30BC Following the Battle of Alexandria and the desertion of his fleet, Roman politician and soldier Mark Antony committed suicide on August 1, 30 BC. His lover, Egypt's last Pharaoh, Cleopatra, took her life a few days later. The deaths of Mark Antony and Cleopatra marked the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt and the beginning of Roman rule in the region.
10BC The Roman Emperor Claudius was born at the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls in what is now Lyon, France on August 1, 10BC. His uncle was the second Emperor Tiberius and Mark Antony was one of his grandfathers. Claudius had a stammer as well as a limp when walking, and his family kept him from public office until he was 38. He became Roman Emperor in January 41AD following the assassination of his nephew Caligula.
31 Happy first day of August! The 30 day Roman month Sextilis was renamed Augustus to honor the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus in c 31. Sextilis was chosen as it had been Augustus' most successful month; in that month he had began his consulship, tamed Egypt and ended civil wars.
Augustus took a day from February (which originally had 29 days every year) and added extra day to August so that his month would be on a par with July which had been named after Julius Caesar.
527 Upon the death of Justin I, on August 1, 527 Justinian the Great became the sole ruler of the Byzantine Empire.Justinian set about collecting and harmonizing the laws of the empire, something that had not previously been attempted. The Corpus Juris a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, were issued from 529 to 534. A pious man, Justinian embarked on an extensive construction program involving the building of hundreds of church buildings throughout the Empire.
988 Vladimir the Great, ruler of Kievsn Rus', was impressed by Byzantine religious practices and decided to convert to Eastern Christianity. On August 1, 988 Vladimir ordered the entire population of Kiev to gather on the bank of the River Dneiper. He then led them into the water in order that they all might be baptized according to the Orthodox form. The remaining population of Kievan Rus' was slowly converted. Orthodoxy thus became the state religion of Russia.
1291 On August 1, 1291 three rural communes Schwyz, Uri and Lower Unterwalden signed the Bundesbrief (Federal Charter) to form the Old Swiss Confederacy. The charter documented an eternal alliance to defend their liberties against their Hapsburg overlords.
1498 Christopher Columbus became the first European to visit what is now Venezuela on August 1, 1498. When he first saw the Peninsula de Paria, which is located in present-day Venezuela, Columbus said he had found "Heaven on Earth."
1714 Anne, Queen of Great Britain was rendered unable to speak by a stroke on July 30, 1714, the anniversary of her son, William the Duke of Gloucester's death. She died at around 7:30 a.m. on August 1, 1714 and was buried beside her husband and children in the Henry VII chapel on the South Aisle of Westminster Abbey on August 24th.
1714 The Georgian era in British history started on August 1, 1714 with the accession to the Great Britain throne of King George I. When Queen Anne of Great Britain died in 1714, an Act of Parliament said the next ruler must be a Protestant. George was not the closest relative, but was the closest Protestant one. Closer relatives were all Roman Catholic, so the Hanover-born George became King of Great Britain and Ireland.
1714 King George I was the last king of Great Britain for whom English wasn't the first language. He was born in Germany and did not speak English fluently when he became king of Great Britain in 1714. He spoke German, French, and Latin, and he used Latin to communicate with his ministers, including Robert Walpole, who served as his first prime minister.
1715 As an organized sport, rowing can be traced to August 1, 1715, when the first rowing of the Doggetts Coat and Badge race took place on the River Thames. The Doggett's Coat and Badge course runs four miles and five furlongs (7443 m) from London Bridge to Chelsea, and is established as an annual event continuing into the 21st century.
1774 British scientist Joseph Priestley discovered on August 1, 1774 a colorless, odorless tasteless gaseous element by heating mercuric oxide using the sun's rays, while staying at Bowood House in the capacity of Librarian to the Earl of Shelbourne. He christened it "Dephlogisticated air" and Priestley speculated that one day "Dephlogisticaed air" might become a luxury. It was later renamed oxygen.
1793 After the execution of King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette's fate became a central question of the National Convention during the French Revolution. She was confined to an isolated cell in the Conciergerie as 'Prisoner n° 280' from August 1, 1793. Her single room was 12-ft long, 8 ft broad and 4 ft underground. Marie Antoinette was tried for treason a few days later. and sentenced to be guillotined.
1794 The Whiskey Rebellion, a tax protest in the United States, broke out August 1, 1794 in Western Pennsylvania. It involved farmers revolting in protest to an excise duty on stills and spirits distilled in the U.S. George Washington later ordered in the militia and managed to end the rebellion without bloodshed.
