1945 – Soviet troops occupy Harbin and Mukden
1964 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Economic Opportunity Act, an anti-poverty measure totaling nearly $1 billion
1979 – The East Coast Main Line rail route between England and Scotland is restored with the opening of the Penmanshiel Diversion
1989 – American Janet Evans swims the women’s 800 m freestyle world record of 8:16.22 at the Pan Pacific Championships in Tokyo, Japan
2006 – PGA Championship Men’s Golf, Medinah CC: Tiger Woods wins his 3rd PGA C’ship by 5 strokes from Shaun Micheel
2008 – Spanair Flight 5022 from Madrid to Gran Canaria skids off the runway and crashes at Barajas Airport, killing 146 people in the crash and 8 more afterward. Only 18 people survive
2016 – Star British runner Mo Farah wins the men’s 5000 m in 13:03.30 at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics and wraps up the 5k/10k double, which he also completed in London 2012
2016 – N. K. Jemisin is the first African American author to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel with her work “The Fifth Season”
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 19th August 2026
1768 – Empress Catherine II commissions a new version of Saint Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia
1911 – MLB New York Giants pitcher Christy Mathewson loses against the Cincinnati Reds after 22 consecutive wins against the team
1939 – 37.6 cm of rainfall in Tuckerton, NJ (state record)
1969 – Film adaptation of Arlo Guthrie’s song “Alice’s Restaurant,” directed by Arthur Penn and starring Guthrie, premieres
1979 – Soviet Cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Valery Ryumin return to Earth aboard Soyuz 34 after a record 175 days in space
2001 – German Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher wins the Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring to clinch his fourth F1 World Drivers’ Championship and equal Alain Prost’s record of 51 Grand Prix victories
2013 – 37 pilgrims are killed in a train accident in India
2020 – Golfing dinner termed #GolfGate, appearing to flout COVID-19 restrictions and attended by Irish political figures, prompts two politicians to later resign
Historical Events for 18th August 2026
440 – St Sixtus III ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1612 – Pendle Witch Trial begins with 10 people accused of witchcraft in Lancaster, England; the key witness is a nine-year-old boy
1958 – Verne Gagne defeats Edouard Carpentier in Omaha to become NWA champion
1960 – The first photograph bounces off a satellite between Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Richardson, Texas
1976 – Korean axe murder incident: two US soldiers tasked with cutting down a poplar tree blocking the view of UN observers are killed by North Koreans, claiming it was planted by Kim Il-Sung in the Korean Demilitarized Zone
1986 – WYSP 94.1 FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, begins simulcasting the Howard Stern Radio Show from New York City’s WXRK
1996 – Record 6,654 tap dancers in a single routine at Macy’s Tap-O-mania in New York City
1996 – British Open Women’s Golf, Woburn, Duke’s Course: Emilee Klein wins by 7 strokes ahead of fellow Americans Amy Alcott and Penny Hammel
Historical Events for 17th August 2026
1908 – Projection in Paris of the first animated cartoon, “Fantasmagorie,” created by Émile Cohl
1918 – Turkish troops overthrow Caucasus
1933 – MLB player Lou Gehrig plays his record 1,308th consecutive game
1944 – German field marshal Walter Model replaces Günther von Kluge in Normandy
1951 – Hurricane winds drive six ships ashore in Kingston, Jamaica
1959 – Columbia Records releases “Kind of Blue,” a studio album by American jazz trumpeter and composer Miles Davis, leading a sextet featuring saxophonist John Coltrane and pianist Bill Evans; the work is widely considered a masterpiece and is one of the most influential and best-selling albums of Davis’ long career
1978 – First successful crossing of the Atlantic by balloon is completed by Americans Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman aboard Double Eagle II
1986 – Rioting occurs at a DMC concert at the Long Beach Convention Center in California; 40 people are injured
Historical Events for 16th August 2026
1905 – Mbunga Rebellion occupies German post Ifakara, East Africa
1915 – Kansas City Packers’ Alex Main no-hits Buffalo Blues (Federal League), 5-0
1920 – Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman is hit in the head by NY Yankees pitcher Carl Mays and dies the next day in the only MLB game-related fatality
1928 – Belgian cyclist Georges Ronsse wins men’s road race at UCI Road World Championships in Budapest, Hungary
