1399 – Battle at Worskla: Tataren beat Russians and Litouwers
1949 – 6.4 Earthquake strikes Tungurahua Province, Ecuador, killing 5,000 people
1959 – 42.4 cm rainfall in Decatur Co, Iowa (state record)
1966 – West Indies cricket captain Garfield Sobers scores 174 including a century between lunch and tea to set up a 4th Test win v England at Headingley
1969 – Mariner 7 flies past Mars
1986 – It’s revealed Andrew Wyeth of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, had secretly created 240 drawings and paintings of his neighbor Helga Testorf
1988 – American politician Mario Biaggi (Rep-D-NY) convicted of racketeering resigns his seat
1989 – General elections are held in Nicaragua with the Sandinista Front winning a majority.
1995 – 5th Athletics World Championships open at Gothenburg, Sweden
2021 – New Zealand canoeist Lisa Carrington wins her third Olympic gold medal of the Tokyo Games by winning K-1 500m; 5th career gold for Carrington
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 4th August 2023
1666 – St James’ Day naval battle is an English victory against the Dutch during Second Anglo-Dutch War off the Kent coast
1855 – John Bartlett publishes “Familiar Quotations”
1948 – Hungary’s Olga Gyarmati wins the first ever Olympic women’s long jump competition at the London Games
1954 – Boscombe Down 1st flight of supersonic P-1 Lightning
1974 – Crawford-Butler Act allows Puerto Ricans to elect own governor
1976 – USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
1983 – Danielle Steel’s romance novel “Thurston House” is published
1993 – Rwandian Hutus and Tutsis sign peace treaty in Arusha, Tanzania
2019 – British Open Women’s Golf, Woburn GC: Hinako Shibuno of Japan wins her maiden major title in her first LPGA event; beats American Lizette Salas by 1 stroke
2021 – Largest wildfire in California so far in 2021, the Dixie Fire at 320,000 acres, destroys the gold rush town of Greenville
Historical Events for 3rd August 2023
1880 – American Canoe Association founded at Lake George, NY, first Commodore William L. Alden
1914 – British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey famously remarks “The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time.”
1940 – Lithuanian SSR is accepted into USSR
1944 – Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp gases 4,000 gypsies
1949 – Basketball Association of America (BAA) and National Basketball League (NBL) merge to form National Basketball Association (NBA), Maurice Podoloff elected head of new league
1975 – Poland and West Germany reach accord about returning ethnic Germans
1979 – Fastest jai-alai shot (188 mph), Jose Arieto at Newport Jai Alai, Rhode Island
1998 – The Oval stages first competitive cricket match played under floodlights in London when home team Surrey loses to Sussex by 8 wickets in the day/night 40-over fixture
1998 – Irish band Boyzone release their best-selling single “No Matter What” composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman
2000 – South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Amnesty Committee grants amnesty to Curnick Ndlovu, the KwaZulu-Natal leader of the African National Congress and United Democratic Front, for committing sabotage during December 1961 and June 1963 near Durban
Historical Events for 2nd August 2023
1782 – George Washington creates Honorary Badge of Distinction
1798 – Battle of the Nile: British Royal Navy under Admiral Horatio Nelson further decimates the French fleet
1858 – 1st mailboxes installed in Boston and NYC streets
1892 – George A. Wheeler is granted a US patent for a prototype of the escalator
1942 – 250 Dutch Catholic Jews arrested, transported to Amersfoort camp
1979 – MLB New York Mets purchase contract of outfielder José Cardenal from Philadelphia Phillies between games of a double-header between the two teams
1980 – Fascist bomb attack on Bologna Italy train station, 86 killed
2008 – “Breaking Dawn”, 4th book in Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight Saga” is published by Little Brown at midnight with a print run of 3.7 million copies
2013 – Carl Icahn sues computer giant Dell in an attempt to derail a buyout bid by the CEO, Michael Dell
2020 – Islamic State stages a jail break at a prison in Afghan city of Jalalabad, placing bombs at its entrance, results in 20 hr gunfight, 29 deaths and over 300 prisoners at large
Historical Events for 1st August 2023
1720 – South Sea bubble reaches a frenzy in London as the stock price of the South Sea Company peaks at £1,000, collapses soon after and falls to £124 by December
1794 – Whiskey Rebellion begins in western Pennsylvania
1852 – San Francisco Methodists establish 1st black church, Zion Methodist
1870 – Irish Land Act gives rights to tenants of landlords in Ireland
1907 – First Scout camp opens on Brownsea Island, in Poole Harbour, Dorset
1933 – NY’s future Hall of Fame pitcher Carl Hubbell sets MLB record for consecutive scoreless innings at 45 1/3 as Giants lose 3-1 v Boston Braves
1970 – Future Hall of Fame outfielder Willie Stargell smacks 3 doubles and 2 homers in a 20-10 Pirates win v Braves at Atlanta Stadium
1971 – “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour” debuts on CBS-TV, with comic actor and singer Jimmy Durante as guest
1977 – San Francisco Giants 1st baseman Willie McCovey hits NL record 18th MLB career grand slam
1985 – Emmy 12th Daytime Award presentation – Susan Lucci loses for 6th time