1819 The author Herman Melville was born in New York City August 1, 1819 as the third child of a merchant in French dry goods. In 1840 Melville signed aboard the whaler Acushnet for his first whaling voyage, but jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands, where he lived for a time with a tribe of cannibals. Melville's further adventures included working as a beachcomber in Tahiti. Moby-Dick his epic and tragic novel about the whaling industry, was first published in October 1851.
1842 A parade of one thousand African Americans began marching on Lombard Street, Philadelphia on the morning of August 1, 1842. They were celebrating the eighth anniversary of Jamaican Emancipation Day, commemorating the abolition of slavery in the West Indies. The marchers were attacked by a mob of Irish immigrants, leading to three days of riots.
1876 Colorado was admitted as the 38th U.S. State on August 1, 1876. President Ulysses S. Grant signed the proclamation 28 days after the Centennial of the United States earning it the moniker "Centennial State". The state was named after the Colorado River by Spanish explorers. They called it the Río Colorado for the ruddy (Spanish: Colorado) silt the river carried from the mountains.
1879 Severiano de Heredia was a Cuban-born biracial politician, who was president of the municipal council of Paris from August 1, 1879 to February 12, 1880, making him the first mayor of African descent of a Western world capital.
1893 Sometime in the early 1890s, at a Nebraska hotel, the inventor Henry Perky encountered a dyspeptic diner blending boiled wheat with cream. This gave him the idea of a product made of boiled wheat which he brought to his friend, William H. Ford, in Watertown, New York - a machinist by trade. Together, they developed a cereal manufacturing apparatus and on August 1, 1893 Perky patented a machine for the preparation of cereals for food, otherwise known as Shredded Wheat.
1907 The first Scout camp on Brownsea Island, the origin of the worldwide Scouting movement, started on August 1, 1907, under the leadership of Robert Baden-Powell. Twenty boys, drawn from Eton and Harrow public schools plus Poole and Bournemouth locals spent the week camping on Brownsea Island, in Poole Harbor on the south coast of England. The boys studied cooking, fire-lighting, wildlife, life-saving and patriotism, and were given tests on knots and tracking.
1919 White and red were officially adopted as the Polish national colors in 1831.They derive from the colors of the coats of arms of the two constituent nations of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Shortly after the armistice with Germany in November 1918, Poland regained its independence as the Second Polish Republic. The Polish national flag was officially adopted on August 1, 1919. Poland’s flag is the same as Indonesia’s but upside down.
1940 At the outset of The Battle of Britain, the Germans had the advantage because they had seized airfields in the Netherlands, Belgium, and France, which were basically safe from attack and from which southeast England was within easy range. On August 1, 1940 the Luftwaffe had about 2,800 aircraft in France, Belgium, Holland, and Norway, outnumbering the RAF by four to one.
1944 Before he went to college, George H.W. Bush served in the Navy until the end of World War II. After Bush's promotion to Lieutenant (junior grade) on August 1, 1944, his squadron commenced operations against the Japanese in the Bonin Islands. During World War II, Bush flew 58 combat missions for the Navy and was awarded three Air Medals and the Distinguished Flying Cross for his service.
1944 There was a heroic but abortive rising against the German occupation by the people of Warsaw on August 1, 1944. Nazi Germany destroyed the Polish city virtually completely following the uprising that resulted in the 500,000 citizens being taken captive. Germany had plans to turn the city into a man made lake to erase it completely from history. Warsaw was the most devastated city in the world during World War II.
1964 The Hiroshima Peace Flame has burned continuously since it was lit on August 1, 1964, and will remain lit until all nuclear bombs on the planet are destroyed and the Earth is free from the threat of nuclear annihilation.
1967 In 1999, Garth Brooks introduced the fictional character of Chris Gaines (who was "born" August 1, 1967, in Brisbane, Australia.) Although The Lamb, the film featuring Garth as Chris Gaines, never materialized, a one-off album, Garth Brooks ... in the Life of Chris Gaines (also titled Greatest Hits) was released and scored a Top 5 pop hit, "Lost in You."
1971 Fallen Astronaut is an 8.5-centimeter (3.3 in) aluminum sculpture meant to depict an astronaut in a spacesuit, commemorating the astronauts and cosmonauts who died in the advancement of space exploration. It was placed on the Moon by the crew of Apollo 15 on August 1, 1971.
