Happenings at This Day in History

About a year ago I stopped making regular updates to this blog to concentrate on my Namnesia Antidote blog. While that is an ongoing effort, I am starting what should be about a year long effort to revitalize the concept of a "This Day in History" blog. I have decided to leave this blog intact and as-is, using a new "This Day in History 2.0" blog for my expanded and full version. Please feel free to email with your ideas. The two tables below should allow you to find a posting for the "Day in History" you wish to research.

A Proud Liberal


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Friday, August 31, 2007

August 31......

August 31 is the 243rd (244th in leap years) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 122 days remaining in the year on this date.

Best Liberal Quote of the Day: On Bigotry & Prejudice "Prejudices are what fools use for reason." — Francois Voltaire

Stupidest and/or Scariest Quote from the Right for the Day: On Cakewalk: Ongoing War "Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." — Vice-President Dick Cheney. "Meet the Press," NBC, 3-16-03.

Dumbest Thing Said for the Day: From Politics
"I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary.
-- -- -- -- --
I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964." — Ronald "Say Whatever It Takes To Get Elected" Reagan

Thought for the day: "There's so much to say but your eyes keep interrupting me."

{Disclaimer: I have attempted to give credit to the many different sources that I get entries. Any failure to do so is unintentional. Any statement enclosed by brackets like these are the opinion of the blogger, A Proud Liberal.}


NASA ASTRONOMY PICTURE OF THE DAY

Stars Forming in Serpens


Credit & Copyright: ESO, HAWK-1 Instrument Team
Click picture to go to NASA APOD site for full explanation


EVENTS

● 1056 - Byzantine Empress Theodora becomes ill, dying suddenly a few days later, without children to succeed the throne, ending the Macedonian dynasty.

● 1378 - The government of Florence massacres the Ciompi.

● 1422 - Henry VI, becomes King of England at the age of 9 months.

● 1521 - Cortes and his Indian allies take Tenochtitlan.

● 1535 - Pope Paul II deposed & excommunicated King Henry VIII

● 1643 - Antinomian Anne Hutchinson killed by natives, Long Island, New York.

● 1688 - Death of English Puritan clergyman and writer John Bunyan, 69. Imprisoned several times between 1660 and 1672, Bunyan used these periods of isolation to pen his two literary masterpieces, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666) and Pilgrim's Progress (1678).

● 1757 - Anglican clergyman and hymn writer John Newton wrote in a letter: 'I am persuaded that love and humility are the highest attainments in the school of Christ and the brightest evidences that He is indeed our Master.'

● 1772 - Hurricane destroy ships off Dominica

● 1778 - British kill 17 Stockbridge Indians in the Bronx during Revolution

● 1779 - Runovea, an Iroquoian town in upstate New York, burned by Gen. Sullivan.

● 1811 - Fort Okanogan established at confluence of Columbia and Okanogan Rivers; Indians meet Astorians with pledges of friendship and gifts of beaver.

● 1823 - Ferdinand VII was restored to the throne of Spain when invited French forces entered Cadiz. The event is known as the Battle of Trocadero.

● 1824 - Birth of Anna B. Warner, American hymn writer. She never married, but lived with her sister Susan in New York state. In 1860, a novel they co-authored contained a poem which became one of the most beloved of all children's hymns: I Know.'

● 1842 - US Naval Observatory authorized by an act of Congress

● 1850 - California Pioneers organized at Montgomery & Clay Streets

● 1852 - The first pre-stamped envelopes were created with legislation of the U.S. Congress.

● 1861 - Birth of Jesse Brown Pounds, American hymn writer. During her lifetime, she published 9 books, 50 cantatas and over 400 religious song texts. Three of her hymns remain popular today: "Anywhere With Jesus," "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" and "The Way of the Cross Leads Home."

● 1864 - American Civil War: Union forces led by General William T. Sherman launch an assault on Atlanta, Georgia, with the Battle of Jonesborough.