1971 – Over 8,000 workers go on strike in Derry, Northern Ireland, in protest against the introduction of internment, which allows suspected terrorists to be indefinitely detained without trial
1987 – Astrological Harmonic Convergence – Dawn of a New Age
1997 – The South African soccer team, Bafana Bafana wins against the national team of the Democratic Republic of the Congo at First National Bank stadium, Johannesburg, South Africa
2008 – British sailor Ben Ainslie convincingly wins the Finn class at the Beijing Olympics, earning his third gold medal in as many Games
Historical Events for 15th August 2026
1658 – France, Sweden, Bavaria, Brunswick, Münster, and Hesse-Kassel form the Confederation of the Rhine
1748 – United Lutheran Church in the American colonies is organized
1914 – Japan joins the Allies
1936 – Annibale Frossi scores twice as Italy beats Austria 2-1 in extra time in the football final at the Berlin Olympics
1944 – Operation Dragoon: Allied troops land in Provence
1950 – Rotterdam dock strike begins
1965 – PGA Championship Men’s Golf, Laurel Valley GC: Dave Marr wins his only major title, beating Billy Casper and Jack Nicklaus by 2 strokes
2016 – Anita Włodarczyk of Poland sets a world record of 82.29 m to win the women’s hammer throw gold medal at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics; Zhang Wenxiu (China) wins silver, and Sophie Hitchon (Great Britain) wins bronze
Historical Events for 14th August 2026
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)
1758 – Battle of Zorndorf: Prussia defeats Russia, with thousands killed
1825 – Dutch King William I expels foreign students
1915 – British transport Royal Edward is sunk by a German U-boat, killing 1,000
1932 – Brooklyn Dodgers reliever Johnny Quinn, 49, becomes the oldest pitcher to win an MLB game in a 2-1, 10th-inning victory over the NY Giants at the Polo Grounds
1937 – China declares war on Japan
1981 – George Foster hits his 8th home run into the red seats at Riverfront
2024 – Tropical Storm Ernesto becomes a hurricane, bringing strong winds and rain to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, taking out power supplies
Historical Events for 13th August 2026
1933 – PGA Championship Men’s Golf, Blue Mound CC: Gene Sarazen defeats Willie Goggin, 5 and 4 for 3rd of his 3 PGA C’ship titles; 6th of his 7 majors
1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Japanese forces start the Battle of Shanghai, a three-month conflict involving over one million troops
1951 – Great Britain and Iraq sign a new oil contract
1962 – Bert Campaneris of Daytona Beach (FSL) pitches with both arms and plays all nine positions
1989 – Two hot-air balloons crash at Alice Springs, Australia, killing 13 people
1999 – 32nd San Diego Comic-Con International opens at San Diego Convention Center
2008 – Australian swimmer Stephanie Rice wraps up the medley double at the Beijing Olympics as she swims a world record of 2:08.45 to win the 200 m individual medley gold medal
2016 – American swimmer Michael Phelps ends his career at the Rio Olympics as part of the winning 4 x 100 m medley relay, his record 23rd gold medal
Historical Events for 12th August 2026
1813 – Robert Southey is appointed British Poet Laureate by King George III
1863 – First cargo of lumber leaves Burrard Inlet, Vancouver, BC
1959 – First ship firing of a Polaris missile from Observation Island
1977 – For the second consecutive day, Oakland’s Manny Sanguillen foils a no-hit bid
2007 – Bulk carrier M/V New Flame collides with oil tanker Torm Gertrud at the southernmost tip of Gibraltar and ends up partially submerged
2008 – American super-swimmer Michael Phelps wins his third of eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics when he wins the 200 m freestyle in a world record time of 1:42.96
2015 – Former US President Jimmy Carter reveals that he has cancer
2020 – Yemeni authorities say at least 172 people died in floods caused by torrential rains, which also destroy historic buildings in Sanaa, a UNESCO World Heritage Site
Historical Events for 11th August 2026
117 – Roman army proclaims Hadrian as Roman Emperor in Syria after news reaches them of Trajan’s death
1888 – California Theatre in San Francisco closes, built in 1869, it was replaced by a more modern facility in 1889 (later destroyed in the 1907 earthquake)
1937 – “The Life of Émile Zola,” directed by William Dieterle and starring Paul Muni, premieres in New York (Best Picture 1938)
1949 – Gaston Eyskens forms the Belgian government
1951 – New York Giants (NFL) beat Ottawa Rough Riders (CFL) 38-6 in Ottawa
1971 – Construction begins on the Louisiana Superdome
1990 – Egyptian and Moroccan troops land in Saudi Arabia to prevent an Iraqi invasion
2015 – Japan’s Sendai Nuclear Power Plant restarts the first nuclear reactor since the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster