- AAU Junior Olympic Games July 23 - August 2, 2008

- Swiss National Day

- Total solar eclipse 2008

- William Clark, co-leader of Lewis and Clark expedition, was born. (1770)

- Joseph Priestley isolated oxygen for the first time. (1774)

- Star-Spangled Banner writer Frances Scott Key was born. (1779)

- Metric distance unit of the meter was first defined. (1791)

- Whiskey Rebellion began. (1797)

- Two Years Before the Mast author Richard Henry Dana was born. (1815)

- Moby Dick author Herman Melville was born. (1819)

- Colorado entered the Union the year the United States celebrated its centennial; therefore, the 38^th state is known as the Centennial State. (1876)

- First World War began. (1914)

- Jeep, vehicle used by the Army, was introduced. (1941)

- Anne Frank made her last entry in her diary. (1944)

- Media giant MTV debuted. (1981)

- Baseball Hall of Fame inducted Henry "Hank" Aaron. (1982)

Back to Top

- Washington, D.C., planner Pierre Charles L'Enfant was born. (1754)

- Declaration of Independence was formally signed. (1776)

- Why is the sky blue? John Tyndall became the first scientist to explain the reasons. (b.1820)

- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was published. (1865)

- Hitler declared himself Fuehrer of Germany. (1934)

- Isabel Allende, writer (The House of the Spirits), was born. (1942)

Back to Top

- National Stop on Red Week (August 3 - 9, 2008)

- Christopher Columbus set sail. (1492)

- Explorer Samuel de Champlain discovered Quebec. (1608)

- Captain Henry Hudson, seeking a new passage to the Pacific, discovered the bay in Canada that now bears his name. (1610)

- La Scala Opera House in Milan opened. (1777)

- Bank for Savings, first in America, opened for business in New York City. (1819)

- Labor organizer Uriah Smith Stephens was born. (1821)

- Source of the Nile River, Lake Victoria, was discovered. (1858)

- Monkey Trial lawyer John T. Scopes was born. (1900)

- Ernie Pyle, WWII journalist, was born. (1900)

- Gray Panthers (an organization dealing with issues of the elderly) founder Margaret E. "Maggie" Kuhn was born. (1905)

- President Calvin Coolidge was inaugurated. (1923)

- Exodus author Leon Marcus Uris was born. (1924)

- Nautilus, a nuclear submarine, accomplished the first undersea voyage to the geographic North Pole. (1958)

Back to Top

- Coast Guard Day

- Modern pencil inventor Nicolas-Jacque Conte was born. (1755)

- Percy Bysshe Shelley, poet, was born. (1792)

- Borden murders were discovered in Fall River, Massachusetts. (1892)

- Louis Armstrong, jazz musician, was born. (1901)

- Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg, Holocaust hero, was born. (1912)

- Famine struck Russia ; millions starved and resorted to eating grass. (1921)

Back to Top

- National Night Out 2008

- Julia Archibald Holmes became the first woman on record to reach the summit of Pike's Peak. (1858)

- Statue of Liberty cornerstone was laid in New York City. (1884)

- Pulitzer Prize poet and novelist Conrad Aiken was born in Georgia. (1889)

- The first electric traffic signals were installed in Cleveland, Ohio. (1914)

- "Little Orphan Annie" was created. (1924)

- Neil Armstrong, astronaut and first to touch the moon's surface, was born. (1930)

- Dick Clark's American Bandstand, Philadelphia's local after-school dance show, was broadcast on TV for the first time. (1957)

- Handicapped Children's Protection Act was passed in the United States. (1986)

- Vietnam and the United States declared an end to decades of enmity, formally established diplomatic ties, and pledged a new era of cooperation. (1995)

Back to Top

- National Salvadoran-American Day

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, poet, was born. (1809)

- Alexander Fleming, scientist who discovered penicillin, was born. (1881)

- Cy Young pitched his first professional baseball game. (1890)

- Lucille Ball, “I Love Lucy” star, birthday. (1911)

