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                                                                      Aug 23

1305 Scottish patriot William Wallace is executed for high treason by Edward I of England 

at Smithfield, London 

1542 Rabbi Joseph Caro completes his major work, the "Beit Yosef," a voluminous commentary on the "Arba'ah Turim" code 

1924 Mars makes its closest approach to Earth since the 10th century 

1933 First televised boxing match, a six-round exhibition at Broadcasting House in London between middleweights Archie Sexton and Laurie Raiteri, airs on BBC TV 

1942 Last cavalry charge in history takes place during World War II at Isbuschenskij, Russia, when the Italian Savoia Cavalleria charges Soviet infantry 

1942 Battle of Stalingrad: 600 Luftwaffe planes bomb Stalingrad, killing 40,000 people 

1943 Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history, ends after 50 days as the Soviet Union defeats Germany; over 10,000 tanks take part, and nearly 250,000 combatants are killed 

1946 Premiere of "The Big Sleep," directed by Howard Hawks and starring Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe and Lauren Bacall

1994 Jeff Buckley releases his album "Grace," featuring his cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah"

2008 Ethiopian distance runner Kenenisa Bekele wraps up the 5,000/10,000m double at the Beijing Olympics when he takes gold in the 5,000m in an Olympic record 12:57.82

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                                                                    Aug 22

565 Saint Columba reports seeing a monster in Loch Ness 

1485 Battle of Bosworth Field: Henry Tudor's forces defeat English King Richard III during the last battle in the Wars of the Roses. Richard is killed, becoming the last English monarch to die in battle. 

1540 Thomas Cromwell became chief advisor to King Henry VIII and led the hunt for a new royal wife. Unfortunately for him he championed the cause of Anne of Cleves.

1639 Madras (now Chennai), India, is founded by the British East India Company on a sliver of land bought from local Nayak rulers 

1642 English Civil War begins between Royalists and Parliamentarians 

1775 King of Great Britain and Ireland, George III, proclaims the American colonies to be in open rebellion and orders his officials to suppress them

1849 Austria launches pilotless balloons against the Italian city of Venice in the first aerial bombing in history 

1851 The 100 Guineas Cup yacht race is held around the Isle of Wight, the first race of the oldest international sporting competition now known as the America's Cup. In the race, US schooner "America" beats the British cutter "Aurora" by 24 minutes, prompting spectator Queen Victoria to ask who was in second place and the famous reply, "Your majesty, there is no second."

1864 First Geneva Convention adopted in Geneva "for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field" is signed by 12 nation

1932 BBC begins experimental regular television broadcasts

1987 Madonna's single "Who's That Girl" hits #1

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                                                                                     Aug 21

1703 Edirne Incident: Turkish army ousts Sultan Mustafa II, replacing him with his brother Ahmed III, reducing the power of the Sultan 

1772 King Gustav III of Sweden completes a coup d'état by adopting a new constitution and installing himself as an enlightened despot, ending fifty years of parliamentary rule

1888 American inventor William Seward Burroughs patents the adding machine

1911 The Mona Lisa is stolen from the Louvre Museum by Italian decorator Vincenzo Peruggia, recovered in 1913 

1942 Walt Disney's animated movie "Bambi," based on the book by Felix Salten, is released 

1959 Hawaii becomes the 50th state of the United States 

1986 Ian Botham takes his world-record 356th Test cricket wicket against New Zealand at The Oval

1991 Conservative coup in the Soviet Union is crushed by popular resistance led by Boris Yeltsin in three days

2001 "How You Remind Me" single released by Nickelback (Billboard Song of the Year 2002)

2015 First British unmanned drone hits a UK citizen outside a conflict: ISIS fighter Reyaad Khan in Raqqa, Syria 

2020 Korean pop group BTS releases the single "Dynamite," the first video to be watched more than 100 million times in 24 hours on YouTube

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                                                                             Aug 20

1597 First Dutch East India Company ships return from the Far East 

1741 Alaska is first sighted by a Russian expedition led by Danish explorer Vitus Bering 

1882 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" debuts in Moscow

1888 In an epic first-round US men's singles tennis match, Palmer Presbrey takes 80 games to defeat T.S. Tailer, 19-21, 8-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-4 

1905 Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen forms the first chapter of Tongmenghui, a union of secret societies determined to bring down the Qing dynasty

1940 British PM Winston Churchill says of the Royal Air Force, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few" 

1951 12th Venice Film Festival: "Rashomon" directed by Akira Kurosawa wins the Golden Lion1920 American Professional Football Association forms with Jim Thorpe as president and later becomes the National Football League (NFL)