1976 On August 1, 1976, Formula 1 driver Niki Lauda suffered horrific burns after being trapped inside his Ferrari following an accident at the German Grand Prix. He lost most of his right ear as well as the hair on the right side of his head, Remarkably, Lauda was back in his car six weeks later and finished fourth in the Italian Grand Prix, despite being, by his own admission, absolutely petrified.
1980 When Vigdis Finnbogadottir was elected president of Iceland on August 1, 1980, she became the world's first female democratically elected president. With a presidency of exactly sixteen years, she also remains the longest-serving, elected female head of state of any country to date.
1981 The advent of the music video was marked by the debut on August 1, 1981 of Music Television (MTV), a 24-hour music video channel. MTV (Music Television) made its debut at 12:01 a.m. on August 1, 1981 The first music-video shown on the rock-video cable channel was, appropriately, "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles.
2006 The U.S. Congress passed a tax on long distance phone calls to pay for the Spanish-American War in 1898. The war ended four months later, but the tax remained in place for over 100 years. On August 1, 2006, the IRS announced it would no longer collect the tax.
10BC The Roman Emperor Claudius was born at the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls in what is now Lyon, France on August 1, 10BC. His uncle was the second Emperor Tiberius and Mark Antony was one of his grandfathers. Claudius had a stammer as well as a limp when walking, and his family kept him from public office until he was 38. He became Roman Emperor in January 41AD following the assassination of his nephew Caligula.
 |
| Claudius Marie-Lan Nguyen (2011) Wikipedia |
31 Happy first day of August! The 30 day Roman month Sextilis was renamed Augustus to honor the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus in c 31. Sextilis was chosen as it had been Augustus' most successful month; in that month he had began his consulship, tamed Egypt and ended civil wars.
Augustus took a day from February (which originally had 29 days every year) and added extra day to August so that his month would be on a par with July which had been named after Julius Caesar.
527 Upon the death of Justin I, on August 1, 527 Justinian the Great became the sole ruler of the Byzantine Empire.Justinian set about collecting and harmonizing the laws of the empire, something that had not previously been attempted. The Corpus Juris a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, were issued from 529 to 534. A pious man, Justinian embarked on an extensive construction program involving the building of hundreds of church buildings throughout the Empire.
988 Vladimir the Great, ruler of Kievsn Rus', was impressed by Byzantine religious practices and decided to convert to Eastern Christianity. On August 1, 988 Vladimir ordered the entire population of Kiev to gather on the bank of the River Dneiper. He then led them into the water in order that they all might be baptized according to the Orthodox form. The remaining population of Kievan Rus' was slowly converted. Orthodoxy thus became the state religion of Russia.
1291 On August 1, 1291 three rural communes Schwyz, Uri and Lower Unterwalden signed the Bundesbrief (Federal Charter) to form the Old Swiss Confederacy. The charter documented an eternal alliance to defend their liberties against their Hapsburg overlords.
 |
| The Swiss Federal Charter of 1291 |
1498 Christopher Columbus became the first European to visit what is now Venezuela on August 1, 1498. When he first saw the Peninsula de Paria, which is located in present-day Venezuela, Columbus said he had found "Heaven on Earth."
1714 Anne, Queen of Great Britain was rendered unable to speak by a stroke on July 30, 1714, the anniversary of her son, William the Duke of Gloucester's death. She died at around 7:30 a.m. on August 1, 1714 and was buried beside her husband and children in the Henry VII chapel on the South Aisle of Westminster Abbey on August 24th.
1714 The Georgian era in British history started on August 1, 1714 with the accession to the Great Britain throne of King George I. When Queen Anne of Great Britain died in 1714, an Act of Parliament said the next ruler must be a Protestant. George was not the closest relative, but was the closest Protestant one. Closer relatives were all Roman Catholic, so the Hanover-born George became King of Great Britain and Ireland.
 |
| George c.1714, as painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller |
1714 King George I was the last king of Great Britain for whom English wasn't the first language. He was born in Germany and did not speak English fluently when he became king of Great Britain in 1714. He spoke German, French, and Latin, and he used Latin to communicate with his ministers, including Robert Walpole, who served as his first prime minister.