- English Channel was first swum by a woman, Gertrude Ederle. (1926)

- Andy Warhol, artist, was born. (1928)

- The atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, during WWII. (1945)

Back to Top

- Nathanael Greene, Revolutionary War hero, was born. (1742)

- Order of the Purple Heart was created by George Washington. (1782)

- Lighthouse, Beacons, Buoys, and Public Piers Act approved by Congress. (1789)

- Newspaper correspondent and editor Charles Anderson Dana was born. (1819)

- Spy Gertrud Margarete Zelle, a.k.a. Mata Hari, was born. (1876)

- Anthropologist and archaeologist Louis Leakey was born. (1903)

- Ralph Bunche, Nobel Prize for Peace recipient, was born. (1904)

- Storyteller Garrison Keillor was born. (1942)

- The raft Kon Tiki ran aground on the Tuamotu Archipelago. (1947)

Back to Top

- Summer Olympics in Beijing, China begin. (August 8 – 24, 2008)

- Matthew A. Henson, co-discoverer of North Pole, was born. (1865)

- Mexican revolutionary and reformer Emiliano Zapata was born. (1879)

- Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author (The Yearling), was born. (1896)

- Ernest O. Lawrence, Cyclotron inventor, was born. (1901)

- Richard Nixon announced his resignation from the U.S. presidency. (1974)

Back to Top

- Japanese O-bon Festival / Feast of Lanterns celebrated 2008

- Early conservationist and writer of one of the most famous books in the English language (The Compleat Angler) Isaac Walton was born. (1593)

- John Dryden, poet, dramatist, critic, and translator, was born. (1631)

- Creek War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Fort Jackson. (1814)

- William T. G. Morton, controversial anesthesiology pioneer, was born. (1819)

- S. R. Ranganathan, one of the most influential figures in the field of library and information sciences, was born. (1892)

- Jean Piaget, pioneering philosopher and psychologist, was born. (1896)

- Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers was born. (1906)

- Cartoon character Betty Boop was introduced. (1930)

- Jesse Owens won four Olympic gold medals in track. (1936)

Back to Top

- Edmund Jennings Randolph, first Attorney General of the United States, was born. (1753)

- William Lowndes Yancey, orator and southern statesman, was born. (1814)

- Missouri became the 24^th state. (1821)

- Smithsonian Institution established by Congress. (1846)

- Herbert Hoover, Depression-era president, was born. (1874)

Back to Top

- Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, "father of gymnastics," was born. (1778)

- Japanese Meiji Restoration political figure, Kido Takayoshi, who helped end the feudalistic Tokugawa shogunate, was born. (1833)

- Duke Kahanamoku broke the world record in the 100-yard free-style swim by 4.6 seconds in Honolulu Harbor. (1911)

- Roots author Alex Haley was born. (1921)

- Federal prison opened at Alcatraz Island. (1934)

Back to Top

- Perseid Meteor Showers peak 2008

- Japanese isolationist Tokugawa Iemitsu was born. (1604)

- Patriot bard Robert Southey was born. (1774)

- Washington Monument architect Robert Mills was born. (1781)

- "Diamond Jim,": James Buchanan Brady, was born. (1856)

- Katharine Lee Bates, lyricist for America the Beautiful, was born. (1859)

- Christy Mathewson, baseball great who said, "You can learn little from victory. You can learn everything from defeat," was born. (1880)

- Movie director Cecil B. de Mille was born. (1881)

- Archaeologist Eliezer Lipa Sukenik, who identified the antiquity of the Dead Sea Scrolls, was born. (1889)

- Miguel Torga, writer ( Portugal ), was born. (1907)

- Thailand’s Queen Sirikit was born. (1932)

- T. rex fossil was found by Susan Hendrickson. (1990)

- A free-trade zone was formed by the United States, Mexico, and Canada that ranks as the world's largest single trading bloc. (1992)

Back to Top

- Golden Mean Day

- International Lefthanders Day

- William Caxton, publisher of the first book in English, was born. (1422)

