1534 – Turkish admiral Chaireddin “Barbarossa” occupies Tunis
1619 – Slavery begins in America: 1st known African Americans (approx. 20) land at Point Comfort (Fort Monroe), Virginia before being sold or traded into servitude
1648 – Battle of Lens: French Duc d’Enghien defeats Spaniards
1795 – Joseph Haydn returns to Vienna from England
1913 – 1st pilot to parachute from an aircraft (Adolphe Pégoud, France)
1962 – USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1974 – Nelson Rockefeller is selected as US Vice President by President Gerald Ford
1980 – UN Security Council condemns (14-0, US abstains) Israeli declaration that all of Jerusalem is its capital
1998 – The Supreme Court of Canada rules that Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government’s approval.
2018 – Polish immigrant and former volunteer Nazi guard Jakiw Palij (95) is deported from the US in New York to Germany
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 19th August 2024
1914 – Harris Theater (Candler, Coan and Harris) opens at 226 W 42nd St NYC
1936 – Trial against Ljev Kamenev and Grigori Zinovjev because of “Trotskyism” opens in Moscow
1958 – NAACP Youth Council begin sit-in at “whites-only” lunch counter at Katz Drug Store in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
1970 – The Chinese Community in South Africa is granted ‘White’ status
1974 – RCA records releases “Pussy Cats”, the tenth album by American singer Harry Nilsson in the US; album was produced by John Lennon and Nilsson worked through a serious vocal chord injury which diminished his vaunted range
1986 – Car bomb kills 20 in Tehran, Iran
2001 – Canadian Open Women’s Golf, Angus Glen GC: Annika Sörenstam wins by 2 from Kelly Robbins
2012 – Plane crash in mountainous region of Talodi, Sudan kills 32, including several government officials and staff, enroute to Eid al-Fitr festival marking end Muslim holy month of Ramadan; crash blamed on bad weather conditions
2013 – 24 Egyptian policemen are killed in an attack in Rafah
2013 – 91 people are killed by floods across China
Historical Events for 18th August 2024
1541 – A Portuguese ship drifts ashore in the ancient Japanese province of Higo (modern day Kumamoto Prefecture). (Traditional Japanese date: July 27, 1541)
1700 – Swedish, English and Dutch army lands on Seeland, Denmark
1917 – The Queen’s Hospital opens to provide pioneering plastic surgery for WWI soldiers, led by Harold Gillies in Sidcup, England
1917 – A Great Fire in Thessaloniki, Greece destroys 32% of the city leaving 70,000 individuals homeless.
1937 – 1st FM radio construction permit issued (W1X0J (WGTR) in Boston MA)
1943 – Otto Skorzeny’s Heinkel-111 shot down at Sardinia
1981 – Jerry Lewis appears on “Donahue” to defend Telethons
1983 – USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1983 – Hurricane Alicia battered Houston and Galveston, Texas
1984 – Triangle Oil Corp, above-ground storage tank at Jacksonville Fla, spills 2.5 m gallons of oil burned after lightning sparked a fire
Historical Events for 17th August 2024
1577 – Peace of Bergerac: Political rights for Huguenots
1836 – British parliament accepts registration of births, marriages and deaths
1894 – Phillies get 36 hits, Sam Thompson hits for the cycle, beating Louisville 29-4
1943 – US 8th Air Force loses 60 B-17s during attack on Schweinfurt and Regensburg
1980 – “Blackstone” closes at Majestic Theater NYC after 104 performances
1988 – NYC 1st case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (9-year-old Bronx boy)
2008 – China wins its 33rd gold medal of the Beijing Olympics by beating Singapore in the table tennis women’s team event; most successful Olympiad ever for China; wins all 10 singles and all 5 doubles matches
2008 – Jamaica dominates the 100m at the Beijing Olympics with Shelly-Ann Fraser taking the gold medal in 10.78; her teammates Sherone Simpson and Kerron Stewart dead-heat for silver in 10.98
2021 – Joel Embiid signs a four-year, $196 million NBA extension with the 76ers
2022 – Suicide explosion in Afghan mosque in Kabul kills 21 worshippers and injures 33
Historical Events for 16th August 2024
1913 – Tōhoku Imperial University of Japan (modern day Tōhoku University) admits its first female students.
1960 – Republic of Congo (Zaire, Dem Rep of Congo) forms
1966 – The Beatles in concert at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; their second and final show in the city
1969 – V.V. Giri is elected the fourth President of India
1972 – King of Morocco Hassan II’s Boeing 727 is attacked and shot at by six F-5 military jets during a failed coup attempt by General Mohamed Oufkir. Reportedly, King Hassan grabbed the radio and told the rebel pilots “Stop firing! The tyrant is dead!” fooling the pilots to break off the attack.
