Benjamin Harrison (23rd President of the United States) is born (1833) - Aug. 20
China Airlines Flight 120 landed safely when fumes emerged from engine number 2 and the captain ordered an emergency evacuation (2007) - Aug. 20
Howard Phillips (H.P.) Lovecraft (American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction) is born (1890) - Aug. 20
Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" debuts in Moscow (1882) - Aug. 20
Leon Trotsky (Russian revolutionary and Marxist theorist) is assassinated in his Mexico City home by Ramon Mercader, a Catalan Communist (1940) - Aug. 20
Marchioness (Thames Riverboat cruise boat) collides with a dredger named Bowbelle 30 die in the accident (1989) - Aug. 20
Patrick Henry Sherrill (disgruntled US Post Office Worker) opens fire at the Edmond, OK Post Office killing 14 before he shot himself (1986) - Aug. 20
Spanair Flight 5022 crashes just after takeoff from Barajas Airport in Madrid with only 15 of the 168 aboard surviving (2008) - Aug. 20
Yellowston National Park Fires began as smaller individual fires, combined until 36% of the park was affected (1988) - Aug. 20
August 21, 2017
The ABA (American Bar Association) is founded (1878) - Aug. 21
Aubrey Beardsley (English Illustrator and author) is born (1872) - Aug. 21
Burroughs Adding Machine - William Seward Burroughs received a patent for his invention (1888) - 8/21
Elizabeth Bathory (Hungarian Countess aka The Blood Countess) dies while imprisoned in her room under house arrest in Cachtice Castle, Slovakia (1614) - 8/21
Hawaii joins the union as the 51st state (1959) - Aug. 21
Hurricane Dean makes its first landfall in Costa Maya, Mexico as a category 5 with 165 mph winds (2007) - Aug. 21
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (English aristocrat and writer best known for her campaign for innoculations against smallpox) dies at age 73 (1762) - Aug. 21
Lake Nyos (CO2 saturated lake in Cameroon) triggers a release of 1.6 MM tons of CO2 killing thousands of people and animals (1986) - Aug. 21
Mona Lisa (famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci) is stolen by a Louvre employee who wanted to return it to Italy (1911) - Aug. 21
Philip II of France is born at Gonesse in the Val-d'Oise (1165) - 8/21
Lawrence Massacre (aka Quantrill's Raid) occurred when Quantrill and his raiders destroy pro Union Lawrence, KS (1863) - 8/21
William IV (Third son of George III and Last Hanoverian King of Great Britain) is born (1765) - Aug. 21
August 22, 2017
Battle of Bosworth Field was Lancastrian Henry Tudor's defeat of Yorkist Richard III beginning the Tudor dynasty (1485) - Aug. 22
C-130 Hercules (4-engine turboprop military transport aircraft capable of takeoffs and landings from unprepared runways) has its maiden flight (1954) - 8/22
Claude Debussy (French composer) is born (1862) - Aug. 22
Devil's Island (French penal colony) closes (1952) - 8/22
X-15 Test Plane Flight 91 - Joe Walker reached height of 67.0 miles at 3,794 mph (1963) - Aug. 22
NS Savannah (World's first Nuclear Ship) completes its maiden voyage (1962) - 8/22
Queen Charlotte earthquake was a magnitued 8.1 interplate earthquake on the sparsely populated Queen Charlotte Islands (1949) - Aug. 22
Ray Bradbury (American literary science fiction author best known for Fahrenheit 451 and Martian Chronicles) is born (1920) - Aug. 22
Richard III of England died at the Battle of Bosworth (1485) - Aug. 22
Roy Moore, Alabama Chief Justice is suspended for refusing to remove a monument inscribed with the 10 commandments from the court lobby (2003) - Aug. 22
Ruby Ridge Incident 2nd Day when FBI sniper, Lon Horiuchi, killed Vicki Weaver who stood behind a door holding her 10 month old baby (1992) - 8/22
Tooth Fairy Day recognizes the folk myth of the mystical creature that replaces a child's tooth with a gift when it is placed under a pillow - Aug. 22
Be an Angel Day - 8/22
August 23, 2017
Alexander Godunov (Russian ballet dancer and actor) defects to USA while on tour with the Bolshoi Ballet in NYC (1979) - Aug. 23
