Victory in Battle
1350 Battle of Winchelsea (or Les Espagnols sur Mer): The English naval fleet under King Edward III defeats a Castilian fleet of 40 ships.
Edward III
Victory in Battle
1526 Battle of Mohács: In a decisive battle the Hungarian Empire is conquered by the Ottoman Empire led by Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman the Magnificent
Event of Interest
1533 Francisco Pizarro orders the death of the last Incan King of Peru, Atahualpa
Francisco Pizarro
Treaty of Interest
- 1655 Warsaw falls without resistance to a small force under the command of Charles X Gustav of Sweden during The Deluge.
- 1664 Adriaen Pieck and Gerrit de Ferry patent wooden firespout in Amsterdam
- 1708 British troops occupy Menorca & Sardinia
- 1708 Haverhill, Massachusetts destroyed by French & Indians
- 1742 Edmond Hoyle published his "Short Treatise" on the card game whist
- 1756 England & France meet in war
- 1756 Prussian Libya occupies Saxson: beginning 7 years War
- 1758 New Jersey Legislature forms 1st Indian reservation
- 1776 Americans withdraw from Manhattan to Westchester
- 1786 Shay's Rebellion in Springfield, Massachusetts
- 1792 British man o'war HMS Royal George capsizes at Spithead; more than 800 killed
- 1793 Slaves in French colony of St Domingue (Haiti) freed
- 1825 Portugal recognizes the Independence of Brazil
- 1831 Michael Faraday demonstrates 1st electric transformer
- 1833 Britain's Slavery Abolition Act becomes law
Event of Interest
1838 Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm announce in their intention to publish a German Dictionary (eventually completed 1961, one hundred and 23 years later)
Jacob Grimm
Wilhelm Grimm
Second Battle of Bull Run
1862 Second Battle of Bull Run, fought in Manassas, Virginia begins, Confederate victory (US Civil War)
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- 1862 Battle of Aspromonte; Italian royal forces defeat rebels
- 1862 US Bureau of Engraving & Printing begins operation
- 1864 William Huggins discovers chemical composition of nebulae
- 1871 Emperor Meiji orders the Abolition of the han system and the establishment of prefectures as local centers of administration. (Traditional Japanese date: July 14, 1871).
- 1883 Seismic sea waves created by Krakatoa eruption create a rise in English Channel 32 hrs after explosion
- 1885 Gottlieb Daimler receives German patent for a motorcycle
- 1896 Chop suey invented in NYC by chef of visiting Chinese Ambassador
- 1898 The Goodyear tire company is founded.
- 1900 Gaetano Bresci, the assassin of King Umberto I of Italy, is tried and sentenced to life imprisonment; he will commit suicide in jail on 22 May 1901
- 1903 The Finance Minister, Count Witte, is dismissed in what is seen as a victory for those in Russia who want their country to expand into Manchuria and Korea in defiance of the Japanese
- 1905 Pierre de Brazza leaves Brazzaville
- 1907 The Quebec Bridge in St Lawrence, Canada collapses during construction, killing 75 workers.
- 1908 NY gives a ticker tape parade to returning US Olympians from London
- 1909 AH Latham of France sets world airplane altitude record of 155 m
- 1909 World's 1st air race held in Rheims France. Glenn Curtiss (USA) wins
- 1910 Japan changes Korea's name to Chōsen and appoints a governor-general to rule its new colony.
- 1911 Ishi, considered the last Native American to make contact with European Americans, emerges from the wilderness of northeastern California.
- 1913 Pieter Cort Van de Linden forms Dutch government
Battle of Interest
1914 4th day of Battle of Tannenberg (WWI): Russian Narev-army panics, General Martos caught
Erich Ludendorff
- 1914 Arizonian is 1st vessel to arrive in San Francisco via Panama Canal
- 1914 Battle of St Quentin: French counter attack under General Lanrezac
- 1914 New Zealand forces capture German Samoa
- 1916 Congress creates US Naval Reserve
- 1916 Transport ship Hsin-Yu & cruiser Hai-Yung collide; 1,000 die
- 1916 US Congress accepts Jones Act: Philippines independence
Event of Interest
1916 General Paul von Hindenburg replaces Von Falkenhayn as German chief of staff
Paul von Hindenburg
Event of Interest
1929 German airship Graf Zeppelin ends a round-the-world flight
Hugo Eckener
Event of Interest
1929 Aviator Anne Morrow Lindbergh makes her first solo flight
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
- 1930 The last 36 remaining inhabitants of St Kilda are voluntarily evacuated to other parts of Scotland.
