On This Day

August 1909 in History

Events in History

  • Aug 2 Army Air Corps formed as Army takes 1st delivery from Wright Brothers
  • Aug 2 US issues 1st Lincoln penny
  • Aug 6 Alice Ramsey and three friends become the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip
  • Aug 11 SOS 1st used by an American ship, Arapahoe, off Cape Hatteras, NC
  • Aug 11 Warren Bardsley (136 & 130) 1st to get twin tons in a Test

Historic Event

Aug 18 Mayor of Tokyo Yukio Ozaki presents Washington, D.C. with 2,000 cherry trees, which President William Howard Taft decides to plant near the Potomac River.

William Howard Taft
27th US President William Howard Taft
  • Aug 24 Workers start pouring concrete for Panama Canal
  • Aug 29 AH Latham of France sets world airplane altitude record of 155 m
  • Aug 29 World's 1st air race held in Rheims France. Glenn Curtiss (USA) wins
  • Aug 30 Burgess Shale fossils discovered by Charles Doolittle Walcott

Birthdays in History

  • Aug 1 Nigel Henderson, British Royal Navy admiral (d. 1993)
  • Aug 2 Lord Benson [Henry Alexander], British accountant (Coopers & Lybrand), born in Johannesburg, South Africa (d. 1995)
  • Aug 4 Roberto Burle Marx, Brazilian landscape gardener, born in São Paulo, Brazil (d. 1994)
  • Aug 4 Saunders Mac Lane, American mathematician (co-founded category theory), born in Taftville, Connecticut (d. 2005)
  • Aug 9 John Baur, American museum director and author (American Paintings in 19th Century), born in Woodbridge, Connecticut (d. 1987)
  • Aug 9 Adam von Trott zu Solz, German lawyer and diplomat, born in Potsdam, Germany (d. 1944)
  • Aug 10 George W Crockett Jr, (Rep-D-MI, 1980- )
  • Aug 10 Julio A Abraham, president (Democratic Party Bonaire)
  • Aug 10 Mohammed V ibn Yusuf, King of Morocco (1953, 1955-61)
  • Aug 11 Hugo Buchthal, art historian
  • Aug 11 Jean Lancaster, director (WRNS)
  • Aug 12 Maurice Heath, air marshal
  • Aug 12 Richard Bare, American director
  • Aug 15 Raymond O'Malley, English teacher
  • Aug 19 Jerzy Andrzejewski, Polish writer (Ashes and Diamonds), born in Warsaw, Kingdom of Poland (d. 1983)
  • Aug 21 C. Dillon Douglas, US Secretary of Treasury (1961-65), born in Geneva, Switzerland (d. 2003)
  • Aug 21 Nikolay Bogolyubov, Russian mathematician, born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia (d. 1992)
  • Aug 22 Stojan Daskalov, Bulgarian writer (A Farm), born in Liljac, Vraca, Bulgaria (d. 1985)
  • Aug 26 Frank Gasparro, US chief engraver (1965-81), born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Aug 27 Sidney R. Yates, American politician (Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois), born in Chicago, Illinois (d. 2000)
  • Aug 29 Roy Reuther, American labor leader, born in Wheeling, West Virginia (d. 1968)
  • Aug 30 Barry Appleby, British cartoonist (The Gambols), born in Birmingham (d. 1996)
  • Aug 31 Marie-Louise Grog-Carven, French fashion designer (Ma Griffe perfume), born in Châtellerault, Poitou-Charentes (d. 2015)

Deaths in History

  • Aug 8 William Miller, American Brigadier General (Confederate Army), dies at 89
  • Aug 15 Euclides da Cunha, Brazilian writer and sociologist (b. 1866)
  • Aug 19 Rembt Tobias Hugo Pieter Liebrecht Alexander of Boneval Faure, Dutch lawyer and Member of parliament, dies at 83
  • Aug 29 Emil Christian Hansen, Danish physiologist, dies at 67


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