Hug Your Sweetheart Day - Aug. 23
Freckleton Air Disaster - US Army Air Force B-24 bomber crashes into Freckleton, England demolishing a school and killing 61 including 38 children (1944) - Aug. 23
George Villiers (1st Duke of Buckingham and rumored lover of James I of England) is stabbed at Portsmouth by one of his army officers (1628) - 8/23
Gulf Air Flight 072 (Airbus A-320-212 with 143 passengers and crew) crashed in the Persian Gulf on its approach to Bahrain Int'l Airpirt (2000) - Aug. 23
John Byron (1st Baron Byron) died childless and in exile in Paris (1652) - Aug. 23
Kathryn R. Blake's Birthday - Aug. 23
Louis XVI of France is born at the Palace of Versailles (1754) - 8/23
Natascha Kampusch (Viennese girl kidnapped in 1998 at age 10) manages to elude her abuctor who killed himself after her escape (2006) - Aug. 23
Oscar Hammerstein II (American writer, producer and director of musicals for almost 40 years) died of stomach cancer (1960) - Aug. 23
Rudolph Valentino (Italian actor known as the Latin Lover) dies of peritonitis from a perforated ulcer at age 31 (1926) - Aug. 23
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (Italian born American laborers and anarchists) are executed via electrocution for armed robbery (1927) - Aug. 23
Shamu (original female Orca "Killer Whale" at Seaworld) dies (1971) - Aug. 23
TANS Peru Flight 204 (Boeing 737-244) crashes about 5.5 km south of Pucallpa killing 40 of the 98 people aboard (2005) - Aug. 8/23
William Wallace (Scottish knight and patriot) is taken to Smithfield where he was hanged drawn and quartered for treason against Edward I (1305) - Aug. 23
Virginia Earthquake (8.5 Richter Scale) is felt as far north as Maine and as far west as Ohio (2011) - Aug. 23
Ride the Wind Day - Aug. 23
August 24, 2017
Air Transat Flight 236 runs out of fuel over the Atlantic Ocean and makes an emergency landing in the Azores with no loss of life (2001) - Aug. 24
Beijing Olympics closing Ceremony is held (2008) - Aug. 24
Edith S. Sampson (American lawyer and a judge) becomes the first Black U.S. delegate appointed to the United Nations (1950) - 8/24
Getulio Vargas (Brazilian President) commits suicide hours after resigning and amid a political crisis (1954) - Aug. 24
Hurricane Andrew strikes Florida as a category 5 with 175 mph winds causing 26.5 billion in damages (1992) - Aug. 24
Iran Aseman Airlines Flight 6895 (Itek Air Boeing 737-219) crashed shortly after takeoff in Kyrgyzstan 22 survivors of the 90 aboard (2008) - Aug. 24
Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life for the murder of John Lennon (British musician and activist-1980) - Aug. 24
Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim the English Channel, crossing from Dover to Calais in less than 22 hours (1875) - Aug. 24
Pete Rose (Cincinnati Reds Manager) is banned from baseball for gambling by then commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti (1989) - Aug. 24
St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (a wave of Catholic mob violence and the Huguenots) starts with the assassination of Coligny (1572) - Aug. 24
Russian aircraft bombings were a terrorist attack on 2 domestic Russian passenger aircraft causing the loss of all 90 lives (2004) - Aug. 24
Ukraine declares its independence from the Soviet Union (1991) - Aug. 24
Mount Vesuvius erupts (the day after the festival of the Roman God of Fire) burying Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae in volcanic ash (79AD) - Aug. 24
Visigoths, lead by Alaric I, enter Rome through the Salarian Gate, opened by slaves, and looted the city of its riches for 3 days (410) - Aug. 24
Voyager 2 (Unmanned interplanetary spacecraft) approaches the planet Neptune (1979) - Aug. 24
Ganesh Chaturthi begins - (10 day Hindu Festival) the period when the Lord Ganesha is believed to bestow his presence on earth for all his devotees (2017) - Aug. 24
August 25, 2017
Banana Split Day - 8/25
