The History Shack

  OTD August 19th is the two-hundredth-thirty-first day of the year, and there are 134 days remaining until the end of the year.   Event 295 BC – The first temple to Venus, the Roman goddess of love, beauty, and fertility, was dedicated by Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges during the Third Samnite War. 1561 – Mary, Queen of Scots, aged 18, returns to Scotland after spending 13 years in France. 1666 – Second Anglo-Dutch War: Rear Admiral Robert Holmes leads a raid on the Dutch island of Terschelling, destroying 150 merchant ships, an act later known as "Holmes's Bonfire." 1812 – War of 1812: American frigate USS Constitution defeats the British frigate HMS Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, earning the nickname "Old Ironsides." 1909 – The Indianapolis Motor Speedway opens for automobile racing. William Bourque and his mechanic are killed during the first day's events. 1953 – Cold War: The CIA and MI6 help overthrow Mohammad Mosaddeg...

   OTD August 18th is the two-hundredth-thirtieth day of the year, and there are 135 days remaining until the end of the year.   Events  1492 – The first grammar of the Spanish language (Gramática de la lengua castellana) is presented to Queen Isabella I. 1612 – The trial of the Pendle witches, one of England's most famous witch trials, begins at Lancaster Assizes. 1783 – A giant fireball meteor is seen across Great Britain as it passes over the east coast. 1868 – French astronomer Pierre Janssen discovers helium. 1877 – American astronomer Asaph Hall finds Phobos, one of Mars’s moons. 1917 – A Great Fire in Thessaloniki, Greece, destroys 32% of the city, leaving 70,000 individuals homeless. 1920 – The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage. 1963 – Civil rights movement: James Meredith becomes the first African American to graduate from the University of Mississippi.   Birthdays...

   OTD August 17th is the two-hundredth-twenty-ninth day of the year, and there are 136 days remaining until the end of the year.   Events  1488 – Konrad Bitz, the Bishop of Turku, marks the date of his preface to Missale Aboense, the oldest known book of Finland. 1585 – A first group of colonists sent by Sir Walter Raleigh under the charge of Ralph Lane lands in the New World to create Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island, off the coast of present-day North Carolina. 1668 – The magnitude 8.0 North Anatolia earthquake causes 8,000 deaths in northern Anatolia, Ottoman Empire. 1784 – Classical composer Luigi Boccherini receives a pay raise 12,000 from his employer, the Infante Luis, Count of Chinchón. 1807 – Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat leaves New York City for Albany, New York, on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world. 1863 – American Civil War: In Charleston, South Carolina, Union batteries and ships...

   OTD August 16th is the two-hundredth-twenty-eighth day of the year, and there are 137 days remaining until the end of the year.   Events 1328 – The House of Gonzaga seizes power in the Duchy of Mantua and will rule until 1708. 1777 – American Revolutionary War: The Americans led by General John Stark rout British and Brunswick troops under Friedrich Baum at the Battle of Bennington in Walloomsac, New York. 1792 – Maximilien de Robespierre presented the petition of the Commune of Paris to the Legislative Assembly, which demanded the formation of a revolutionary tribunal. 1841 – U.S. President John Tyler vetoed a bill for re-establishing the Second Bank of the United States. Enraged Whig Party members rioted outside the White House in the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history. 1876 – Richard Wagner's Siegfried, the penultimate opera in his Ring cycle, premieres at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. 1916 – The Migratory Bird Treaty b...

   OTD August 15th is the two-hundredth-twenty-seventh day of the year, and there are 138 days remaining until the end of the year.   Events 1057 – King Macbeth is killed at the Battle of Lumphanan by the forces of Máel Coluim mac Donnchada. 1483 – Pope Sixtus IV consecrates the Sistine Chapel. 1248 – The foundation stone of Cologne Cathedral, built to house the relics of the Three Wise Men, is laid. (Construction was eventually completed in 1880.) 1824 – The Marquis de Lafayette, the last surviving French general of the American Revolutionary War, arrives in New York and tours 24 states. 1843 – The Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu, Hawaii, is dedicated. Now, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu Cathedral is the oldest Roman Catholic cathedral in continuous use in the United States. 1843 – Tivoli Gardens, one of the oldest still intact amusement parks in the world, opens in Copenhagen, Denmark. 1899 – Fratton Park football ground in Portsmo...

   OTD August 14th is the two-hundredth-twenty-sixth day of the year, and there are 139 days remaining until the end of the year.   Events   1264 – After tricking the Venetian galley fleet into sailing east to the Levant, the Genoese capture an entire Venetian trade convoy at the Battle of Saseno. 1592 – The first sighting of the Falkland Islands by John Davis. 1791 – Enslaved people from plantations in Saint-Domingue hold a Vodou ceremony led by houngan Dutty Boukman at Bois Caïman, marking the start of the Haitian Revolution. 1816 – The United Kingdom formally annexes the Tristan da Cunha archipelago, administering the islands from the Cape Colony in South Africa. 1842 – American Indian Wars: The Second Seminole War ends, with the Seminoles forced from Florida. 1848 –Congress organized the Oregon Territory. 1920—The 1920 Summer Olympics, having started four months earlier, officially opened in Antwerp, Belgium. For the first time in Olympic hi...

   OTD August 13th is the two-hundredth-twenty-fifth day of the year, and there are 140 days remaining until the end of the year.   Events  29 B.C. – Octavian holds the first of three consecutive triumphs in Rome to celebrate the victory over the Dalmatian tribes. 1521 – After an extended siege, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés forces captured Tlatoani Cuauhtémoc and conquered the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. 1553 – John Calvin arrests Michael Servetus in Geneva, Switzerland, as a heretic. 1650 – Colonel George Monck of the English Army formed Monck's Regiment of Foot, which later became the Coldstream Guards. 1792 – King Louis XVI of France was formally arrested by the National Tribunal and declared an enemy of the people. 1889 – William Gray of Hartford, Connecticut, is granted United States Patent Number 408,709 for "Coin-controlled apparatus for telephones." 1913 – First production of stainless steel by Harry Brearley in the U.K. 1918 – ...