Interesting Facts

31st August 1997– Princess Diana, Al Fayed and their driver, Henri Paul, die in a high-speed car crash in a Paris tunnel. 1980 - Poland's Solidarity movement (Solidarnosc), was officially recognised. It is credited with playing a key role in the collapse of communism.

28th August 1963 - Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous, "I have a dream", speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before more than 200,000 people gathered for the Freedom March in Washington. 1996 -  Diana's divorce from Prince Charles became final today; she got to keep the title "Princess".

25th August 1944 - U.S. troops liberated Paris from the Nazis in World War II.

21st August 1770 – James Cook formally claimed eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales. 1831 – Nat Turner led black slaves and free blacks in a rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. 1879 – The Virgin Mary, along with St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist, reportedly appeared to the people of Knock, County Mayo, Ireland. Paving the way for lots of little plastic figurines. 1911 – The Mona Lisa was stolen by an employee at the Louvre in Paris. 1968 - Dozens of people were killed in a massive military clampdown in Czechoslovakia. 1983 - Benigno Aquino, the Philippines opposition leader, was murdered just minutes after returning home from exile. 1986 - 1,700 people died when a cloud of lethal gas escaped from a volcanic lake, Lake Nyos, in Cameroon.

20th August 1858 – Charles Darwin first published his theory of evolution in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory. 1882 – Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuted in Moscow. 1940 – Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky was fatally wounded with an ice axe by Ramon Mercader in Mexico. 1978 - A 29 year old airline stewardess, Irit Gidron, died during an attack on a bus carrying Israelis in central London. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) later said it had carried out the attack. 1986 – U.S. Postal employee Patrick Sherrill gunned down 14 of his co-workers and then commited suicide in In Edmond, Oklahoma. 1988 – A cease-fire was agreed between Iran and Iraq, after almost eight years of war. 1989 – The pleasure boat Marchioness sank on the River Thames, in London, following a collision. 51 people were killed. 1991 – Estonia seceded from the Soviet Union.

19th August 1561 – 18-year-old Mary Queen of Scots returned to Scotland, after spending 13 years in France. 1692 – 5 people, 1 woman and 4 men, including a clergyman, were executed after being convicted of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. 1745 – Prince Charles Edward Stuart landed Glenfinnan, raised his standard and marched on London – the start of the Second Jacobite Rebellion known as "the 45". 1919 – Afghanistan gained full independence from the United Kingdom. 1934 – The creation of the position of Führer was approved by the German electorate with 89.9% of the popular vote. 1977 – Groucho Marx died. 1989 – Several hundred East Germans crossed the frontier between Hungary and Austria during the Pan-European Picnic, part of the events which began the process of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. 1999 – Tens of thousands of Serbians rallied in Belgrade, to demand the resignation of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia President Slobodan Milošević.

18th August 1982 - The first CD was produced at Philips' factory in Germany.

16th August 1819 – Seventeen people die and over 600 were injured in cavalry charges at a public meeting at St. Peter's Field, Manchester, England, which was held to demand the reform of parliamentary representation. This became known as The Peterloo Massacre. 1902 – Georgette Heyer, English author was born. 1906 – An estimated 8.2 MW earthquake hit Valparaíso, Chile, killing 3,886 people. 1913 – Tōhoku Imperial University of Japan (modern day Tohoku University) becomes the first university in Japan to admit female students. 1946 – Mass riots in Kolkata began, in which more than 4,000 people were murdered over the next 72 hours. 1960 – Cyprus gained its independence from the United Kingdom. 1974 – Punk Rock pioneers The Ramones played their first show in a local New York club called CBGB. 1977 - Elvis Presley died. 2012 – South African police fatally shot 34 miners and wounded 78 more during an industrial dispute near Rustenburg.

14th August 1947 - Colonial rule in India ended, and the country of Pakistan was created.

1946 - H G Wells died in London at the age of 79. His works included The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds.

9th August 1173 – Construction of the campanile of the Cathedral of Pisa (now known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa) began. It took two centuries to complete. 1483 – The Sistine Chapel opened in Rome with the celebration of a mass. 1842 – The Webster–Ashburton Treaty was signed, establishing the United States–Canada border east of the Rocky Mountains. 1892 – Thomas Edison received a patent for a two-way telegraph. 1902 – Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 1922 – Philip Larkin, English poet and author was born. 1936 – The Summer Olympic Games aka Games of the XI Olympiad were held in Berlin. Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal at the games becoming the first American to win four medals in one Olympiad. 1942 – Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi was arrested in Bombay by British forces, launching the Quit India Movement. 1945 – World War II: Nagasaki, Japan was devastated when an atomic bomb, Fat...

8th August 1503 – King James IV of Scotland married Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh, Scotland. 1585 – John Davis entered the Cumberland Sound in search of the Northwest Passage. 1709 – The first documented balloon flight in Europe was demonstrated by Bartolomeu de Gusmão, in Lisbon. It did not end well, but he was the first. 1786 – Mont Blanc on the French – Italian border was climbed for the first time by Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michel-Gabriel Paccard. 1793 – The insurrection of Lyon occured during the French Revolution. 1794 – Joseph Whidbey led an expedition to search for the Northwest Passage near Juneau, Alaska. 1876 – Thomas Edison received a patent for his mimeograph. 1908 – Wilbur Wright made his first flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France. It was the Wright Brothers' first public flight. 1929 – The German airship Graf Zeppelin began a round-the-world flight. 1942 – The Quit India Movement was laun...

6th August 1926 - The American Olympic athlete, Gertrude Ederle, became the first woman to swim across the English Channel. It took her 14 hours, 39 minutes to swim the 56 kilometers from France to England. She held the record for 35 years. 1945 - The world's first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. An estimated 140,000 people were killed by the bomb and its aftermath.

5th August 1858 - After several unsuccessful attempts, the first telegraph line across the Atlantic Ocean was completed. 1962 - Marilyn Monroe was found dead. 1973 - Three people were killed and 55 wounded when two gunmen opened fire in a crowded passenger lounge at Athens airport.

4th August  1914 - Germany declared war on Belgium 1914 - Britain declared war on Germany. 1914 - The US declared neutrality. A woman gives flowers to a German soldier leaving for the front, Berlin, August 1914  pic.twitter.com/AbpfIdFCN9 — History In Pictures (@HistoryInPics)  August 5, 2014 1944 - Anne Frank was arrested in Amsterdam by German Security Police (Grüne Polizei) following a tip-off from an informer who was never identified.1964 - FBI agents uncovered the bodies of three missing civil rights workers at a dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi.

3rd August 2001 - A car bomb exploded in a busy west London street, injuring seven people. 2003 - The Anglican Church in America voted to approve the appointment of an openly gay bishop. 2008 - Nobel literature prize winner, Alexander Solzhenitsyn who revealed the horror of Stalin's camps to the world, died aged 89.

1st August Yorkshire Day

1st August 1907 - Robert Baden-Powell opened the first experimental Scout camp on Brownsea Island. 20 scouts attended. 1908 - Lloyd George introduced the Old Age Pensions Act that provided between 1s. and 5s. a week to people over seventy. These pensions were only paid to citizens on incomes that were not over 12s.