1898 – Caleb Bradham renames his carbonated soft drink “Pepsi-Cola”.
1918 – Tris Speaker suspended for season due to assault on umpire Tom Connolly
1939 – Netherland mobilizes
1966 – 27th Venice Film Festival: “The Battle of Algiers” directed by Gillo Pontecorvo wins Golden Lion
1988 – 70 killed in crash of three Italian air force fighters at air show at Ramstein, Germany
1990 – Stefan Edberg (#1 seeded player) loses in 1st round to Alex Volkov
1994 – 94th US Golf Amateur Championship won by Tiger Woods
2011 – Canadian Open Women’s Golf, Hillsdale CC: Brittany Lincicome wins by 1 stroke from Michelle Wie and Stacy Lewis
2017 – Kenya brings in world’s toughest ban on plastic bags with possible US$38,000 fine and four years in jail
2018 – Aretha Franklin lies in state at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit in a 24 carat coffin
Category: Historical Events
Historical Events for 27th August 2023
1585 – Duke of Parma’s troops occupy Antwerp
1883 – Krakatoa volcano, west of Java in Indonesia, erupts with a force of 1,300 megatons and kills approximately 40,000 people
1918 – Christy Mathewson resigns as Cincinnati Reds manager to accept a commission as a captain in chemical warfare branch of US Army
1956 – Curt Robert of Columbus (Intl League) hits 4 HRs in 7 inning game
1968 – Protest by the Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC) at the Guildhall’s council chamber; after which Eamon Melaugh phones the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) to organise a march in Derry
1982 – Soyuz T-7 returns to Earth
1991 – Moldavia declares independence from USSR
1996 – Dino Ciccarelli is traded by the Detroit Red Wings to the Tampa Bay Lightning
2004 – China’s first ever gold in Olympic Games men’s track and field; Liu Xiang wins 110m hurdles in Athens, equalling Colin Jackson’s 1993 world record time of 12.91 seconds
2021 – Britain’s Prince Andrew served with a US federal lawsuit alleging he sexually abused a teenager 20 years ago
Historical Events for 26th August 2023
1545 – Pope Paul III names his son Pierluigi Farnese as Duke of Parma
1912 – MLB pitcher Walter Johnson’s 16-game winning streak ends
1920 – Surrey cricket all-rounder Percy Fender scores 100 in 35 minutes [113no] in a county match vs Northamptonshire at the County Ground, Northampton
1940 – Chad is the first French colony to join the Allies under the administration of Félix Éboué, France’s first black colonial governor
1942 – 7,000 Jews are rounded up in Vichy-France
1971 – Dutch Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard visit Indonesia
1973 – David Eisenhower writes his last sports column
1992 – Hurricane Andrew makes landfall in Louisiana as Category 3 storm after causing deaths and severe damage in Florida
2015 – WDBJ TV reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward are fatally shot live on TV by an ex-colleague in Moneta, Virginia
2018 – Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop resigns after losing Liberal Party leadership contest
Historical Events for 25th August 2023
1609 – Galileo demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers, including to the Doge (ruler) of Venice, Leonardo Donato
1908 – Allen Winter wins US 1st $50,000 trotting race
1910 – US National Championship Men’s Tennis, Newport, RI: William Larned beats Tom Bundy 6-1, 5-7, 6-0, 6-8, 6-1 for his 4th consecutive US singles title
1921 – Yankee pitcher Harry Harper hits 3 batters in an inning tying record
1950 – US President Harry Truman orders army to take control of railroad to avert a strike
1984 – USSR performs underground nuclear test
1985 – STS 51-I scrubbed at T -9m because of an onboard computer problem
1991 – Norway and Denmark recognize independence of former USSR Baltic republics
2019 – Double Dave, a rare two-headed timber rattlesnake found in Pine Barrens forest, New Jersey
2020 – England’s James Anderson becomes first fast bowler to reach 600 wickets in Test cricket; Pakistan batsman Azhar Ali caught at first slip on 5th day of 3rd Test at Southampton
Historical Events for 24th August 2023
1349 – 6,000 Jews, blamed for the Plague, are killed in Mainz
1516 – Battle of Marj Dabiq: Ottoman forces decisively beat the Mamluk Sultanate
1853 – 1st potato chips prepared by chef George Crum at Moon’s Lake House, near Saratoga Springs, New York (popular legend says he invented though earlier recipes exist)
1920 – With British approval, Greece is encouraged to take offensive action against Turkish nationalists in Asia Minor
1954 – US President Eisenhower signs Communist Control Act, outlawing the Communist Party, at height of McCarthyism
1958 – Sergei Popov wins Stockholm marathon (2:15:17.0) (WR)
1960 – -127°F (-88°C), Vostok, Antarctica (world record)
1993 – Padres scores 14 in 1st vs Cardinals
1995 – Fire that wipes 6,000 acres begins in Hamptons on Long Island
1995 – Microsoft debuts Windows 95
Historical Events for 23rd August 2023
1595 – Michael the Brave confronts the Ottoman army in the Battle of Calugareni.