● 1870 - Birth of Maria Montessori, Italian educator. She developed a theory of teaching which emphasized a reinforcement of initiative, and a freedom of movement for the child. Her theory of elementary education has since been named, appropriately, the "Montessori Method."

● 1876 - Ottoman sultan Murat V is deposed and succeeded by his brother Abd-ul-Hamid II.

● 1886 - 110 people were killed when an earthquake struck Charleston, SC. First major earthquake recorded in eastern US.

● 1887 - The kinetoscope was patented by Thomas Edison. The device was used to produce moving pictures.

● 1888 - The body of Mary Ann Nichols, the first victim of London serial killer "Jack the Ripper" is found murdered and mutilated in Buck's Road. The East End of London sees five more victims of the murderer over the next three months; while a royal figure is suspected, no one is ever nailed. Today, in the U.S., such a spree would soon be forgotten.

● 1892 - Inter-Parliamentary Union founded.

● 1895 - First issue of Julius Wyland's Kansas-based socialist newspaper, An Appeal to Reason, is published.

● 1907 - William Shawn, editor of The New Yorker magazine for 35 years, was born.

● 1907 - Count Alexander Izvolsky and Sir Arthur Nicolson sign the St. Petersburg Convention, which results in the Triple Entente alliance of England, Russia & France.

● 1914 - Ecuador becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.

● 1915 - Brazil becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.

● 1919 - Communist Labor Party of America formed in Chicago.

● 1919 - Petlyura's Ukranian Army kills 35 members of a Jewish defense group.

● 1920 - Polish-Bolshevik War: A decisive Polish victory in the Battle of Komarów.

● 1925 - U.S. Marines end eleven-year occupation of Haiti. The dictatorship {"Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc" Duvalier} they leave in place continues to pillage and murder Haitians for another 60 years, rendering destitute what was once the wealthiest country in the Western Hemisphere.

● 1929 - The Trade Union Unity League founded as 690 delegates from 18 states cut the cord with the conservative American Federation of Labor, which still organizes along craft lines. An arm of the Communist Party, the league pushed for unionizing workers along industrial lines, and led struggles of miners, textile workers and farm workers. At its peak, it had 125,000 members. In 1930 it led almost a million jobless workers in a dozen cities to demand relief and unemployment insurance. The TUUL dissolved before the great organizing drives of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the late 1930s.

● 1935 - The act of exporting U.S. arms to belligerents was prohibited by an act signed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

● 1939 - Nazi Germany mounts a staged attack on Gleiwitz radio station, giving them an excuse to attack Poland the following day, starting World War II in Europe. {Their equivalent of Poland having WMDs.}

● 1942 - In Ternopil, western Ukraine, at 4.30 am, German SS organise the first deportation of Jews from Ternopil ghetto to death camp in Belzec, about 5,000 Jews were deported to face death in Belzec. When the Germans captured Ternopil, about 18,000 Jews lived in the city.

● 1943 - The USS Harmon, the first U.S. Navy ship to be named for a black person, is commissioned.

● 1945 - 2000 attend "World Unity or World Destruction" rally, London.

● 1945 - The Liberal Party of Australia is founded by Robert Menzies.

● 1948 - Actor Robert Mitchum was arrested in a Hollywood drug raid. He would later be found guilty of criminal conspiracy to possess marijuana and was sentenced to 60 days in prison.

● 1954 - 70 people were killed when Hurricane Carol hit the northeastern coast of the U.S.

● 1954 - Census Bureau established

● 1954 - U.S. government orders British novelist Graham Greene, visiting Puerto Rico, to leave. The reason - he briefly joined the Communist Party, as a prank, at the age of 19.

● 1955 - 1st sun-powered automobile demonstrated, Chicago, Ill

● 1957 - Malaya celebrates independence; The Federation of Malaya becomes independent from Britain after a midnight handover ceremony.

● 1959 - Anglo-US TV debate makes history; British prime minister Harold Macmillan and American president Dwight Eisenhower give an historic live television broadcast from Downing Street.