Historical Events for 31st July 2023
1794 – All Jacobijnse clubs together in Haarlem
1901 – Abraham Kuyper becomes premier of Netherlands
1922 – 18-year-old Ralph Samuelson rides world’s 1st water skis (Minnesota)
1932 – 26th Tour de France: French cyclist André Leducq wins after tallying 6 stage victories; his second Tour triumph (1930)
1954 – Milwaukee first baseman Joe Adcock becomes only the 3rd player in 20th century to hit 4 HRs in 9-inning game (Lou Gehrig and Gil Hodges) in 15-7 Braves’ win over Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field; MLB record 18 total bases
1964 – US Ranger 7 takes 4,316 pictures before crashing on Moon
1964 – American glider pilot Al Parker glides 644 miles without a motor
1965 – Cigarette advertising banned on British TV
1988 – Miami Dolphins beat San Francisco 49ers, 27-21 in the American Bowl at London’s Wembley Stadium
1989 – MLB Minnesota Twins trade AL Cy Young Award winner Frank Viola to New York Mets
Historical Events for 30th July 2023
1809 – British armed force of 39,000 lands in Walcheren
1870 – The Republic of Klipdrift is proclaimed by Transvaal President Andries Pretorius after the discovery of diamonds in South Africa in 1866 resulted in a flood of treasure hunters; ownership of the diamond fields was contested by the Boer republics
1932 – X Summer Olympic Games open in Los Angeles, USA
1954 – 5th British Empire Games and Commonwealth Games open in Vancouver, Canada
1966 – FIFA World Cup Final, Wembley Stadium, London, England: Striker Geoff Hurst scores a hat trick as England beats West Germany, 4-2 after extra time
1975 – Simon Gray’s “Otherwise Engaged” premieres in London
2012 – Indian power grid failure leaves over 300 million without electricity
2017 – Hackers reveal they have stolen data from HBO, including episodes and scripts of Games of Thrones
2017 – Venezuelan voting for a new assembly disrupted by violent protests, at least 3 people killed
2017 – Russian President Vladimir Putin announces American diplomats in Russia cut by 755 in response to American sanctions
Historical Events for 29th July 2023
1773 – 1st schoolhouse west of Allegheny Mountains completed, Schoenbrunn, Ohio
1923 – Albert Einstein speaks on pacifism in Berlin
1944 – Frank McCormick (Reds) HR off Ace Adams (Giants) in both games of DH
1953 – US bomber shot down by Soviet Air Defence Forces in the Sea of Japan, north of Vladivostok
1954 – Publication of “Fellowship of the Ring” 1st volume of “Lord of the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien by George Allen and Unwin in London
1955 – Smokey Burgess hits 3 HRs to help Pirates beat Reds 16-5
1965 – Beatles movie “Help” has Royal World Premiere at the London Pavilion Theatre in the West End of London; of Princess Margaret and the Earl of Snowdon attend
1986 – Bomb attack in West-Beirut, 30 killed
1992 – American Michael Ray Barrowman swims world record 200m breaststroke (2:10.16) at the World Championships in Perth, Australia, breaking his own record set in August 1991
2015 – Over 3,500 immigrants over 2 days attempt to enter the Channel Tunnel at Calais, to cross into Britain
Historical Events for 28th July 2023
1696 – De Croissy succeeds Le Plectia as French minister of Finance
1893 – Vizcaya Bridge – largest transporter bridge in the world opens over the River Ibaizabal, designed by Basque architect Alberto de Palacio
1898 – Spanish American War: U.S. Army occupies Ponce and declares victory in Puerto Rico over Spanish forces
1900 – Hamburger created by Louis Lassing in Connecticut
1917 – Silent Parade organised by James Weldon Johnson of 10,000 African-Americans who march on 5th Ave in NYC to protest against lynching
1929 – 23rd Tour de France won by Maurice De Waele of Belgium
1945 – Physicist Raemer Schreiber and Lieutenant Colonel Peer de Silva arrive on the Pacific island of Tinian with the plutonium core used to assemble the Fat Man bomb used in the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9
1959 – United Kingdom starts using postal codes
1977 – Roy Wilkins turns over NAACP leadership to Benjamin Hooks
2005 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army call an end to their thirty year long armed campaign in Northern Ireland
Historical Events for 27th July 2023
1214 – Battle of Bouvines: King Philip II of France vs Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV and King John of England; as a result John lost Normandy and his other possessions in France (hence his nickname John “Lackland”)
1586 – Walter Raleigh brings the 1st tobacco to England from Virginia
1655 – Netherlands and Brandenburg sign military treaty
1954 – Armistice divides Vietnam into two countries
1976 – Japanese ex-premier Tanaka arrested (Lockheed Affair)
1992 – Nelson Mandela says a general strike will go ahead to protest for the removal of South African President F. W. de Klerk from power and for free elections
1993 – Mafia bombs historical buildings in Rome, Milan and Vatican City, 5 killed
1997 – “Candide” closes at Gershwin Theater NYC after 103 performances
2019 – At least 65 mourners killed in a gun attack at a funeral near Maiduguri, by suspected Boko Haram militants in north-east Nigeria
2021 – American gymnast and four-time Olympic gold medallist Simone Biles withdraws from the women’s team final at the Tokyo Games citing need to focus on her mental health; also misses individual finals