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
1942 – British Prime Minister Winston Churchill travels back to Cairo from Moscow
1992 – Moses Kiptanui of Kenya runs a world 3,000 m record of 7:28.96 in Cologne, Germany
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
2015 – PGA Championship Men’s Golf, Whistling Straits GC: Australian Jason Day wins, setting major championship record of 20-under-par; beats Jordan Spieth by 3 shots
2018 – World’s first floating dairy farm opens in Merwehaven Harbour, Rotterdam, Netherlands, with 40 cows milked by robots
2018 – International Tennis Federation votes to change the format of the Davis Cup to a high prize money, season-ending, 18-team tournament at a neutral site; a 24-team qualifying tournament starts in February 2019
2020 – At least 17 people are killed in an attack on a beach resort in Mogadishu, Somalia, by the al-Shabab group
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 15th August 2025
1483 – Sistine Chapel to Our Lady of the Assumption in Vatican City is consecrated with a Mass by Pope Sixtus IV [some sources cite August 9]
1931 – Roy Wilkins joins the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as Assistant Secretary
1949 – WOTV TV channel 8 in Grand Rapids, MI (NBC) begins broadcasting
1970 – Patricia Palinkas becomes the first woman professional football player (Orlando)
1992 – Colombo ’92 closes in Genoa, Italy
1997 – Dan Wilson hits Seattle Mariners’ 3,000th home run
2013 – 20 people are killed and 200 are injured in an explosion in Beirut
2023 – Young activists win a landmark case, Held v Montana, with a judge ruling that the state of Montana must consider climate change when deciding to approve or renew fossil fuel projects
Historical Events for 14th August 2025
554 – Ravenna becomes the seat of the Byzantine military governor in Italy
1782 – Suriname forbids selling enslaved mothers without their babies
1900 – First electric tram in Netherlands (Leidseplein-Brouwersgracht)
1964 – LA Angels pitcher Bo Belinsky is suspended after a hotel room fight with elderly Los Angeles Times sportswriter Braven Dyer
1965 – Continental Football League plays first games
1967 – Pirate radio station, Wonderful Radio London, closes down
1988 – Detroit beats Sox 18-6 at Fenway, ending Boston’s winning streak at 24
2007 – Coordinated bombings in Yazidi communities in Iraq kill at least 500 people, the second-deadliest terror attack of all time
Historical Events for 13th August 2025
1608 – John Smith’s story of Jamestown’s first days submitted for publication
1892 – US black newspaper “Afro-American” begins publishing from Baltimore
1948 – Hungarian boxer László Papp wins the first of three consecutive Olympic gold medals, defeating British middleweight Johnny Wright on points at the London Games
1954 – 21st NFL Chicago All-Star Game: Detroit 31, All-Stars 6 (93,470 attendees)
1978 – Bomb attack in Beirut kills 175
1988 – Palace of Auburn Hills in Detroit opens
1995 – PGA Championship Men’s Golf, Riviera CC: Steve Elkington of Australia wins his first major title in a playoff with Scotsman Colin Montgomerie
2016 – Jamaican sprinter Elaine Thompson wins the women’s 100 m gold in 10.71 at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics; American Tori Bowie finishes second in 10.83, and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica finishes third in 10.86
Historical Events for 12th August 2025
1905 – King Leopold II opens Antwerp Central Station in Belgium
1914 – France and Great Britain declare war on Austria-Hungary
1960 – USAF Major Robert M. White takes the X-15 to an altitude of 41,600 meters
1977 – For the second consecutive day, Oakland’s Manny Sanguillen foils a no-hit bid
1980 – Warner Bros. Records releases “One-Trick Pony,” the fifth solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Paul Simon; it features the song “Late in the Evening” and is accompanied by a dramatic film of the same name, written by and starring Simon
1990 – 12th Annual Macy’s Tap-o-mania
1994 – Members of the Major League Baseball Players Association go on strike, leading to the cancellation of the World Series for only the second time in MLB history (1904) due to a labor dispute
2005 – Civil unrest is provoked in the Maldives
Historical Events for 11th August 2025
1963 – Kingston Trio are the mystery guests on “What’s My Line?”