● 1962 - The Caribbean nations Tobago and Trinidad became independent within the British Commonwealth. (National Day)

● 1962 - Twenty thousand call for general strike in the event of civil war, Algeria.

● 1963 - Walter Cronkite began his stint as anchor of the CBS Evening News.

● 1964 - California officially became the most populated state in America.

● 1965 - House of Reps joins Senate to establish Dept of Housing & Urban Development

● 1965 - President Johnson signs into law a bill criminalizing destruction of draft cards.

● 1965 - The Aero Spacelines Super Guppy Aircraft makes its first flight.

● 1968 - 6,000 die in 7.8 quake destroys 60,000 buildings in NE Iran

● 1968 - Grade school students, in a suburb of Montreal, Quebec, occupy their school, demanding reforms.

● 1969 - The boxer Rocky Marciano died in an airplane crash in Iowa the day before his 46th birthday.

● 1970 - Lonnie McLucas, a Black Panther activist, convicted

● 1970 - Philadelphia police raid office of local Black Panthers Party. Among those arrested is a young teen, Wesley Cook, later known as Mumia Abu-Jamal. Abu-Jamal would be sentenced to death in a highly questionable trial in 1983, in part because of his teenage association with the Black Panthers.

● 1971 - Dave Scott becomes 1st person to drive a car on the Moon

● 1971 - Stephen Bingham, 29, lawyer to revolutionary George Jackson, charged with smuggling weapons into prison.

● 1973 - Gainesville 8 (veterans) acquitted.

● 1974 - In federal court, John Lennon testifies the Nixon Administration tried to have him deported because of his involvement with the anti-war demonstrations at the 1972 Republican convention in Miami.

● 1976 - Rooftop prison protest in Turin, Italy.

● 1977 - Smith keeps power in Rhodesia; Ian Smith's ruling Rhodesian Front wins an overwhelming victory in the country's general election.

● 1978 - William and Emily Harris, founders of the Symbionese Liberation Army, plead guilty to the 1974 kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst.

● 1979 - Comet Howard-Koomur-Michels collides with the Sun

● 1979 - Donald McHenry named to succeed Andrew Young as UN ambassador

● 1980 - Poland's Solidarity labor movement was born with an agreement signed in Gdansk that ended a 17-day strike.

● 1983 - Police use tear gas and water cannons on 10,000 Solidarity demonstrators, Nowa Huta, Poland.

● 1985 - The "Night Stalker" killer, Richard Ramirez, was captured by residents of an East Los Angeles neighborhood.

● 1986 - Aeroméxico Flight 498 collides with a Piper PA-28 over Cerritos, California, killing 67 in the air and 15 on the ground.

● 1986 - The Soviet passenger liner Admiral Nakhimov sinks in the Black Sea after colliding with the bulk carrier Pyotr Vasev, killing 423.

● 1988 - A Delta Boeing 727 crashed during takeoff at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in Texas. Fourteen people were killed in the accident that was later blamed on the crew's failure to set the wing flaps in their proper position.

● 1988 - Five-day power blackout of downtown Seattle begins.

● 1989 - Jim Bakker had an apparent breakdown in his attorney's office. This interrupted the fraud and conspiracy trial the PTL founder was undergoing.

● 1990 - East and West Germany signed a treaty that meant the harmonizing of political and legal systems.

● 1990 - U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar met with the Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz to try and negotiate a solution to the crisis in the Persian Gulf.

● 1991 - In a "Solidarity Day" protest hundreds of thousands of union members marched in Washington, DC.

● 1991 - Kyrgyzstan declares its independence from the Soviet Union.

● 1991 - Uzbekistan and Kirghiziz declared their independence from the Soviet Union. They were the 9th and 10th republics to announce their plans to secede.

● 1992 - Pascal Lissouba is inaugurated as the President of the Republic of the Congo .

● 1992 - White separatist Randy Weaver surrendered to authorities in Naples, Idaho, ending an 11-day siege by federal agents that claimed the lives of Weaver's wife, son and a deputy U.S. marshal.

● 1993 - Russia withdrew its last soldiers from Lithuania.

● 1994 - After 50-years of military presence in Germany, troops of the former Soviet Union depart the former East Germany during a ceremony presided over by German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Also leave Latvia and Estonia.

● 1994 - Irish Republican Army declares truce in its decades-old struggle for independence for Northern Ireland. Truce dissolves in early 1996 after repeated recalcitrance by British government over terms of negotiation.

● 1995 - Judge Lance Ito ruled that only two tapes of racist comments by Mark Fuhrman could be played in the trial of O. J. Simpson. {This was only one of several bad legal rulings Ito would make letting Simpson get away with murder.}

● 1996 - Nadine Lockwoods body was found in her family's apartment by New York City police. The four-year-old girl had been starved to death.

● 1997 - Private citizen (and former princess) Diana Spencer is killed in the world's most celebrated case of murderous drunken driving, Paris. Millions weep for no apparent reason.

● 1998 - A ballistic missile was fired over Japan by North Korea. The missile landed in stages in the waters around Japan. There was no known target.

● 1998 - An explosion in a market in Algiers, Algeria killed at least 17 and wounded approximately 60.

● 1998 - North Korea reportedly launches Kwangmyongsong, its first satellite.

● 1998 - U.S. embassies in Ghana and Togo were closed indefinitely because of security threats.

● 1999 - A LAPA Boeing 737-200 crashes during takeoff from Jorge Newbury Airport in Buenos Aires, killing 65, including 2 on the ground.

● 1999 - The first of a series of Russian Apartment Bombings in Moscow, killing one person and wounding 40 others.

● 2001 - A Bronx, N.Y., team's third-place finish in the Little League World Series was ruled invalid because one player was two years older than the age limit of 12. {Indicative of a New York attitude, getting caught was bad, the act itself was not.}

● 2002 - Jazz musician and bandleader Lionel Hampton died at age 94.

● 2004 - Palestinian suicide bombers blew up two buses in Beersheba, Israel, killing 16 passengers.

● 2004 - A woman strapped with explosives blew herself up outside a busy Moscow subway station, killing 10 people.

● 2005 - A stampede on Al-Aaimmah bridge in Baghdad kills 1,199 people.

● 2006 - Iran defied a U.N. deadline to stop enriching uranium.

● 2006 - Stolen on August 22, 2004, Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream was recovered from a raid by Norwegian police. The paintings were said to be in a better-than-expected condition.


BIRTHS

● 12 - Gaius Caligula, famous debaucher and Roman Emperor (d. 41)

● 161 - Commodus, Roman Emperor (d. 192)

● 1569 - Jahangir, Mughal Emperor of India (d. 1627)

● 1602 – Amalia von Solms, countess of Solms-Braunfels (d. 1675)

● 1663 - Guillaume Amontons, French physicist and instrument maker (d. 1705)

● 1721 - George Hervey, 2nd Earl of Bristol, British statesman (d. 1775)

● 1811 - Theophile Gautier, French poet and novelist (d. 1872)

● 1821 - Hermann von Helmholtz, German physician (d. 1894)

● 1822 - Galusha A. Grow, American politician (d. 1907)

● 1834 - Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer (d. 1886)

● 1843 - Georg von Hertling, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1919)

● 1852 - John Neville Keynes, English philosopher and economist (d. 1949)

● 1866 - Georg Jensen, Danish silversmith and designer (d. 1935)

● 1870 - Maria Montessori, Italian educator (d. 1952)

● 1871 - James E. Ferguson, Texan governor (d. 1944)

● 1878 - Frank Jarvis, American athlete (d. 1933)

● 1879 - Alma Mahler, wife of Gustav Mahler, Walter Gropius and Franz Werfel (d. 1964)

● 1880 - Wilhelmina I of the Netherlands (d. 1962)

● 1884 - George Sarton, Belgian-born American scholar (d. 1956)