- Spanish conquerors captured what is now Mexico City from Aztecs. (1521)

- Lucy Stone, women's rights pioneer, was born. (1818)

- Dictionary of Music and Musicians writer George Grove was born. (1820)

- Western sharpshooter Annie Oakley was born. (1860)

- Mystery and suspense writer Alfred Hitchcock was born. (1899)

- Rotary engine designer Felix Wankel was born. (1902)

- Fidel Castro, ex-Cuban leader, was born. (1926)

Back to Top

- Mathematician Jean-Gaston Darboux was born. (1842)

- Oregon Territory was created by Congress. (1848)

- Julia Child, famous cook, was born. (1925)

- World War II ended. (1945)

- Pakistan Independence Day (1947)

Back to Top

- Assumption Day

- Macbeth, King of Scotland, was slain by son of King Duncan. (1057)

- Napoleon Bonaparte was born. (1769)

- Ivanhoe author Walter Scott was born. (1771)

- Edna Ferber, novelist whose work was the inspiration for numerous Broadway plays and Hollywood films, was born. (1887)

- Lawrence of Arabia, Thomas Edward Lawrence, was born. (1888)

Back to Top

- Partial Lunar eclipse 2008

- Emancipation Proclamation was signed by Abraham Lincoln. (1863)

- Illustrator (Prince Valliant) Harold "Hal" R. Foster was born. (1892)

- Labor leader George Meany was born. (1894)

- Gold was discovered in the Klondike. (1896)

- Circus owner Robert Ringling was born. (1897)

- Roller coaster was patented. (1898)

- Robert Bunsen, chemist and inventor of the Bunsen gas burner, died. (1899)

- Romance novelist Georgette Heyer was born. (1902)

- Israeli politician Shimon Peres was born. (1923)

- Cultural icon and musician Elvis Presley died. (1977)

Back to Top

- Modern theory of numbers mathematician and founder Pierre de Fermat was born. (1601)

- Davy Crockett, American frontiersman, was born. (1786)

- The wrench was patented by Solymon Merrick of Massachusetts. (1835)

- Movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn was born. (1882)

- Marcus Garvey Jr., American black nationalist, was born. (1887)

- Actress Mae West was born. (1892)

- Jiang Zemin, president of China, was born. (1929)

Back to Top

- Roman temple to Venus was founded. (293 BC)

- Genghis Khan, Mongol leader, died. (1227)

- Virginia Dare became the first child of English heritage born in North America. (1587)

- Antonio Salieri, composer, was born. (1750) Did he poison Mozart?

- Meriwether Lewis, explorer, was born. (1774)

- Marshall Field, storeowner, was born. (1834)

- Potawatomi Indians, who played lacrosse, left Chicago. (1835)

- Cosmetics entrepreneur Max Factor was born. (1904)

- Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19^th Amendment to U.S. Constitution. (1920)

- Rosalynn Carter, former First Lady, was born. (1927)

- Toyota Motor Company, manufacturer of Japanese automobiles, was founded. (1937)

Back to Top

- National Aviation Day

- Mary Stuart was proclaimed Queen of Scotland. (1561)

- USS Constitution ("Old Ironsides") defeated the British frigate Guerri're off the coast of Nova Costa. (1812)

- Aviator Orville Wright was born. (1871)

- Ogden Nash, poet who said, "Too clever is dumb," was born. (1902)

- Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor and television pioneer, was born. (1906)

- "Blue Laws" are enforced when two men are arrested for playing baseball on a Sunday. (1917)

- Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was born. (1921)

- Adolf Hitler was confirmed by election as Fuehrer of Germany. (1934)

- The first All-American Soap Box Derby was held in Dayton, Ohio. (1934)

- William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton, 42^nd U.S. President, was born. (1946)

- Tipper Gore, activist for parental advisory labels on music, was born. (1948)

- Saturday morning television shows for children were first aired by American Broadcasting Company. (1950)

- Norwegian Crown Princess Mette Marit was born. (1973)