1974 – American punk rock band “The Ramones” concert debut at CBGB’s in New York City
1975 – British singer Peter Gabriel announces his departure from the rock group Genesis
1980 – British rock keyboardist Jools Holland quits band Squeeze to pursue a solo career
1984 – Sunken liner Andrea Doria’s safe opened
1987 – Northwest Airlines 255 plane crashes in Detroit, 156 die (1 lives)
Historical Events for 15th August 2024
636 – Beginning of the five-day decisive Battle at Yarmuk: Muslim forces defeat the Byzantine army to take control of Syria for the first time
1519 – Panama City founded by Spanish conquistador Pedro Arias Dávila
1865 – Battle of Lone Jack, Missouri: fierce fighting between Union soldiers and Confederate forces prompted by bushwacker attacks destroys town of Lone Jack
1876 – US law removes Indians from Black Hills after gold find
1934 – US ends occupation of Haiti after 19 years; started after the 1915 assassination of Haiti’s president
1936 – Annibale Frossi scores twice as Italy beats Austria 2-1 in extra time in the soccer final at the Berlin Olympics
1948 – US Open Women’s Golf, Atlantic City CC: Babe Didrikson-Zaharias wins by 8 strokes from Betty Hicks
1974 – Hurricane and floods ravage Bangladesh, 4,000 killed
1990 – Mark McGwire is 1st to hit 30 HRs in each of his 1st 4 seasons
2008 – Despite China winning the women’s gymnastics team all-round gold medal at the Beijing Olympics, Americans Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson go 1-2 in the individual all-round
Historical Events for 14th August 2024
1597 – Cornelis de Houtman’s Dutch fleet arrives back in Holland, the 1st Dutch visit to Java
1756 – French capture Fort Oswego, NY
1816 – Great Britain annexes Tristan da Cunha
1862 – Abraham Lincoln receives the first group of African Americans to confer with a US president
1901 – SS Islander hits iceberg near Alaska and sinks killing 70
1936 – The Berlin Olympics rowing competition concludes with Germany winning 5 of 7 gold medals, although the United States wins the coveted eights gold
1944 – British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives at Corsica
1971 – Cards Bob Gibson, 35, no-hits Pirates, 11-0
1975 – King of Norway Olav V opens Svalbard Airport near Longyearbyen, the northernmost airport in the world with scheduled public flights
2020 – Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda breaks Ethiopian legend Kenenisa Bekele’s 16-year-old 5,000m world record with a run of 12:35.36 at the Diamond League meet in Monaco
Historical Events for 13th August 2024
1516 – The Treaty of Noyon between France and Spain is signed. Francis recognises Charles’s claim to Naples, and Charles recognises Francis’s claim to Milan.
1920 – US Open Men’s Golf, Inverness GC: Isle of Jersey native Ted Ray pars the 18th, giving him a 1-stroke win over runners-up Harry Vardon, Jock Hutchison, Leo Diegel and Jack Burke Sr
1941 – Red army evacuates Smolensk, Russia, as the German army advances
1970 – Pamphlet bombs which scatter revolutionary African National Congress propaganda leaflets explode in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and Port Elizabeth, South Africa
1999 – 32nd San Diego Comic-Con International opens at San Diego Convention Center
2004 – 156 Congolese Tutsi refugees massacred at the Gatumba refugee camp in Burundi
2006 – Canadian Open Women’s Golf, London Hunt CC: Christie Kerr wins by 1 shot from Angela Stanford
2015 – US Government formally returns to France Picasso’s painting La Coiffeuse, stolen from Paris’ National Museum of Modern Art in 2001
2016 – Jamaican sprinter Elaine Thompson wins blue ribband women’s 100m gold in 10.71 at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics; American Tori Bowie second in 10.83 and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica 3rd 10.86
2017 – Gunmen kill at least 18 at a cafe in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Islamic extremists blamed
Historical Events for 12th August 2024
1793 – The Rhône départment is created when the former département of Rhône-et-Loire was split into two: Rhône and Loire (Lêre).
1896 – Willem II soccer team forms in Tilburg
1901 – Boer General Kritzinger driven out of Cape colony
1944 – Pipeline under ocean (Pluto) begins operating
1955 – WPBT TV channel 2 in Miami, FL (PBS) begins broadcasting
1977 – Space shuttle Enterprise makes 1st atmospheric test flight
1990 – Iraqi President Saddam Hussein says he is ready to resolve Gulf crisis if Israel withdraws from occupied territories
2007 – Bulk carrier M/V New Flame collides with oil tanker Torm Gertrud at the southernmost tip of Gibraltar, ending up partially submerged.
2007 – PGA Championship Men’s Golf, Southern Hills CC: Defending champion Tiger Woods wins his 4th PGA C’ship by 2 shots from Woody Austin
2022 – British author Salman Rushdie attacked and repeatedly stabbed on stage prior to giving a lecture at Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York
Historical Events for 11th August 2024
1522 – Uprising of adel/burgerij in Austria fails
1919 – Weimar Republic begins in Germany
1940 – German air raid on British ports Portland and Weymouth
1974 – PGA Championship Men’s Golf, Tanglewood Park: Lee Trevino wins the first of his 2 PGA C’ships, 1 stroke ahead of defending champion Jack Nicklaus
1982 – The South African Defence Force (SADF) raids Southern Angola
1994 – João Bernardo “Nino” Vieira, elected President of Guinea-Bissau
2003 – A heat wave in Paris results in temperatures rising to 112°F (44° C), leaving about 144 people dead.
2008 – The US 4 x 100m freestyle replay team of Michael Phelps, Garrett Weber-Gale, Cullen Jones and Jason Lezak beats France by 8 seconds to win gold and smash world record at the Beijing Olympics
2016 – American super-swimmer Michael Phelps wins men’s 200m individual medley in 1:54.66 at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics; 3rd athlete and 1st swimmer to win 4 consecutive Olympic gold medals in one event
2021 – Torrential rains cause flash flooding in Turkey’s northwestern provinces of Kastamonu, Sinop and Barti, killing at least 77 with more missing