1583 – Sinking of the English ship Squirrel off the Azores with explorer and founder of Newfoundland, Humphrey Gilbert, on board
1767 – Colegio de San Ignacio de Loyola Vizcaínas – the oldest continuously operating educational institution in Mexico, opens for the education of girls and women in Mexico City
1914 – First fully mechanized unit in the British Army created – the Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade (WWI)
1915 – Association for the Study of Negro Life and History formed in Chicago by Carter G. Woodson and others. Now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.
1932 – Steamboat SS Observation explodes in NYC East River with 71 killed
1972 – Connection found between Mammoth Cave Ridge and Flint cave systems in Kentucky, joining 144 miles of passages – making it the world’s longest known cave system (later mapped at 420 miles)
1978 – 3rd game of Boston Massacre; NY Yankees beat Red Sox, 7-0
1983 – Challenger returns to Kennedy Space Center via Sheppard AFB, Texas
2000 – US Open Women’s Tennis: Venus Williams wins her first US title; beats fellow American Lindsay Davenport 6-4, 7-5
2013 – 44 people are killed and 45 are injured after a bus crashes into a ravine in Northern Guatemala
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 1st September 2024
1869 – Construction begins on the Grand Central Depot for Cornelius Vanderbilt’s New York and Harlem Railroad (later replaced by Grand Central Station, and then by Grand Central Terminal)
1874 – Sydney General Post Office opens in Australia
1939 – In the “scoop of the century,” Telegraph journalist Clare Hollingworth becomes the first to report the outbreak of World War II
1945 – Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Vince DiMaggio smashes his 4th grand slam of season, tying NL record, in an 8-3 win v Boston Braves
1953 – WTCN (now KARE) TV channel 11 in Minneapolis-St Paul, MN (MET) begins
1953 – Fokker begins building F-27 Fokker Friendship
1976 – The Meadowlands Race Track opens in East Rutherford, New Jersey
1997 – Jerry Lewis’ 32nd Muscular Dystrophy telethon raises $50,500,000
2012 – Two suicide bombings kill 12 people and wound 50 in a NATO base in Afghanistan’s Sayed Abad district
2019 – German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier asks for Polish forgiveness for WWII at 80 year commemoration in Pilsudski Square, Warsaw
Historical Events for 30th August 2024
1590 – Tokugawa Ieyasu enters Edo Castle (Traditional Japanese date: August 1, 1590)
1799 – Batavian fleet surrenders to British navy during Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland
1890 – President Benjamin Harrison signed the first U.S. law requiring inspection of meat products
1906 – NY Highlander Joe Doyle debuts pitching back-to-back shut-outs
1932 – Hermann Goering elected President of the German Reichstag
1933 – Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar forms secret police (PIDE)
1951 – US and Philippines sign mutual defense pact
1986 – 43rd Venice Film Festival: “Le rayon vert” directed by Eric Rohmer wins Golden Lion
2012 – A blast in the Xiaojiawan coal mine, China, kills 26 miners with 21 missing
2013 – 15 people are killed by a liquid ammonia leak at a cold storage plant in Shanghai, China
Historical Events for 28th August 2024
1830 – 1st American built locomotive, “Tom Thumb” races a horse-drawn car from Stockton and Stokes stagecoach company from Baltimore to Ellicott Mills. Let history record that due to mechanical problems the horse won!
1937 – Toyota Motors becomes an independent company
1964 – Race riot in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania sparked by police reaction to domestic dispute fueled traffic tie-up; riot and looting continues for 3 days, with 2 killed, hundreds injured and $4M of damage in the city’s North Philadelphia neighborhood
1970 – “I’ll Be There” single by The Jackson 5 is released (Billboard Song of the Year 1970)
1972 – American 4 x 100m freestyle relay team of David Edgar, John Murphy, John Heidenreich and Mark Spitz swim a world record 3:26.42 to beat Soviet Union for the gold medal at the Munich Olympics
1986 – Bolivia president Victor Paz Estensoro calls state of siege
1991 – Lexington Ave IRT subway train derails at Union Square, 5 die
1994 – Canadian Open Women’s Golf (du Maurier Classic), Ottawa Hunt GC: Martha Nause wins by 1 from Michelle Mcgann
1997 – Belgian amusement park riders were stuck upside down for 90 minutes
2004 – Led by San Antonio Spurs shooting guard Manu Ginóbili Argentina beats Italy 84-69 for the Olympic basketball gold medal in Athens; star-studded US team takes bronze
Historical Events for 27th August 2024
1569 – Pope Pius names Cosimo I de Medici as grand duke of Tuscany
1828 – Uruguay gains independence during Brazil-Argentina peace talks
1902 – US National Championship Men’s Tennis, Newport, RI: Defending champion William Larned beats Englishman R.F. Doherty 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 8-6
1932 – 200,000 English textile workers strike
1955 – Sandy Koufax fans 14 Reds, both teams combine for record 23 strikeouts
1965 – The Beatles spend an evening with Elvis Presley, at his Los Angeles, California home
1979 – Warrenpoint ambush: 18 British Army soldiers killed when Provisional IRA explode two roadside bombs as a British convoy passes Narrow Water Castle
