Today in History - August 26

On August 26, 1791, John Fitch and James Rumsey, rivals battling over claims to the invention, each were granted a federal patent for the steamboat. Continue reading.

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A bit of August 26th history…

55 - Britain was invaded by Roman forces under Julius Caesar

1346 - Battle of Crecy: cannons used for 1st time in battle

1873 - 1st free kindergarten in the US - Missouri

1959 - British Motor Corporation introduces the Morris Mini-Minor; it was only 10 ft long but seated 4 passengers (pictured)

1973 - 10 yr old Mary Boitano is 1st woman to win 6.8 mile Dipsea Race in California, beating a field of 1500 runners

1996 - US President Clinton signs Welfare Reform into law, representing major shift in welfare policy

2016 - San Francisco 49ers’ Colin Kaepernick kneels in protest during the US national anthem, objecting to racial injustice and police brutality in the US 

A bit of August 26th history… 55 - Britain was invaded...

Today in History - August 25

Allan Pinkerton (1819-84), founder of Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on August 25, 1819. Continue reading.

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A bit of August 25th history…

325 - Council of Nicaea ends with the adoption of the Nicene Creed establishing the doctrine of the Holy Trinity

1829 - US President Jackson makes an offer to buy Texas, but Mexican government refuses

1875 - Captain Matthew Webb makes 1st observed and unassisted swim across the English Channel

1915 - Hurricane kills 275 in Galveston, TX with $50 million damages

1991 - Linux was born when Linus Torvalds sent off the email announcing his project to create a new operating system

2006 - Hyperion, the world’s tallest living tree, a Redwood standing 379.1 ft (155.55 m) discovered in California (pictured) 

A bit of August 25th history… 325 - Council of Nicaea...

A bit of August 24th history…

79 - Mt Vesuvius erupts; buries Pompeii and Herculaneum, 15,000 die)

410 - Rome overrun by Visigoths under Alaric I for the 1st time in nearly 800 years, seen as the fall of the Western Roman Empire

1456 - Printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed

1572 - St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 70,000 Protestants by Roman Catholics beginning in Paris and spreading to French provinces

1853 - 1st potato chips prepared by chef Crum in NY

1891 - Thomas Edison patents motion picture camera

1995 - Microsoft debuts Windows 95

2006 - Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet

2018 - Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler sends cease-and-desist letter to President Trump demanding he stop using the bands songs at rallies 

A bit of August 24th history… 79 - Mt Vesuvius erupts;...

Today in History - August 24

On August 24, 1682, the Duke of York awarded Englishman William Penn a deed to the “Three Lower Counties” that make up the present state of Delaware, recently transferred from Dutch to British jurisdiction. Continue reading.

The major financial catalyst for the panic of 1857 was the August 24, 1857, failure of the New York branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company. Continue reading.

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A bit of August 23rd history…

79 - Mt Vesuvius begins stirring, on feast day of Vulcan, Roman god of fire (goes on to destroy Pompeii)

1305 - William Wallace, Scottish patriot, is executed for high treason by Edward I of England

1793 - The French National Convention adopts the levee en masse, conscripting all able bodied men between 18 & 25 for military service during the French Revolution

1990 - US begins call up of 46,000 reservists to the Persian Gulf

2007 - Hashtag invented and 1st used in a tweet by US product designer Chris Messina

2013 - UN inspectors are stopped by Syrian government from investigating a reported site of a chemical massacre

2017 - World’s driest place, the Atacama Desert in Chile, blooms after an unexpected rainfall (pictured) 

A bit of August 23rd history… 79 - Mt Vesuvius begins...

Today in History - August 23

On August 23, 1864, the Union navy captured Fort Morgan, Alabama, breaking the Confederate dominance of the ports of the Gulf of Mexico. Continue reading.

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A bit of August 22nd history…

565 - St Columbe reports seeing monster in Loch Ness

1485 - Battle of Bosworth Field: Henry Tudor’s forces defeat English King Richard III during last battle in the Wars of the Roses; Richard is killed - last English monarch to die in battle

1770 - Australia claimed under British Crown when Captain James Cook lands there

1775 - King George III proclaims colonies to be in open rebellion

1812 - Swiss traveler Johann Burckhardt id 1st European to rediscover the Nabataean City of Petra (pictured)

1864 - 1st Geneva Convention - signed by 12 nations

2004 - “The Scream” (1919 painted version) and “Madonna”, 2 paintings by Edvard Munch, are stolen at gunpoint from the Munch Museum in Norway

2018 - Discovery of a bone of a 90,000 hybrid human: half Neanderthal, half Denisovan from Anuy River, Siberia; published in “Nature” 

A bit of August 22nd history… 565 - St Columbe reports...

Today in History - August 22

August 22 falls in the midst of the state and county fair season. State and county fairs are an American pastime in the late summer and early fall—a remnant of a cross-cultural tradition rooted in ancient times. Continue reading.

On August 22, 1966, the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), later renamed the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), was formed. Continue reading.

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