Back to Top

- Bernardo O'Higgins, son of an Irish immigrant who became Governor-General of Chile, was born. (1778)

- Jons Jacob Berzelius, inventor of modern chemical notation and the discoverer of silicon, selenium, thorium, and cerium, was born. (1779)

- Rock edicts of King Asoka decipherer James Prinsep was born. (1799)

- Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States, was born. (1833)

- National Labor Union calls on Congress to mandate an eight-hour workday. (1866)

- Presidential Proclamation declared a state of peace between Texas and the United States. (1866)

- "It takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home" writer Edgar Albert Guest was born. (1881)

- The Mikado, a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, opened in New York City. (1885)

- Kingsley Davis, who coined the term "zero population growth," was born. (1908)

- Gateway Arch architect Eero Saarinen was born. (1910)

- The first commercial radio station, 8MK (WWJ), began operations in Detroit, Michigan. (1920)

Back to Top

- Tobias Furneaux, who introduced domestic animals and potatoes into the South Sea Islands, was born. (1735)

- Iron manufacturer and inventor William Kelly was born. (1811)

- Nat Turner Slave Rebellion occurred. (1831)

- Lincoln-Douglas debates began. (1858)

- Jazz musician William "Count" Basie was born. (1904)

- Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in Paris, France. (1911)

- Basketball great Wilton "Wilt" Chamberlain was born. (1936)

- Hawaii was admitted as the 50^th U.S. state. (1959)

Back to Top

- Denis Papin, inventor of the piston steam engine and pressure cooker, was born. (1647)

- First America's Cup was won by the yacht America . (1851)

- Claude Debussy, composer (Clair de Lune), was born. (1862)

- Geneva Convention was signed by 12 nations. (1864)

- International Red Cross was formed. (1864)

- Leni Riefenstahl, German filmmaker, was born. (1902)

- Henri Cartier-Bresson, photographer, was born. (1908)

- Ray Bradbury, science fiction and fantasy author (Fahrenheit 451), was born. (1920)

- Carl Yastrzemski, baseball player, was born. (1939)

- United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), later to be renamed the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), was formed. (1966)

Back to Top

- International Day of Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition

- Louis XVI of France was born. (1754)

- Britain declared the colonies in rebellion. (1775)

- Franklin State formed. It was a short-lived state in what is now Tennessee. (1784)

- Oliver Hazard Perry, hero of Battle of Lake Erie, was born. (1785)

- Mexico became independent from Spain with the signing of the Treaty of Cordoba. (1821)

- Edgar Lee Masters, author ( Spoon River Anthology), was born. (1869)

- Radio pioneer William Eccles was born. (1875)

- Jonathan Wainwright, Medal of Honor recipient, was born. (1883)

- Gene Kelly, dancer and actor, was born. (1912)

- Edgar F. Codd, founder of theory of relational databases, was born. (1923)

- Political satirist Mark Russell was born.  (1932)

- World's largest frog (3.3 kg) was caught in Equatorial Guinea. (1960)

Back to Top

- Mt. Vesuvius erupted and destroyed Pompeii, Stabiae, and Herculaneum. (79 A.D.)

- Robert Herrick, poet, was born. (1591)

- James Weddell, Antarctic explorer, was born. (1787)

- Potato chips were first prepared. (1853)

- Inventor of the toy electric train, Joshua Lionel Cowen, was born. (1880)

- Duke Kahanamoku, swimmer and surfer, was born. (1890)

- Meteorologist, Rudolf Oskar Robert Williams Geiger, one of the founders of microclimatology, was born. (1894)

- Ex-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was born. (1929)

- Cal Ripken, Jr., baseball player, was born. (1960)

Back to Top

- Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado. August 25 – 28, 2008

- Ivan the Terrible of Russia was born. (1530)

- New Orleans, Louisiana, was founded. (1718)

- Allan Pinkerton, detective nicknamed The Eye, hence the term "private eye," was born. (1819)

- Francis Bret Harte, American writer, was born. (1836)

- Charles Richet, anaphylaxis researcher and Nobel Prize winner, was born. (1850)

