24th August 79: The eruption of Mount Vesuvius wipes out numerous Roman settlements including Pompeii and Herculaneum
Beginning at around 1pm on 24 August, Mount Vesuvius sent gas, volcanic ash, and pumice into the stratosphere for up to 20 hours. This was followed by a pyroclastic flow that carried gas and molten rock down from the volcano and which then buried the previously fallen ...
24 Aug 0s
23rd August 1942: Battle of Stalingrad enters its most intense phase with a bombing campaign by the German Luftwaffe
While the broader Battle of Stalingrad began on 17 July, it wasn’t until 23 August that the city itself was attacked. Over 1,000 German aircraft dropped bombs in one of the Eastern Front’s most intense aerial ...
23 Aug 0s
22nd August 1485: King Richard III killed at the Battle of Bosworth as the forces of Henry Tudor bring the Plantagenet dynasty to an end
The Stanley family surrounded and killed Richard III after the king chose to break ranks and target Henry Tudor ...
22 Aug 0s
21st August 1911: Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa stolen from the Louvre in Paris
Vincenzo Peruggia served just six months in jail for the robbery, and was hailed by many Italians as a nationalist hero for returning the Mona Lisa to her real home although it was later returned to ...
21 Aug 0s
20th August 1975: NASA launches Viking 1, the first spacecraft to land on Mars and transmit images of the surface back to Earth
Viking 1 was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 20 August 1975 and took nearly 11 months to reach ...
20 Aug 0s
19th August 1934: The first All-American Soap Box Derby held in Dayton, Ohio
Held in Dayton, Ohio, on a track measuring 1,980 feet, the first All-American Soap Box Derby attracted 362 participants and more than 40,000 ...
19 Aug 0s
18th August 1612: The trials of nine Lancashire women and two men known as the Pendle Witches begin
The trials of the Pendle Witches are not only some of the most famous but also some of the best recorded witch trials in British history, and represent two per cent of all British witches to face trial over three ...
18 Aug 0s
17th August 1945: Animal Farm by George Orwell published in the United Kingdom
Subtitled “A Fairy Story,” the Animal Farm used a farmyard allegory to critique totalitarianism, particularly the rise and betrayal of the ideals of the Russian Revolution, which caused several publishers to initially reject the book, with concerns that it would harm wartime relations with the ...
17 Aug 0s