Belarus establishes independence from the Soviet Union (1991) - Aug. 25
Healthy Lifestyle Day - 8/25
Kiss and Makeup Day - 8/25
Margaret of Anjou (Queen consort to Henry VI of England) dies at the age of 52 in Anjou, France (1482) - Aug. 25
National Park Day - 8/25
Uruguay declares independence from Brazil (1825) - Aug. 25
White House (U.S. Executive Mansion for the President) is burned down by the British (1814) - Aug. 25
Yellow Cab Company is founded by Walden W. Shaw and John D. Hertz (1910) - Aug. 25
Ted Kennedy (U.S. Senator from Massachusetts) dies of brain cancer in his Hyannis Port home (2009) - Aug. 25
Crown Prince Haakon of Norway marries Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby, a former party girl with an out-of-wedlock-son, at Oslo Cathedral (2001) - Aug. 25
Truman Capote (American writer best known for his novels Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood) dies in Los Angeles, CA from liver disease at age 59 (1984) - Aug. 25
August 26, 2017
Albino Luciani is elected as Pope John Paul I on the 4th ballot of the papal conclave - He would die only 33 days later (1978) - Aug. 26
Antoine Lavoisier (French nobleman prominent in the histories of chemistry, finance, biology and economics) is born (1743) - Aug. 26
Battle of Crecy (Hundred Years' War battle that signaled the beginning of the end of Chivalry) is fought in Crecy France (1346) - Aug. 26
Charles Lindbergh (American aviator, author, inventor, explorer and peace activist) dies in Hawaii from leukemia (1974) - Aug. 26
Compassion Day celebrates the birth of Mother Theresa (1910) - Aug. 26
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is approved by the Constinuent Assembly at the Palace of Versailles in France (1789) - Aug. 26
HMS Bark Endeavor sets sail under Captain James Cook from Plymouth to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus (1768) - Aug. 26
Indian Floods leave thousands homeless with a death toll exceeding 800 (2008) - 8/26
Krakotoa begins its cataclysmic eruption that destroyed two-thirds of the island of Krakatoa killing over 35 thousand people (1883) - Aug. 26
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (consort to Queen Victoria of the UK) is born (1819) - Aug. 26
Princess Alexandra Amalie of Bavaria (daughter of Ludwig I) is born (1826) - Aug. 26
Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester (cousin to Queen Elizabeth, the most senior agantic descendant of Queen Victoria) is born (1944) - Aug. 26
Triglav (highest mountain in Slovenia) is first ascended by Luka Korosec and party (1778) - Aug. 26
Womens' Equality Day - Aug. 26
Horseshoe Day - 8/26
August 27, 2017
Antonia Fraser (English author of history and novels and wife to Harold Pinter) is born (1932) - Aug. 27
BBC transmits the first ever live television pictures across the channel (1950) - Aug. 27
Brian Epstein (Manager for the Beatles) is found dead at age 32 in his Belgravia home in London (1967) - 8/27
Comair Flight 191 (Delta Airlines flight 5191) from Lexington to Atlanta crashed while attempting to takeoff 49 of 50 on board died (2006) - Aug. 27
Global Forgiveness Day - 8/27
Heinkel He 178 (Worlds first fully jet powered aircraft) has its maiden flight (1939) - 8/27
Louis Mountbatten, 1st earl of Mountbatten of Burma and cousin to Queen Elizabeth, is killed by an IRA bomb while on holiday in Ireland (1944) - 8/27
Mars (4th planet in our solar system) makes its closest approach to earth (2003) - Aug. 27
Moldava declares its independence from the USSR (1991) - Aug. 27
Ostankino Tower (Moscow Russia) catches on fire killing three people (2000) - Aug. 27
Rainbow Bridge that connects Tokyo Japan's Shibaura and the island of Odaiba is completed (1993) - Aug. 27
Titian (Italian Renaissance artist) dies in Venice during the Plague of 1575 that sweeps Italy, Sicily and segments of Northern Europe (1576) - 8/27
Banana Lover's Day - Aug. 27
Just Because Day - August 27
Most photos and captions are courtesy of Wikipedia