● 1885 - DuBose Heyward, American playwright (d. 1940)

● 1893 - Lily Laskine, French harpist (d. 1988)

● 1896 - Félix-Antoine Savard, French-Canadian priest and novelist (d. 1982)

● 1897 - Fredric March, American actor (d. 1975)

● 1903 - Arthur Godfrey, American television host (d. 1983)

● 1905 - Sanford Meisner, American actor and teacher (d. 1997)

● 1905 - Dore Schary, American screenwriter, playwright, producer and director (d. 1980)

● 1907 - Ramon Magsaysay, Philipino politician (d. 1957)

● 1907 - William Shawn, American editor (d. 1992)

● 1908 - William Saroyan, American novelist (d. 1981)

● 1913 - Sir Bernard Lovell, British radio astronomer

● 1914 - Richard Basehart, American actor (d. 1984)

● 1916 - Daniel Schorr, American journalist

● 1918 - Alan Jay Lerner, American lyricist (d. 1986)

● 1919 - Amrita Preetam, Indian poetess and author (d. 2005)

● 1924 - Buddy Hackett, American actor and comedian (d. 2003)

● 1927 - Bill Daily, American actor and comedian

● 1928 - James Coburn, American actor (d. 2002)

● 1931 - Noble Willingham, American actor (d. 2004)

● 1931 - Jean Béliveau, Canadian hockey player

● 1934 - Nikos Xanthopoulos, Greek actor

● 1935 - Frank Robinson, American baseball player, manager and Hall of Fame member

● 1935 - Eldridge Cleaver, American political activist (d. 1998)

● 1937 - Warren Berlinger, American actor

● 1937 - Bobby Parker, American blues musician/guitarist

● 1938 - Martin Bell, British journalist

● 1938 - Murray Gleeson, Australian Jurist, Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia (b. 1938

● 1939 - Jerry Allison, American drummer (The Crickets)

● 1940 - Jack Thompson, Actor

● 1941 - William DeWitt, Jr., American businessman

● 1944 - Roger Dean, British artist

● 1945 - Van Morrison, Irish musician

● 1945 - Itzhak Perlman, Israeli violinist

● 1946 - Tom Coughlin, Football coach

● 1947 - Mona Marshall, American voice actress

● 1948 - Lowell Ganz, American screenwriter

● 1948 - Rudolf Schenker, German guitarist (Scorpions)

● 1948 - Harald Ertl, Austrian racing driver (d. 1982)

● 1949 - Richard Gere, American actor

● 1949 - H. David Politzer, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

● 1953 - György Károly, Hungarian author

● 1953 - Miguel Ángel Guerra, Argentine racing driver

● 1954 - Caroline Cossey, English model

● 1955 - Edwin Moses, American athlete

● 1956 - Masashi Tashiro, Japanese television performer

● 1957 - Gina Schock, American drummer (The Go-Go's)

● 1957 - Glenn Tilbrook, British musician (Squeeze)

● 1958 - Serge Blanco, French International rugby player

● 1959 - Tony DeFranco, Singer

● 1960 - Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hizballah

● 1960 - Chris Whitley, American musician (d. 2005)

● 1962 - Dee Bradley Baker, American voice actor

● 1962 - Julie Brown, American actress, singer-songwriter and screenwriter

● 1963 - Reb Beach, American guitarist (Winger, Whitesnake)

● 1963 - Todd Carty, Irish actor

● 1963 - Sonny Silooy, Dutch football player

● 1963 - Larry Waddell, R&B musician (Mint Condition)

● 1964 - Raymond P. Hammond, American poet and editor

● 1965 - Céline Bonnier, Quebec actress

● 1965 - Jaime P. Gomez, Actor

● 1968 - Hideo Nomo, baseball pitcher

● 1969 - Jonathan LaPaglia, Australian actor

● 1969 - Jeff Russo, Rock musician (Tonic)

