premiere of John Cage's 4'33" in Woodstock, New York. 1966 ~ Last Beatles concert, in San Francisco. 1982 ~ The element Meitnerium, atomic number 109, was first synthesized in Darmstadt, Germany. 1991 ~ The Downfall of the Soviet Union: Supreme Soviet suspended all activities of the Soviet Communist Party. |
August 30th
1797 ~ Birthday of Mary Shelley, Author (Frankenstein).
1850 ~ Honolulu, Hawaii became a city. 1871 ~ Birthday of Ernest Rutherford, Physicist, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1908. 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 ~ World War II: Nazi Germany attacked Poland, beginning the war. 1972 ~ In Reykjavik, Iceland, American Bobby Fischer beat Russian Boris Spassky and became the world chess champion. 1983 ~ Cold War: 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 BC ~ 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 U.K. 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. 1924 ~ Birthday of Daniel arap Moi, President of Kenya. 1944 ~ Anne Frank and her family were placed on the last transport train from Westerbork to Auschwitz. They arrived three days later. 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. |
September 3rd
301 ~ San Marino, the world's oldest republic still in existence, was founded by Saint Marinus.
1658 ~ Death of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England. 1783 ~ American Revolutionary War: The Treaty of Paris between the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain was signed in Paris, ending the war. 1875 ~ Birthday of Ferdinand Porsche, German automotive engineer. 1893 ~ Death of James Harrison, Australian pioneer of mechanical refrigeration. 1935 ~ Malcolm Campbell reached 304.331 miles per hour on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, becoming the first person to drive an automobile over 300 MPH. 1939 ~ World War II: France, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia declare war on Germany. 1954 ~ The last new episode of The Lone Ranger was aired on radio after 2,956 episodes over a period of 21 years. 1962 ~ Death of e. e. cummings, poet. 2004 ~ More than 200 people die at the end of a three-day siege at a school in Beslan, Russia came to a bloody end. |
September 4th
476 ~ Romulus Augustus, the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was deposed.
1761 ~ Los Angeles founded as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciúncula (the City of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula). 1824 ~ Birthday of Anton Bruckner, Composer. 1888 ~ George Eastman registered the trademark Kodak, and received a patent for his camera which uses roll film. 1891 ~ Birthday of Fritz Todt, developer of the German autobahn, the archtype for the limited access highway. 1907 ~ Death of Edvard Grieg, Norwegian Composer. 1945 ~ World War II: Japanese forces surrender on Wake Island after hearing word of their nation's surrender. 1965 ~ Death of Albert Schweitzer, Physician, 1952 Nobel Peace Prize laureate & JS Bach interpreter. 1972 ~ Mark Spitz won his seventh swimming gold medal at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany. 1995 ~ Death of William Kunstler, Attorney. |
September 5th
1735 ~ Birthday of Johann Christian Bach, Composer, son of Johann Sebastian Bach.
1774 ~ First Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1793 ~ The French National Convention voted to implement terror measures to enforce the principles of the French Revolution. This Reign of Terror lasted until the spring of 1794 and killed 35,000-40,000 people. 1847 ~ Birthday of Jesse James, outlaw. 1857 ~ Birthday of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Visionary & Pioneer of Astronautics. 1914 ~ World War I: First Battle of the Marne began northeast of Paris where the French defeated German advancing on the capital. 1948 ~ Robert Schuman becomes Prime Minister of France. He is considered to be one of the founders of the European Union. 1950 ~ Birthday of Cathy Guisewite, Cartoonist. 1972 ~ Munich Massacre: A Palestinian terrorist group called "Black September" attacked Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games. 1997 ~ Death of Mother Teresa, Inspiration. |
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