2004 – German kayaker Birgit Fischer wins gold in K-4 500m and silver in K-2 500m in Athens; first woman in any sport to win gold medals at 6 different Olympics, gold 24 years apart, and 1st person to win 2 or more medals in 5 different Games
2013 – “Gravity”, directed and co-written by Alfonso Cuarón and starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney premieres at the Venice Film Festival
2015 – Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos names top Supreme Court judge, Vassiliki Thanou caretaker Prime Minister – Greece’s 1st female Prime Minister
Historical Events for 26th August 2024
1748 – The first Lutheran denomination in North America, the Pennsylvania Ministerium, is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1846 – Felix Mendelssohn’s oratorio “Elijah” premieres at the Birmingham Festival in England
1937 – Pumping to build Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay is finished
1961 – Official International Hockey Hall of Fame opens in Toronto
1970 – Minister of Home Affairs Robert Porter resigns from the Stormont government (North Ireland parliament)
1980 – Pete Comita replaces Tom Peterson as bassist of American rock band Cheap Trick
1985 – French government denies knowledge of bombing of the Greenpeace flagship the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland New Zealand
1997 – Beni-Ali massacre in Algeria; 60-100 people killed
2014 – Israel and Hamas accept another ceasefire
2019 – Meeting of the G7 agrees on $20 million aid package to fight fires in the Amazon in Biarritz
Historical Events for 25th August 2024
1922 – Cubs beat Phillies 26-23 in highest scoring major-league game
1940 – First British night bombing of Germany (Berlin)
1944 – US Army XII Corps reaches Troyes, France
1960 – AFL begins placing players names on back of their jerseys
1962 – USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1979 – Somali adopts constitution
1988 – Challenger Center opens its classroom doors in Houston
1991 – Carl Lewis runs 100m in a world record 9.86 seconds
2014 – 66th Primetime Emmy Awards hosted by Seth Meyers broadcast on NBC
2017 – President Donald Trump grants presidential pardon to Joe Arpaio, who had been convicted of contempt of court for racial profiling
Historical Events for 24th August 2024
1215 – Pope Innocent III declares the Magna Carta invalid
1217 – Battle of South Foreland: English fleet beats France
1349 – Black Death Massacre: 6,000 Jews, blamed for spreading the Bubonic Plague, are killed in Mainz, Electorate of Mainz; part of a wave of pogroms across Western Europe
1981 – Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 yrs to life for John Lennon’s murder
1991 – Silky Stallone, wins the Cane Pace at Yonkers Raceway
1993 – Padres scores 14 in 1st vs Cardinals
2008 – Dániel Varga and Péter Biros score 3 goals each as Hungary wins the men’s water polo gold medal at the Beijing Olympics; third consecutive Olympic gold medal
2014 – Nurse William Pooley flies back to the UK for emergency treatment after contracting Ebola virus after attempting to treat patients in Sierra Leone
2019 – US adventurer Victor Vescovo is the first person to visit the deepest point of every ocean when he reaches Molloy Hole, in the Arctic
2021 – Beyoncé becomes first black woman and third person to wear the Tiffany Diamond in an advertising campaign for the company alongside her husband Jay-Z
Historical Events for 23rd August 2024
1566 – Beeldenstorm reaches Amsterdam
1919 – “Gasoline Alley” cartoon strip premieres in Chicago Tribune
1920 – American swimmer Warren Kealoha wins first of 2 consecutive Olympic gold medals in the 100m backstroke, beating teammate Ray Kegeris at the Antwerp Games
1944 – Sammellager Drancy freed
1948 – World Council of Churches formed by 147 churches from 44 countries
1954 – First flight of the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft.
1970 – Roberto Clemente compiles his record 2nd straight 5-hit game
1975 – Philip Kapleau conducts 1st jukai ceremony in Poland
1979 – Iranian army opens offensive against Kurds
2004 – Winning pitcher Lisa Fernadez (4-0) leads the US to the softball gold medal at the Athens Olympics, beating Australia 5-1
Historical Events for 22nd August 2024
1572 – Failed assassination on Gaspard de Coligny, a French nobleman and admiral, a Huguenot leader in the French Wars of Religion (killed 2 days later)
1914 – German troops execute 384 inhabitants of Tamines, Belgium
1939 – Dutch border guards take positions for German invasion
1952 – The penal colony on Devil’s Island is permanently closed.
1954 – WPTV TV channel 5 in Palm Beach, FL (NBC) begins broadcasting
1971 – Approximately 130 non-Unionist councillors announce their withdrawal from participation on district councils across Northern Ireland in protest against Internment (allowing suspected terrorists to be indefinitely detained without trial)
1979 – 200 black leaders meet in NY to support Andrew Young
1980 – Leaders of Port Elizabeth’s Black secondary school children in South Africa decided to end a four month boycott of classes
1993 – “In the Summer House” closes at Beaumont Theater NYC after 25 performances
2018 – Forbes say George Clooney made more money in a single year ($239 million) than any actor ever ($239m), due to sale of alcohol company, followed by Dwayne Johnson ($124m)