1903 – Sixth Zionist Congres: Theodor Herzl declares Jewish state
1923 – Paavo Nurmi of Finland runs world record for 1 mile of 4:10.4 in Stockholm; record stands until 1931
1931 – Count Gyula Károlyi becomes premier of Hungary
1946 – “The Big Sleep” directed by Howard Hawks and starring Humphrey Bogart (Philip Marlowe) and Lauren Bacall, premieres
1948 – World Council of Churches formed by 147 churches from 44 countries
1979 – Iranian army opens offensive against Kurds
1985 – Said Aouita of Morocco sets 1.5k record (3:29.46) in Berlin
1990 – East and West Germany announced that they would unite on Oct 3
2000 – Nicaragua becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty. This essentially deprecated the Buenos Aires Convention treaty, because as of this date, all members of the BA Convention were also signatories to Berne.
Historical Events for 22nd August 2023
1642 – English Civil War begins between Royalists and Parliament
1848 – The United States annexes New Mexico
1933 – Chicago Cubs president William Veeck, Sr. urges MLB to incorporate midsummer inter-league games and a split season
1939 – Dutch border guards take positions for German invasion
1946 – Mikko Hietanen wins Oslo marathon (2:24:55)
1962 – USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
1966 – The Beatles arrive in New York City and hold two press conferences, one for the press and one for their fans
1980 – Leaders of Port Elizabeth’s Black secondary school children in South Africa decided to end a four month boycott of classes
1992 – Greg Matthews (4/76) and Shane Warne (3/11) spin Australia to a famous 16-run win v Sri Lanka in 1st cricket Test in Colombo
2008 – Maurren Higa Maggi wins the women’s long jump with a leap of 7.04m at the Beijing Olympics; Brazil’s first ever gold medal in any women’s individual event
Historical Events for 21st August 2023
1689 – Battle of Dunkeld fought in Scotland between supporters of King James VII of Scotland and troops of William of Orange
1949 – Philadelphia fans cause A’s to forfeit game when they riot over a trapped line drive by Rich Ashburn, Giants leading 4-2 in 9th declared winners
1975 – US lightens trade embargo against Cuba
1977 – American water skier Donna Patterson Brice sets women’s high speed record 111.11 mph at Long Beach, California
1991 – Conservative coup in the Soviet Union is crushed by popular resistance led by Boris Yeltsin in three days
1992 – US Marshals move in on Randy Weaver’s cabin in Ruby Ridge, Idaho to apprehend him on firearms charges; an 11 day stand-off ensues
1994 – The last French troops pull out of Rwanda, ending their highly controversial mission there
1994 – Ernesto Zedillo wins Mexican presidential election
2018 – Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull calls for and wins a leadership vote 43-35 over Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton
2020 – American golfer Scottie Scheffler makes birdie on 4 of final 5 holes to become 12th player in PGA Tour history to shoot 59 in 2nd round of the Northern Trust at TPC Boston
Historical Events for 20th August 2023
1391 – Konrad von Wallenrode becomes the 24th Hochmeister of the Teutonic Order.
1856 – Wilberforce University forms in Ohio
1900 – Great Britain beats France by 158 runs in Paris; cricket’s only appearance at an Olympic Games
1920 – 1st US commercial radio station, 8MK (WWJ), Detroit begins daily broadcasting
1949 – 78,382 watch White Sox play Indians at Cleveland
1953 – Russia publicly acknowledges hydrogen bomb test detonation
1957 – USAF balloon, manned by David Simons, breaks an altitude record at 102,000 ft (3,1089.6 m), over Minnesota and South Dakota
1988 – Yordanka Donkova of Bulgaria sets 100m hurdle woman’s record (12.21)
1990 – George Steinbrenner steps down as NY Yankee owner
1995 – Indians’ Jose Mesa sets record with his 37th consecutive save
Historical Events for 19th August 2023
1934 – The first All-American Soap Box Derby is held in Dayton, Ohio
1941 – Romania annexes the Transnistria territory from the Soviet Union after Operation Barbarossa
1943 – Belgian church excommunicates Nazi collaborator Léon Degrelle
1953 – Democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh is overthrown in a coup orchestrated by the United Kingdom (under the name ‘Operation Boot’) and the United States (under the name TPAJAX Project)
1954 – American Ralph Bunche named undersecretary of the UN
1977 – USSR performs nuclear test at Sary Shagan USSR
1985 – Following the Rubicon speech four days earlier, Archbishop Desmond Tutu snubs P. W. Botha’s invitation to attend a meeting to discuss the role and actions of the police and security forces in South Africa
1985 – Japan launches its 2nd probe of Halley’s Comet, Suisei
1987 – Hungerford Massacre: in England, Michael Ryan kills sixteen people with an assault rifle and then commits suicide
2010 – Operation Iraqi Freedom ends, with the last of the United States brigade combat teams crossing the border to Kuwait