1951 12th Venice Film Festival: "Rashomon" directed by Akira Kurosawa wins the Golden Lion

1968 250,000 Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia at night to suppress the Prague Spring 

1993 Oslo Peace Accords are signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization after secret negotiations in Norway, a public ceremony in Washington, D.C. is held the following month

2000 PGA Championship Men's Golf, Valhalla GC: Tiger Woods wins back-to-back PGA titles after a three-hole playoff with Bob May, becoming the first to win three majors in a calendar year since Ben Hogan in 1953

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                                                                                        Aug 19

43 BC Octavian, later known as Augustus, compels the Roman Senate to elect him consul

1477 When Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, presented his young wife with a diamond ring he began a tradition that has lasted for five and a half centuries.

1661 The world's "most mysterious book," a codex known as the Voynich manuscript and written in an unknown script, is sent by the rector of Charles University in Prague to a Jesuit scholar (now in Yale University's Beinecke Library and still undeciphered) 

1839 Louis Daguerre's daguerreotype photographic process with complete working instructions is published "free to the world" in Paris as a gift from the French government

1900 Start of the first and only Olympic cricket match as Great Britain defeats France by 158 runs in Paris

1942 World War II: Over 4,000 Canadian and British soldiers are killed, wounded, or captured during a raid on Dieppe, France

1950 ABC begins broadcasting Saturday morning kids' shows (Animal Clinic and Acrobat Ranch)

1970 The Chinese community in South Africa is granted "white" status 

1988 Iran and Iraq begin a ceasefire in their eight-year-old war at 11 pm EDT

1991 Conservative members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union attempt to depose Mikhail Gorbachev in a coup d'état [1] www.onthisday.com/russia/conservative_coup.php

2008 Lady Gaga's debut album, "The Fame," is released by Interscope Records (Grammy Award for Best Electronic/Dance Album 2010)

2010 Operation Iraqi Freedom winds down as the last of the United States Brigade Combat Teams cross the border into Kuwait [1] www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna38744453

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Aug 18

1926 First televised weather map is broadcast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington, DC

1590 Governor of Roanoke Island colony John White returns from England to find no trace of the colonists he left there three years earlier

1737 First public admission to the Salon de Paris art exhibition at the Louvre in Paris

1838 United States Exploring Expedition headed by Charles Wilkes departs for the Pacific Ocean and Antarctica

1886 French astronomer Pierre Janssen discovers helium in the solar spectrum during an eclipse

1919 Anti-Cigarette League of America forms in Chicago, Illinois

1920 State Representative Harry T. Burn (24) casts the deciding vote in Tennessee's and thus America's ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, allowing women's suffrage after reading a letter from his mother

1940 Battle of Britain: Air battle known as "The Hardest Day" occurs; the Luftwaffe loses approximately 69 aircraft and the RAF 68 in one of the largest ever air battles

1956 Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel" reach #1 on the charts, staying for 11 weeks (a record for a single release) 

2008 Belarusian weightlifter Andrei Aramnau breaks three world records in the snatch, clean and jerk, and total on his way to winning the men's 105 kg gold medal at the Beijing Olympics

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                                                                      Aug 17

1876 Richard Wagner's opera "Götterdämmerung" (Twilight of the Gods) premieres in Bayreuth

1903 Joseph Pulitzer donates $1 million to Columbia University and begins the Pulitzer Prizes in the United States

1908 Projection in Paris of the first animated cartoon, "Fantasmagorie," created by Émile Cohl 

       1933 MLB player Lou Gehrig plays his record 1,308th consecutive game

1945 Korea is divided into North and South Korea along the 38th parallel

1945 Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta declare Indonesia (formerly the Dutch East Indies) independent from the Netherlands

1947 The Radcliffe Line is revealed, setting the border between Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan

1979 "Monty Python's Life of Brian" directed by Terry Jones, starring Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, and John Cleese, and funded by George Harrison's HandMade Films, premieres in US theaters

                                                  

1998 Monica Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony he had an "improper physical relationship" with the intern and on the same day admits before the nation he "misled people" about the relationship

Today in History - onthisday.com

 

Aug 16

1513 Battle of the Spurs at Guinegate (now Enguinegatte): King Henry VIII of England and Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I defeat French forces, capturing the town and routing the French cavalry

