“We have to learn that freedom imposes responsibilities.” —Michael Collins
August 18
1227 – Terrorizing Mongol conqueror and emperor Genghis Khan dies. Responsible for the death of possibly millions.
1774 – Famous American explorer Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, is born.
1838 – The U.S. South Seas Exploring Expedition sets out. It would chart 1,500 miles of the Antarctic coast.
1940 – WWII: The “Hardest Day” occurs during the Battle of Britain as the Nazis attack England.
August 19
14 AD – Caesar Augustus, brilliant but ruthless first emperor of Rome (and thus founder of the Roman Empire), dies.
1662 – French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal dies.
1871 – Orville Wright, co-inventor of the airplane, is born in Ohio.
1942 – WWII, Operation Jubilee into Nazi-occupied France: the Allied “raid onDieppe was a disaster. Over half of the force was killed, wounded, or captured.”
1977 – Iconic comedian Groucho Marx, of the Marx Brothers, dies.
August 20
480 BC – Possible date of the Battle of Thermopylae between 300 Greek Spartans and thousands of Persians. “Ultimately the Persians took control of the pass, but the heroic defeat of Leonidas would assume legendary proportions for later generations of Greeks, and within a year the Persian invasion would be repulsed.”
1794 – “[250Years] The Battle of Fallen Timbers, was the last major battle of the Northwest Indian War, still against the British and Indians, August 20, 1794. Gen. Anthony Wayne’s Legion and Gen. Charles Scott’s Kentucky Militia were victorious over the British militia and Indians. Tecumseh, who would not sign the Greenville Treaty, would stir Indians up again in 15 years with the Battle of Tippecanoe.”
1823 – Pope Pius VII, reformer and kidnap victim of Napoleon’s, dies.
1864 – The Second Battle of Deep Bottom ends during the U.S. Civil War with a stalemate.
1905 – The “Tongmenghui (Chinese Revolutionary Alliance) was established at a gathering in Akasaka, Tokyo” to bring down China’s Qing Dynasty.
1940 – A Spanish Communist assassinates exiled Leon Trotsky, likely on orders from Trotsky’s rival, Soviet dictator Stalin.
1968 – Soviets invade Czechoslovakia to put down the “Prague Spring.”
2017 – American comedian Jerry Lewis dies.
August 21
1541 – A Habsburg army suffers a bloody defeat at Buda, Hungary, leaving the Ottoman Turks victorious and in control of central Hungary for the next 150 years.
1754 – Banastre “The Butcher” Tarleton, infamously brutal British officer and war criminal during the American Revolution, is born.
1772 – Gustav III completes his coup, ending the Swedish ‘Age of Liberty’ and installing himself as “enlightened despot.”
1959 – Hawaii becomes the 50th state.
August 22
1485 – The Battle of Bosworth Field ends the Wars of the Roses in England. Lancastrian claimant to the throne Henry Tudor’s troops defeated and killed Yorkist King Richard III. Richard’s crown was found on the field and placed on the head of Henry, who would go on to found the Tudor Dynasty after marrying Elizabeth of York.
1642 – The English Civil War begins between the Royalists and the Parliamentarian Roundheads.
1703 – Edirne Incident: insurrection that deposed Ottoman Sultan Mustafa II.
1838 – Howard B. Cushing, a soldier during the American Civil War and the Indian Wars, is born.
1862 – French composer Claude Debussy is born.
1922 – Irish revolutionary leader Michael Collins, who extracted major concessions from the British, is ambushed and assassinated by the Anti-Treaty IRA. Tens of thousands of mourners came to pay their respects to Collins’ body.
August 23
1305 – Scottish military hero William Wallace, “Braveheart,” is heinously and brutally executed in London.
1754 – King Louis XVI of France is born. Read more here.
1775 – British King George III, enraged by the Battles of Lexington and Concord and having ignored the Continental Congress’s Olive Branch Petition, declares the American colonies in “open rebellion.”
1912 – American actor and dancer Gene Kelly is born.
1942 – The Italian Cavalleria Savoia execute the last cavalry charge in history, against the Soviets.
1943 – WWII: The Battle of Kursk, “the largest tank battle in history,” ends with Nazi defeat.
August 24
410 – The Visigoths sack Rome, marking the beginning of the end for the Western Roman Empire. “The palaces of the aristocracy were looted, Romans who resisted were killed and women raped by the Visigoths or by slaves who took the opportunity to revenge themselves on their masters.”
1516 – The Ottomans defeat the Mamelukes at the Battle of Marj Dabiq.
1929 – Yasser Arafat, the vicious, genocidal, lustful, bloodthirsty, Jew-hating Islamic father of modern terrorism, and the inventor of the so-called “Palestinian people,” is born.
1957 – British actor and writer Stephen Fry is born.
2014 – British actor and director Richard Attenborough dies.
Did I miss any important events? Let me know in the comments.
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Author: Catherine Salgado
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