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
Category: Historical Events
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
Historical Events for 10th August 2026
1512 – Battle of Saint-Mathieu (also called the Battle of Brest): an English fleet of 25 ships commanded by Sir Edward Howard and a Franco-Breton fleet of 22 ships commanded by René de Clermont
1885 – Leo Daft opens America’s first commercially operated electric streetcar in Baltimore
1893 – Rudolf Diesel’s prototype internal combustion engine, a single 10-foot iron cylinder with a flywheel at its base, runs on its own power for the first time in Augsburg, Germany
1971 – During the internment round-up operation in West Belfast, the Parachute Regiment kills 11 unarmed civilians in what becomes known as the Ballymurphy Massacre
1985 – Uno Lindström of Sweden juggles a soccer ball 13.11 miles (21.09 km)
1993 – Charlotte Anne Lopez, 16, of Vermont is crowned the 11th Miss Teen USA
1997 – Atlanta Braves sign Greg Maddux to a then-record 5-year, $57.5 million deal
2019 – Monsoon flooding in southern and western India kills at least 150, with 40 dead in Kerala state and 100,000 in emergency relief camps
Historical Events for 9th August 2026
1726 – Netherlands accedes to the Covenant of Hanover, creating an alliance of Great Britain, the Electorate of Hanover, France, and the Kingdom of Prussia united against the Austro-Spanish powers
1936 – Hungarian swimmer Ferenc Csik wins the 100 m freestyle gold medal in 57.6 seconds at the Berlin Olympics, beating Japanese pair Masanori Yusa and Shigeo Arai
1941 – Winston Churchill reaches Newfoundland for talks with Franklin D. Roosevelt
1946 – First time all Major League Baseball games (8) are played at night
1965 – Fire in Titan II silo in Searcy, Arkansas, kills 53 people
1984 – STS 41-D vehicle moves out to the launch pad
1988 – Just one day after 8/8/88, the number 888 pops up as the winning lottery combination in New York
2016 – Chinese weightlifter Deng Wei sets a world record of 147 kg in the clean and jerk and another for a total score of 262 kg to win the women’s 63 kg gold medal at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics
Historical Events for 8th August 2026
1863 – American Civil War: Tennessee’s “military” Governor Andrew Johnson frees his personal slaves, celebrated as a holiday by Tennessee African Americans in the early 20th century
1870 – The Republic of Ploiești, a failed Radical-Liberal uprising against Domnitor Carol I of Romania
1943 – Common Chiefs of Staff meet in Quebec
1960 – Brian Hyland’s recording of “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini”, a novelty pop song written by Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss, hits #1 on the Billboard Hot 100
1975 – As a result of rainfall from Typhoon Nina, the Banqiao Dam in China fails, causing the collapse of almost 6 million buildings and 229,000 deaths
1984 – Future five-time America’s Cup winner Russell Coutts of New Zealand wins the Finn Class sailing gold medal at the Los Angeles Olympics
1988 – US Senior Open Men’s Golf, Medinah CC: Gary Player of South Africa wins by two strokes over New Zealander Bob Charles in an 18-hole playoff, claiming his second consecutive US Senior title
2017 – The Walt Disney Company announces plans to create its own streaming service, cancelling ties with Netflix
Historical Events for 7th August 2026
1760 – Fort Loudoun, Tennessee, surrenders to Cherokee Indians
1864 – Battle of Moorefield, West Virginia: Surprise Union raid kills 400 Confederates and captures 400 horses, badly damaging Confederate cavalry in the Shenandoah Valley
1942 – First American offensive in Pacific in WW2, Guadalcanal, Solomon Island
1954 – Jerome Moross and John Treville Latouche’s “Golden Apple,” adapted from parts of Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” closes at Alvin Theatre, NYC, after 125 performances
1970 – British keyboard playing singer-songwriter Christine McVie (née Perfect) joins rock band Fleetwood Mac
1974 – French Philippe Petit walks a tightrope strung between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City at a height of 1,350 feet (411.5 meters)
1977 – Gary Geld and Peter Udell’s musical “Shenandoah,” based on the film of the same name, closes at the Alvin Theatre, NYC, after 1,050 performances and winning two Tony Awards
1984 – Japan beats US, 6-3 in the final of the Los Angeles Olympic baseball demonstration event