1970 – Two Royal Ulster Constabulary officers are killed by the Irish Republican Army when they set off a booby trap bomb planted in a car near Crossmaglen, County Armagh
1973 – The birth of hip-hop: DJ Kool Herc uses two turntables, playing the same record simultaneously to create the “merry-go-round” technique, at a party in the Bronx
1977 – Geoff Boycott scores his 100th first-class century against Australia at Headingley
1978 – Funeral of Pope Paul VI is held in Vatican
1982 – The South African Defence Force (SADF) raids Southern Angola
2011 – Rock group “The Go-Go’s” receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in front of the former nightclub called “The Masque”
2024 – Thousands of people evacuate near the Greek capital of Athens as large wildfires threaten the city after the hottest June and July on record
Historical Events for 10th August 2025
1885 – Leo Daft opens America’s first commercially operated electric streetcar in Baltimore
1920 – Allies recognize Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania
1940 – Dutch Prince Bernhard Fund forms
1942 – General Bernard Montgomery is appointed commander of the British 8th Army in North Africa
1965 – USAF test pilot Joe Engle in the X-15 reaches an altitude of 51.3 miles (82.6 km) and a top speed of 3,550 mph (5,713 km/h) (Mach 5.20)
1969 – Don Sutton breaks his 13-game losing streak to the Cubs with a 4-2 win
1988 – Alan Ayckbourn’s play “Man of the Moment” premieres at Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough
2021 – Forest fires kill 65 people, including 25 soldiers, in Algeria’s Kabylie region during heatwave conditions
Historical Events for 9th August 2025
1855 – Battle of Acapulco during the Mexican Liberal Uprising
1936 – Helen Stephens claims the women’s sprint double at the Berlin Olympics, winning the 100 m and participating as part of the victorious American 4 x 100 m relay team
1976 – Clive Lloyd scores a double century in 120 minutes, WI vs. Glamorgan
1978 – USSR performs an underground nuclear test
1987 – LA Rams beat Dallas Cowboys 28-27 in London (NFL expo)
1992 – XXV Summer Olympic Games close at Estadi Olímpic de Montjuïc, Barcelona, Spain
1992 – Cuban boxer Félix Savón wins the first of three consecutive Olympic heavyweight gold medals when he dominates Nigerian David Izonritei on points at the Barcelona Games
2024 – Passenger plane crashes in the Brazilian city of Vinhedo, killing all 61 people on board on a flight to São Paulo
Historical Events for 8th August 2025
1984 – Carl Lewis wins his third gold medal of the Los Angeles Olympics, joining Kirk Baptiste and Thomas Jefferson in an American sweep of the 200 m
1988 – Rap group N.W.A releases their debut studio album “Straight Outta Compton”
1992 – Spanish center forward Kiko scores twice as the home team wins the Olympic football gold medal with a 3-2 victory over Poland in front of 95,000 at Camp Nou, Barcelona
2008 – XXIX Summer Olympic Games open in Beijing, China
2013 – Retired Washington Post journalist and editor Ben Bradlee is named as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama
2021 – Taliban forces capture three regional Afghan cities, including the key northern city of Kunduz
2022 – Beyoncé’s single “Break My Soul” is her first solo #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in 14 years, the same week her “Renaissance” album reaches No. 1 on Billboard’s 200 chart
2023 – Storm Hans brings widespread destruction to Scandinavia, with Norway warning of its highest rainfall in 25 years
Historical Events for 7th August 2025
1914 – Russia invades East Prussia
1926 – George S. Kaufman and Irving Berlin’s musical “The Cocoanuts,” starring the Marx Brothers, closes at the Lyric Theatre, NYC, after 276 performances and is later adapted as a film
1936 – Twenty-two nations line up as the first basketball competition in the Olympic Games begins in Berlin; Estonia beats France 34-29 in the first game
1944 – Anton de Kom is arrested as a Surinamese resistance fighter
1960 – Students stage kneel-in demonstrations in Atlanta churches
1992 – Taking advantage of six months of training on their hometown Terrassa pitch, Spain wins its first hockey gold medal by beating Germany 2-1 in the women’s final at the Barcelona Olympics
1992 – The Orlando Magic signs NBA No. 1 draft pick Shaquille O’Neal
2021 – Kevin Durant, with 29 points, leads the USA to his third and the team’s fourth consecutive Olympic men’s basketball gold medal with an 87-82 win over France in Tokyo