● 1970 - Deborah Gibson, American singer

● 1970 - Queen Rania, Queen of Jordan

● 1970 - Zack Ward, Canadian actor

● 1970 - Greg Richling, Rock musician (Wallflowers)

● 1971 - Padraig Harrington, Irish professional golfer

● 1972 - Chris Tucker, American actor

● 1973 - Scott Niedermayer, hockey player

● 1975 - Daniel Harding, British conductor

● 1975 - Gabe Kapler, American baseball player and manager

● 1975 - Sara Ramirez, American actress ("Grey's Anatomy")

● 1975 - John Grahame, American-born Canadian hockey player

● 1976 - Radek Martinek, Czechoslovakian ice hockey player

● 1977 - Jeff Hardy, American professional wrestler

● 1977 - Ian Harte, Irish footballer

● 1977 - Craig Nicholls, Australian musician (The Vines)

● 1977 - Tamara, R&B singer (Trina & Tamara)

● 1978 - Phina Oruche, British actress

● 1979 - Clay Hensley, professional baseball player

● 1979 - Mickie James, American professional wrestler

● 1980 - Joe Budden, American rapper

● 1981 - Joe Swanberg, American filmmaker

● 1981 - 40 Cal, American rapper

● 1981 - Dwayne Peel, Welsh International rugby player

● 1982 - Ian Crocker, American swimmer

● 1982 - Chris Duhon, American basketball player

● 1982 - Josh Kroeger, American baseball player

● 1982 - Alexei Mikhnov, Ukrainian-born ice hockey player

● 1982 - Jose Reina, Spanish footballer

● 1982 - Michele Rugolo, Italian racing driver

● 1983 - Larry Fitzgerald, American football player

● 1987 - Petros Kravaritis, Greek footballer


DEATHS

● 651 - Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne, Irish bishop and missionary

● 1056 - Theodora, Byzantine Empress (b. 981)

● 1234 - Emperor Go-Horikawa of Japan (b. 1212)

● 1372 - Ralph Stafford, 1st Earl of Stafford, English soldier (b. 1301)

● 1422 - King Henry V of England (b. 1387)

● 1645 - Francesco Bracciolini, Italian poet (b. 1566)

● 1654 - Ole Worm, Danish physician (b. 1588)

● 1688 - John Bunyan, English writer (b. 1628)

● 1730 - Gottfried Finger, Czech composer (b. 1660?)

● 1741 - Johann Gottlieb Heineccius, German jurist (b. 1681)

● 1772 - William Borlase, English naturalist (b. 1695)

● 1795 - François-André Danican Philidor, French chess player (b. 1726)

● 1799 - Nicolas-Henri Jardin, French architect (b. 1720)

● 1814 - Arthur Phillip, British admiral, first Governor of New South Wales (b. 1738)

● 1867 - Charles Baudelaire, French poet (b. 1821)

● 1869 - Mary Ward, Irish scientist, first automobile accident victim (b. 1827)

● 1888 - Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols, widely believed to be the first victim of Jack the Ripper (b. 1845)

● 1920 - Wilhelm Wundt, German psychologist (b. 1832)

● 1940 - Georges Gauthier, French Canadian Roman Catholic archbishop of Montreal (b. 1871)

● 1941 - Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian poet (b. 1892)

● 1948 - Billy Laughlin, American actor (b. 1932)

● 1952 - Henri Bourassa, French Canadian political leader (b. 1868)

● 1963 - Georges Braque, French painter (b. 1882)

● 1967 - Ilya Ehrenburg, Russian writer (b. 1891)

● 1969 - Rocky Marciano, American boxer (b. 1923)

● 1973 - John Ford, American film director (b. 1894)

● 1974 - William Pershing Benedict, American pilot

● 1974 - Norman Kirk, New Zealand prime minister (b. 1923)

● 1978 - John Wrathall, President of Rhodesia (b. 1913)

● 1979 - Sally Rand, American dancer and actress (b. 1904)