1743 Champion of England titleholder Jack Broughton publishes "Rules of the Ring," the earliest boxing code

1858 Britain's Queen Victoria telegraphs US President James Buchanan for the first time via transatlantic telegraph cable; he replies, "It is a triumph more glorious, because far more useful to mankind, than was ever won by conqueror on the field of battle"

1896 Gold is first discovered in the Klondike at Bonanza Creek in Yukon, Canada, by George Carmack

1930 First British Empire Games open in Hamilton, Canada

1930 The first color sound cartoon "Fiddlesticks" is released by Ub Iwerks (formerly of Walt Disney Studios)

1945 The last Chinese Emperor and ruler of the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo, Puyi, is captured by Soviet troops while preparing to board a plane to escape to Japan

1946 Direct Action Day: Widespread riots erupt in Calcutta between Muslims and Hindus over whether Pakistan should be a separate state, killing over 4,000 and leaving 100,000 homeless

1974 American punk rock band "The Ramones" debut in concert at CBGB in New York City

1989 A solar flare from the Sun creates a geomagnetic storm that affects microchips, leading to a halt in all trading on Toronto's stock exchange

2008 Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt sets a new world record of 9.69 seconds to win the 100 m gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics

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                                                                                  Aug 15

1461 Empire of Trebizond surrenders to forces of Sultan Mehmed II, the last remnant of the Byzantine Empire to fall; Emperor David is exiled and later executed

1483 Sistine Chapel to Our Lady of the Assumption in Vatican City is consecrated with a Mass by Pope Sixtus IV

1620 The Mayflower sets sail from Southampton, England, with 102 Pilgrims bound for the New World

1851 Second US National Women's Rights Convention convenes in Brinley Hall, Worcester, Massachusetts

1900 Chinese Empress Dowager Cixi, her family, and court retainers flee Peking for Xi'an as foreign troops move through the capital in an attempt to quell the Boxer Rebellion

New Zealand's All Blacks play their first rugby test match against Australia's Wallabies at the Sydney Cricket Ground, the All Blacks win 22-3

1918 "The Sinking of the Lusitania" by Winsor McCay is produced; at 12 minutes long, it is the longest work of animation at that time

1939 The Wizard of Oz, an American musical fantasy film adaptation of L. Frank Baum's book, premieres at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood; directed by Victor Fleming and King Vidor with a cast featuring Judy Garland (Dorothy), Ray Bolger (Scarecrow), Jack Haley (Tin Man), Bert Lahr (Cowardly Lion), Frank Morgan (Wizard), Billie Burke (Glinda), and Margaret Hamilton (Wicked Witch); songs by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg

1947 India gains independence from the United Kingdom and remains a dominion until 1950

1969 Woodstock Festival opens in Bethel, New York, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm; performers include Richie Havens, Tim Hardin, Ravi Shankar, Melanie, Arlo Guthrie, and Joan Baez

1998 Omagh bombing in Northern Ireland, the worst terrorist incident of The Troubles, kills 29 people and injures about 220

2021 Afghan President Ashraf Ghani flees the country as Taliban forces enter the capital Kabul and take control

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                                                                  August 14th

1040 King Duncan I of Scotland is killed in battle against his first cousin and rival Macbeth, who succeeds him as king (not murdered in his sleep as in Shakespeare's play)

1281 During Kublai Khan's second Mongol invasion of Japan, his invading Chinese fleet of 3,500 vessels disappears in a typhoon near the Japanese coast 

1842 US Army Colonel Worth declares the Second Seminole War over after nearly seven years; over 3,000 surviving members of the Seminole Nation are forcibly relocated from Florida to Oklahoma, with only about 300 permitted to remain 

1901 First claimed powered flight by Gustave Whitehead in his No. 21 aircraft near Bridgeport, Connecticut 

1909 Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana, home of the Indy 500, hosts its first motorized event, a series of motorcycle races

1936 America's Last Public Hanging The last man to be publicly hanged in the United States met his fate on this day in history. It was a squalid affair watched by about 10,000 people. 

1938 BBC's first feature film on TV (The Student of Prague)

1945 V-J Day, the Empire of Japan surrenders unconditionally to the Allies, ending World War II (August 15 in Japan and other countries depending on the time zone)

1947 Pakistan gains independence from the United Kingdom

1969 British Army deploys on the streets of Northern Ireland, beginning Operation Banner

1980 17,000 workers strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland, beginning the Solidarity movement

1987 Oakland's Mark McGwire sets the rookie home run record at 39 en route to 49

1995 "Battle of Brit Pop" rival bands Oasis (Roll with It) and Blur (Country House) release singles on the same day