Events
14 AD – Agrippa Postumus, adoptive-son of the
late Roman Emperor Augustus, is executed by his
guards while in exile under mysterious circumstances
636 – Battle of Yarmouk: Arab forces led by Khalid
ibn al-Walid take control of Syria and Palestine
away from the Byzantine Empire, marking the first
great wave of Muslim conquests and the rapid advance
of Islam outside Arabia.
917 – Battle of Acheloos: Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria
decisively defeats a Byzantine army.
1000 – The foundation of the Hungarian state by
Saint Stephen. Today celebrated as a National
Day in Hungary.
1083 – Canonization of the first King of Hungary,
Saint Stephen and his son Saint Emeric.
1308 – Pope Clement V pardons Jacques de Molay,
the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar,
absolving him of charges of heresy.
1391 – Konrad von Wallenrode becomes the 24th
Hochmeister of the Teutonic Order.
1467 – The Second Battle of Olmedo takes places
as part of a succession conflict between Henry
IV of Castile and his half-brother Alfonso, Prince
of Asturias.
1672 – Former Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt and
his brother Cornelis are brutally murdered by
an angry mob in The Hague.
1710 – War of the Spanish Succession: a multinational
army led by the Austrian commander Guido Starhemberg
defeats the Spanish-Bourbon army commanded by
the Marquis de Bay in the Battle of Saragossa.
1775 – The Spanish establish the Presidio San
Augustin del Tucson in the town that became Tucson,
Arizona.
1794 – Battle of Fallen Timbers – American troops
force a confederacy of Shawnee, Mingo, Delaware,
Wyandot, Miami, Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi
warriors into a disorganized retreat.
1858 – Charles Darwin first publishes his theory
of evolution through natural selection in The
Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society
of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same
theory.
1866 – President Andrew Johnson formally declares
the American Civil War over.
1882 – Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture
debuts in Moscow.
1910 – The Great Fire of 1910 (also commonly referred
to as the Big Blowup or the Big Burn) occurred
in northeast Washington, northern Idaho (the panhandle),
and western Montana, burning approximately 3 million
acres (12,000 km²).
1914 – World War I: German forces occupy Brussels.
1920 – The first commercial radio station, 8MK
(now WWJ), begins operations in Detroit, Michigan.
1920 – The National Football League, (NFL), is
founded in the United States.
1926 – Japan's public broadcasting company, Nippon
Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK) is established.
1938 – Lou Gehrig hits his 23rd career grand slam
– a record that still stands.
1940 – In Mexico City exiled Russian revolutionary
Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded with an ice axe
by Ramon Mercader. He dies the next day.
1940 – British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
makes the fourth of his famous wartime speeches,
containing the line "Never was so much owed
by so many to so few".
1944 – World War II: 168 captured allied airmen,
including Phil Lamason, accused by the Gestapo
of being "terror fliers", arrive at
Buchenwald concentration camp.
1944 – World War II: the Battle of Romania begins
with a major Soviet offensive.
1950 – Korean War: United Nations repel an offensive
by North Korean divisions attempting to cross
the Naktong River and assault the city of Taegu.
1955 – In Morocco, a force of Berbers from the
Atlas Mountains region of Algeria raid two rural
settlements and kill 77 French nationals.
1960 – Senegal breaks from the Mali Federation,
declaring its independence.
1975 – Viking Program: NASA launches the Viking
1 planetary probe toward Mars.
1977 – Voyager Program: NASA launches the Voyager
2 spacecraft.
1986 – In Edmond, Oklahoma, U.S. Postal employee
Patrick Sherrill guns down 14 of his co-workers
and then commits suicide.
1988 – "Black Saturday" of the Yellowstone
fire in Yellowstone National Park
1988 – Peru becomes a member of the Berne Convention
copyright treaty.
1988 – Iran–Iraq War: a cease-fire is agreed after
almost eight years of war.
1988 – The Troubles: Eight British Army soldiers
are killed and 28 wounded when their bus is hit
by a Provisional Irish Republican Army roadside
bomb in Northern Ireland (see Ballygawley bus
bombing).
1989 – The pleasure boat Marchioness sinks on
the River Thames following a collision, 51 people
are killed.
1989 – The O-Bahn in Adelaide, the world's longest
guided busway, opens.
1991 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union, August
Coup: more than 100,000 people rally outside the
Soviet Union's parliament building protesting
the coup aiming to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev.
1991 – Estonia, annexed by the Soviet Union in
1940, issues a decision on the re-establishment
of independence on the basis of historical continuity
of her pre-World War II statehood.
1993 – After rounds of secret negotiations in
Norway, the Oslo Peace Accords are signed, followed
by a public ceremony in Washington, D.C. the following
month.
1997 – Souhane massacre in Algeria; over 60 people
are killed and 15 kidnapped.
1998 – The Supreme Court of Canada rules that
Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without
the federal government's approval.
1998 – U.S. embassy bombings: the United States
launches cruise missile attacks against alleged
al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan and a suspected
chemical plant in Sudan in retaliation for the
August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya
and Tanzania.
2002 – A group of Iraqis opposed to the regime
of Saddam Hussein take over the Iraqi Embassy
in Berlin for five hours before releasing their
hostages and surrendering.
2008 – Spanair Flight 5022, from Madrid to Gran
Canaria, skids off the runway and crashes at Barajas
Airport. 146 people are killed in the crash, and
8 more die later. Only 18 people survive.
Holidays
and observances
Christian
Feast Day:
Bernard of Clairvaux
Oswine of Deira
Philibert of Jumièges
August 20 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Father's Day (Nepal)
Feast of Asmá’ (Bahá'í Faith)
Restoration of Independence Day, re-declaration
of the independece of Estonia from the Soviet
Union in 1991.
Revolution of the King and People (Morocco)
Saint Stephen's Day (Hungary)
For details, contact Datacentre
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