● 1985 - Frank Macfarlane Burnet, Australian biologist, Nobel laureate (b. 1899)

● 1986 - Henry Moore, English sculptor (b. 1898)

● 1986 - Urho Kekkonen, President of Finland (b. 1900)

● 1997 - Diana, Princess of Wales (b. 1961)

● 2002 - Lionel Hampton, American vibraphone player (b. 1908)

● 2002 - George Porter, English chemist, Nobel laureate (b. 1920)

● 2004 - Carl Wayne, English singer (b. 1943)

● 2005 - Joseph Rotblat, Polish-British physicist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1908)

● 2005 - Michael Sheard, British actor (b. 1940)

● 2006 - Mohamed Abdelwahab, Egyptian footballer (b. 1983)

● 2006 - Tom Delaney, British racing driver (b. 1911)

● 2007 - Gay Brewer, American golfer (b. 1932)


HOLIDAYS AND OBSERVANCES

● Roman Catholic:
● St. Abundius
● St. Aidan, bishop of Lindisfarne, monastic founder
● St. Albertinus
● St. Amatus
● St. Aristides
● St. Caesidius
● St. Dominic del Val
● St. Paulinus of Trier
● St. Raymond Nonnatus, cardinal, ransomer of captives
● Sts. Theodotus, Rufina, and Ammia
● Bl. Richard Bere

● Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar for August 18 (Civil Date: August 31)
● Afterfeast of the Dormition.
● Martyrs Florus and Laurus of Illyria
● Martyrs Hermes, Serapion and Polyaenus of Rome.
● Martyrs Hilarion, Dionysius and Hermippus; Hieromartyr Emilian, and others (about 1,000) of Italy.
● Saints John and George, Patriarch of Constantinople.
● St. Barnabas and his nephew St. Sophronius, monks of Mt. Mela near Trebizond.
● St. Christopher, abbot of Mt. Mela Monastery.
● Repose of St. John, abbot of Rila.
● St. Sophronius of St. Anne's Skete on Mt. Athos.
● St. Arsenius the New of Paros.

● Greek Calendar:
● Martyr Juliana near Strobilus.
● Martyr Leo, drowned near Myra in Lycia.
● Four Holy Ascetics.

● Anglican:
● St. Aidan, bishop of Lindisfarne, monastic founder

● Lutheran:
● Commemoration of John Bunyan, teacher

● Afghanistan - Pashtunistan Day

● Kyrgyzstan - Independence Day (from USSR, 1991).

● Malaysia - Hari Merdeka, a National Day (independence within the Commonwealth, 1957).

● Moldova: Day of Our Language (Limba Noastra).

● Poland, Europe - Day of Solidarity and Freedom, on the anniversary of August Agreement from 1980

● Trinidad and Tobago - Independence Day (from United Kingdom, 1962).

● United States - Festal Day/Order of the Eastern Star (Robert Morris' birthday)

● These Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"
● England, Channel Is, Northern Ireland, Wales : Bank Holiday - ( Monday )
● Hong Kong : Liberation Day (1945) - ( Monday )


IN FICTION

● 1889 - Start of Sherlock Holmes adventure "Cardboard Box."


Click on this LINK to see original Wikipedia list with many having links with details.

Additional facts taken from:


On this day in the New York Times

The BBC’s Take on the day

On This Day Website

Geov Parrish's this Day in Radical History, things that happened on this day that you never had to memorize in school.

Scope Systems Any Day Website

Roman Catholic Saint of the Day

Russian Orthodox Christian Menaion Calendar

Liberal Quotes of the Day taken from The Best Liberal Quotes Ever: Why the Left Is Right Compiled by William P. Martin ©2004

Quotes from the Right of the Day taken from Take Them at Their Words: Startling, Amusing and Baffling Quotations from the GOP and Their Friends, 1994-2004 Compiled by Bruce J. Miller with Diana Maio ©2004

Dumbest Thing Said for the Day taken from 1001 Dumbest Things Ever Said Edited by Steven D. Price ©2004


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