On August 31, 1897, Thomas Edison received a patent for the kinetographic camera, “a certain new and useful Improvement in Kinetoscopes,” the forerunner of the motion picture film projector. Continue reading.

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A bit of August 31st history…

1837 - Ralph Waldo Emerson gives his famous “The American Scholar” speech at Harvard College, MA, declaring American literary independence from Europe

1888 - The body of Jack the Ripper’s 1st victim, Mary Ann Nichols, is found in Whitechapel, London

1897 - Thomas Edison patents the kinetoscope, a device that produces moving pictures

1925 - Anthropologist Margaret Mead first arrives in Samoa (pictured, center)

1955 - 1st sun-powered automobile demonstrated - Chicago

1968 - 12,000 die and 60,000 buildings destroyed by 7.8 quake in NE Iran

1994 - A cease fire was declared by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) after 25 years of bloodshed in Northern Ireland

1997 - Princess Diana dies in a car crash in a road tunnel in Paris

2015 - President Obama officially re-designates Alaska’s Mt McKinley as Denali, it’s native American name 

On August 30, 1862, the Second Battle of Manassas ended a long campaign in northern Virginia. Continue reading.

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A bit of August 30th history…

1146 - European leaders outlaw use of crossbow, intending to end war for all time

1363 - Battle of Lake Poyang: 2 Chinese rebel leaders are pitted against each other in what is one of the largest naval battles in history during the Mongol - led Yuan Dynasty

1890 - US President Harrison signed first US law requiring inspection of meat products

1909 - Burgess Shale fossils discovered (pictured)

1941 - Siege of Leningrad by German troops begins during WWII

1963 - Hotline communication link between the Pentagon in Washington DC and the Kremlin in Moscow installed; known as the “red telephone”

1967 - US Senate confirm Thurgood Marshall as 1st black Supreme Court Justice 

1979 - 1st recorded occurrence of a comet hitting the sun, releases energy equal to 1 million hydrogen bombs

2019 - Outlook for the Great Barrier Reef downgraded to very poor according to official Australian reports 

At approximately 6:10 a.m., Central Daylight Time, on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina, a Category 4 storm packing winds of 145 m.p.h., made landfall out of the Gulf of Mexico near Buras, Louisiana, and headed north towards the historic city of New Orleans, Louisiana, and the state of Mississippi. Continue reading.

Although descriptive not only of August 29, a 1939 interview “Human Kindness,” by author Anne Stevens, recorded a typical day at the Graham dairy farm in Georgetown, North Carolina. Continue reading.

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A bit of August 29th history…

1833 - Britain’s 1st Factory Act becomes law “to regulate the labor of children and young persons in the mills and factories of the United Kingdom”

1842 - Great Britain and China sign Treaty of Nanking, ending the Opium War

1990 - Saddam Hussein declares America can’t beat Iraq

1997 - Netflix founded in California as an online DVD rental business

2005 - Hurricane Katrina makes landfall as a category 3 hurricane, devastating much of the US Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Florida panhandle; kills more than 1,836, and causes over $115 billion in damages (pictured)

2012 - The USADA claims to have stripped Lance Armstrong of his 7 Tour de France titles

2017 - Hurricane Harvey sets rainfall record for a tropical cyclone in continental US according to National Weather Service

2019 - Discovery of world’s largest child sacrifice site announced by archaeologists with 227 victims from Chimu culture in Huanchaco, Peru 

On August 28, 1963, one-hundred years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, approximately 200,000 to 250,000 people arrived in Washington, D.C. and peacefully marched down Constitution and Independence Avenues to the Lincoln Memorial.  Continue reading.

Ten suffragists were arrested on August 28, 1917, as they picketed the White House. The protesters were there in an effort to pressure President Woodrow Wilson to support the proposed “Anthony amendment” to the Constitution that would guarantee women the right to vote. Continue reading.

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A bit of August 28th history…

489 - Theodoric, King of Ostrogoths, defeats Odoacer at the Battle of Isonzo, forcing his way into Italy

1830 - 1st American built locomotive, the “Tom Thumb”, races a horse drawn car from Baltimore to Elliott Mills; due to mechanical problems, the horse won

1837 - Pharmacists John Lea and William Perrins make Worcestershire Sauce

1859 - A geomagnetic storm causes the Aurora Borealis to shine so brightly it is seen clearly over parts of the US, Europe, and even Japan

1884 - 1st known photograph of a tornado is made in S Dakota (pictured)

1963 - Martin Luther King Jr delivers his “I have a dream” speech, addressing the March on Washington fro Jobs and Freedom civil rights march

2019 - Climate change activist Greta Thunberg arrives in NY after sailing across the Atlantic in an emissions free voyage 

On August 27, 1900, U.S. Army physician James Carroll allowed an infected mosquito to feed on him in an attempt to isolate the means of transmission of yellow fever. Continue reading.

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A bit of August 27th history…

479 BC - Greco-Persian Wars: Battle of Mycale won by Greek forces over Persian naval troops on Ionian coast; double victory with that of Plataea ends the Persian invasion

1883 - Krakatoa volcano, west of Java in Indonesia, erupts with a force of 1300 megatons and kills approx 40,000 people (pictured)

1896 - Britain defeats Zanzibar in a 38 minute war; shortest recorded war in history

1913 - Gideon Sundback applies to patent all purpose zipper

1918 - Spanish Flu arrives in Boston, beginning the second and deadliest wave in the US

1928 - Kellogg - Briand Pact; 60 nations agree

1955 - “Guinness Book of World Records” 1st published

2008 - Barack Obama becomes 1st African-American to be nominated by a major political party for President of the United States