- Pogo cartoonist Walt Kelly was born. (1913)

- United States National Park Service was created. (1916)

- Leonard Bernstein, conductor and composer, was born. (1918)

- George C. Wallace, politician, was born. (1919)

- Maxim Kontsevich, Russian mathematician, was born. (1964)

Back to Top

- Women’s Equality Day

- Antoine Lavoisier, father of modern chemistry, was born. (1743)

- John Fitch was granted a U.S. patent for the steamboat. (1791)

- John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln assassin, was born. (1838)

- Amistad was captured off Long Island. (1839)

- St. Louis authorized the first U.S. public school kindergarten. (1873)

- Albert Sabin, polio researcher, was born. (1906)

- Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, Mother Teresa, was born. (1910)

- Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification of the 19^th Amendment, giving women the right to vote.

Back to Top

- Georg Hegel, philosopher, was born. (1770)

- "Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen" was signed in France. (1789)

- Charles Dawes, U.S. Vice President under Calvin Coolidge, was born. (1865)

- Theodore Dreiser, a leader of naturalism in American writing, was born. (1871)

- Krakatoa (also spelled Krakatau), a volcano located in the Sunda Strait in what is now the nation of Indonesia, erupted. (1883)

- Photographer and artist Man Ray was born. (1890)

- C.S. Forester, author of Horatio Hornblower novels, was born. (1899)

- Lyndon Johnson, 36^th U.S. President, was born. (1908)

Back to Top

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer, was born. (1749)

- Leo Tolstoy, author (War and Peace), was born. (1828)

- With his small steam engine Tom Thumb, Peter Cooper started the first railway service in the United States. (1830)

- Scientific American magazine published its first issue. (1845)

- First known photograph of a tornado was made. (1884)

- Roger Tory Peterson, ornithologist and illustrator, was born. (1908)

- Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C. (1963)

- Riots in Chicago occurred during the Democratic National Convention. (1968)

- Mark Spitz, Olympic athlete in the Munich Games, won his first of several gold medals in swimming events. (1972)

Back to Top

- Atahualpa, last Inca ruler of Peru, died. (1533)

- John Locke, philosopher, was born. (1632)

- First U.S. Indian reservation was established. (1758)

- Shay's Rebellion began in Springfield, Massachusetts. (1786)

- Charles F. Kettering, prolific inventor and philanthropist, was born. (1876)

- Chop suey was "invented" in New York City. (1896)

- Ishi, reportedly the last of the Yahi tribe, was found in California. (1911)

- Jazz musician Charlie Parker was born. (1920)

- United States Air Force Academy opened in Colorado Springs, Colorado. (1958)

Back to Top

- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein writer, was born. (1797)

- Ellen Herndon Arthur, Chester Alan Arthur's beloved "Nell," was born. (1827)

- Kamehameha proclaimed Honolulu the capital city of his kingdom. (1850)

- Second Battle of Manassas ended a long campaign in northern Virginia. (1862)

- Ernest Rutherford, physicist, was born. (1871)

- Ted Williams, baseball player, fighter pilot and angler, was born. (1918)

- Sylvia A. Earle, first woman chief scientist of National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, was born. (1935)

- Jean-Claude Killy, skiing legend, was born. (1943)

- Thurgood Marshall was confirmed as the first African American Supreme Court Justice. (1967)

Back to Top

- Caligula, Roman Emperor, was born. (12 A.D.)

- Maria Montessori, educator, was born. (1870)

- Queen Wilhelmina I of the Netherlands was born. (1880)

- Thomas A. Edison patented the kinetoscope for moving pictures. (1887)

- Arthur Godfrey, radio and television host, was born. (1903)

- Triple Entente was formed by England , Russia, and France to counter the Triple Alliance. (1907)

- William Saroyan, novelist and playwright, was born. (1908)

- Film and Broadway musical composer Alan Jay Lerner was born. (1918)

- Itzhak Perlman, violin virtuoso, was born. (1945)

Back to Top