- 1932 International Anti-War Committee forms in Amsterdam
- 1932 United Cigar Stores shuts 800 shops
- 1937 Philadelphia A's Bob Johnson is 2nd to get 6 RBIs in an inning (1st)
- 1939 Chaim Weizmann informs England that Palestine Jews will fight in WW II
- 1941 German Einsatzkommando in Russia kills 1,469 Jewish children
- 1943 Danish Navy scuttles its warships so as not to be taken by Germany
- 1944 15,000 American troops liberating Paris march down Champs Elysees
- 1944 Anti-German rebellion in Slovakia
- 1945 British liberate Hong Kong from Japan
Douglas MacArthur
- 1947 Constantine Tsaldaris succeeds Maximos as Greek premier
Appointment of Interest
1947 B.R. Ambedkar is appointed chairman of the drafting committee for the Indian constitution
B.R. Ambedkar
- 1949 USSR performs its first nuclear test at Semipalatinsk, Kazakh SSR
- 1953 USSR explodes its first hydrogen bomb
- 1954 San Francisco International Airport (SFO) opens
- 1956 French government routes troops to Cyprus near Suez crisis
- 1957 Strom Thurmond (Sen-D-SC) ends 24 hr filibuster against civil rights
- 1958 US Air Force Academy's permanent site opens in Colorado Springs, Colorado
- 1960 Jordan premier Hazza-el-Madjali deadly injured at bomb attack
- 1962 Some provisions of Kuwaiti constitution are suspended
- 1962 US U-2 flight sees SAM launch pads in Cuba
- 1963 Harmon Killebrew (Twins) HRs off Pete Burnside (Senators) in DH
- 1965 Astronauts Cooper & Conrad complete 120 Earth orbits in Gemini 5
- 1966 Dutch Internal minister Smallenbroek resigns after driving drunk
- 1968 Democrats nominate Hubert H Humphrey for US President (Chicago)
- 1970 Black Panthers confront cops in Philadelphia (1 cop killed)
- 1974 USSR performs underground nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
- 1975 Star in Cygnus goes nova becoming 4th brightest in sky
- 1978 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- 1979 Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1979 Sheridan Broadcasting Corp purchases Mutual Black Network
- 1982 38°F lowest temperature ever recorded in Cleveland in August
- 1982 The synthetic chemical element Meitnerium, atomic number 109, is first synthesized at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, Germany.
- 1985 Atlantis moves to launch pad for 51-J mission
- 1985 NY Yank Don Baylor is hit by a pitch for a record 190th time
- 1986 Heike Drechsler of East Germany ties world women's 200 m mark (21.71s)
- 1986 Moroccan King Hassan II signs unity treaty with Libya
- 1988 Macy's Tap-o-Mania sets a Guinness record for tap dancing
- 1988 USSR launches 3 cosmonauts (Valery Polyakav, 1 Afghan) to station Mir
- 1990 C-5 transport plane crashes at Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany, killing 13
Event of Interest
1990 Saddam Hussein declares America can't beat Iraq
Saddam Hussein
- 1991 JFK Jr wins his 1st battle as an attorney
- 1991 USSR suspends Communist Party activities
- 1992 Randy Myers blows his 6th save of the season & it marks the 5th time he's blown a potential win for Greg Harris
- 1992 Brave's Charlie Leibrandt 1,000th strikeout. He decides to keep the ball by rolling it to the dugout, allowing Ricky Jordan to take second base on error.
- 1995 NATO launches Operation Deliberate Force against Bosnian Serb forces.
- 1996 Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801, a Vnukovo Airlines Tupolev Tu-154, crashes into a mountain on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen, killing all 141 aboard.
- 1997 At least 98 villagers are killed by the GIA in the Rais massacre, Algeria.
- 2003 Ayatollah Sayed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the Shia Muslim leader in Iraq, is assassinated in a terrorist bombing, along with nearly 100 worshippers as they leave a mosque in Najaf.
- 2005 Hurricane Katrina makes its 2nd landfall as a category 3 hurricane devastating much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Florida Panhandle. Kills more than 1,836, causes over $115 billion in damage.
- 2007 A United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident takes place at Minot Air Force Base and Barksdale Air Force Base.
- 2011 "Tha Carter IV" 9th studio album by Lil Wayne is released
- 2012 Georgian hostage crisis results in 3 police officers and 10 militants being killed
- 2012 Operation Eagle, undertaken by the Egyptian Army, results in the deaths of 11 suspected terrorists and the arrest of another 23
- 2012 Banana Spider venom is found to be effective in relieving erectile dysfunction
- 2013 41 people are killed and 33 are injured in a bus accident in Kenya
- 2014 Senegal is 5th country hit by Ebola
- 2014 Riots break out in Guinea following rumours that health workers are deliberately transmitting the Ebola virus to locals
- 2016 Italian coastguard says 6,500 migrants rescued at sea in 40 separate incidents in 1 day off coast of Sabratha, Libya
- 2017 Hurricane Harvey sets rainfall record (51.88 inches in Cedar Bayou) from a tropical cyclone in continental US, according to US National Weather Service
Event of Interest
2017 US President Donald Trump visits flood affected Texas
Donald Trump
- 2017 Monsoon rains in Mumbai cause chaos closing schools and airports
Event of Interest
2018 John McCain is only the third person to lie in state at the Arizona state capital rotunda in Phoenix
John McCain
- 2018 Germany hands back human remains of Namibian Herero and Nama people murdered during 1904-08 genocide at church service in Berlin
Event of Interest
2018 Russian President Vladimir Putin announces new retirement ages, 60 for women, 65 for men in TV address, amid protests
Vladimir Putin
- 2018 Former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond resigns from the Scottish National Party amid sexual abuse allegatuons
August in History
First Faltering Steps of Jane Eyre
With hope, pride – and some subterfuge – Charlotte Brontë sent her hefty manuscript of Jane Eyre to publishers in London on this day, then crossed her fingers.
August 15, 1847
The 17 Year-Old Witness to the Eruption of Vesuvius
17 year-old Pliny the Younger's account of the eruption of Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii made the event famous long after Pompeii was buried and forgotten.
August 24, 79 AD
How 200 Conquistadors Conquered an Empire of 10 Million
How did a mere 200 Spanish conquistadors capture the Incan Emperor-god Atahualpa, execute him and conquer an entire empire?
August 29, 1533
How Paula Yates Discovered Her Real Father
Controversial television presenter Paula Yates married pop star Bob Geldof on this day. Fate decided she would not remain happy ever after
August 31, 1986