1715 As an organized sport, rowing can be traced to August 1, 1715, when the first rowing of the Doggetts Coat and Badge race took place on the River Thames. The Doggett's Coat and Badge course runs four miles and five furlongs (7443 m) from London Bridge to Chelsea, and is established as an annual event continuing into the 21st century.
 |
| The finish of Doggett's Coat and Badge by Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) |
1774 British scientist Joseph Priestley discovered on August 1, 1774 a colorless, odorless tasteless gaseous element by heating mercuric oxide using the sun's rays, while staying at Bowood House in the capacity of Librarian to the Earl of Shelbourne. He christened it "Dephlogisticated air" and Priestley speculated that one day "Dephlogisticaed air" might become a luxury. It was later renamed oxygen.
1793 After the execution of King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette's fate became a central question of the National Convention during the French Revolution. She was confined to an isolated cell in the Conciergerie as 'Prisoner n° 280' from August 1, 1793. Her single room was 12-ft long, 8 ft broad and 4 ft underground. Marie Antoinette was tried for treason a few days later. and sentenced to be guillotined.
 |
| Marie Antoinette's cell in the Conciergerie (Photo: André Lage Freitas) |
1794 The Whiskey Rebellion, a tax protest in the United States, broke out August 1, 1794 in Western Pennsylvania. It involved farmers revolting in protest to an excise duty on stills and spirits distilled in the U.S. George Washington later ordered in the militia and managed to end the rebellion without bloodshed.
1819 The author Herman Melville was born in New York City August 1, 1819 as the third child of a merchant in French dry goods. In 1840 Melville signed aboard the whaler Acushnet for his first whaling voyage, but jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands, where he lived for a time with a tribe of cannibals. Melville's further adventures included working as a beachcomber in Tahiti. Moby-Dick his epic and tragic novel about the whaling industry, was first published in October 1851.
1842 A parade of one thousand African Americans began marching on Lombard Street, Philadelphia on the morning of August 1, 1842. They were celebrating the eighth anniversary of Jamaican Emancipation Day, commemorating the abolition of slavery in the West Indies. The marchers were attacked by a mob of Irish immigrants, leading to three days of riots.
1876 Colorado was admitted as the 38th U.S. State on August 1, 1876. President Ulysses S. Grant signed the proclamation 28 days after the Centennial of the United States earning it the moniker "Centennial State". The state was named after the Colorado River by Spanish explorers. They called it the Río Colorado for the ruddy (Spanish: Colorado) silt the river carried from the mountains.
1879 Severiano de Heredia was a Cuban-born biracial politician, who was president of the municipal council of Paris from August 1, 1879 to February 12, 1880, making him the first mayor of African descent of a Western world capital.
 |
| Severiano de Heredia |
1893 Sometime in the early 1890s, at a Nebraska hotel, the inventor Henry Perky encountered a dyspeptic diner blending boiled wheat with cream. This gave him the idea of a product made of boiled wheat which he brought to his friend, William H. Ford, in Watertown, New York - a machinist by trade. Together, they developed a cereal manufacturing apparatus and on August 1, 1893 Perky patented a machine for the preparation of cereals for food, otherwise known as Shredded Wheat.
1907 The first Scout camp on Brownsea Island, the origin of the worldwide Scouting movement, started on August 1, 1907, under the leadership of Robert Baden-Powell. Twenty boys, drawn from Eton and Harrow public schools plus Poole and Bournemouth locals spent the week camping on Brownsea Island, in Poole Harbor on the south coast of England. The boys studied cooking, fire-lighting, wildlife, life-saving and patriotism, and were given tests on knots and tracking.
1919 White and red were officially adopted as the Polish national colors in 1831.They derive from the colors of the coats of arms of the two constituent nations of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Shortly after the armistice with Germany in November 1918, Poland regained its independence as the Second Polish Republic. The Polish national flag was officially adopted on August 1, 1919. Poland’s flag is the same as Indonesia’s but upside down.
 |
| Polish flag |
1940 At the outset of The Battle of Britain, the Germans had the advantage because they had seized airfields in the Netherlands, Belgium, and France, which were basically safe from attack and from which southeast England was within easy range. On August 1, 1940 the Luftwaffe had about 2,800 aircraft in France, Belgium, Holland, and Norway, outnumbering the RAF by four to one.
1944 Before he went to college, George H.W. Bush served in the Navy until the end of World War II. After Bush's promotion to Lieutenant (junior grade) on August 1, 1944, his squadron commenced operations against the Japanese in the Bonin Islands. During World War II, Bush flew 58 combat missions for the Navy and was awarded three Air Medals and the Distinguished Flying Cross for his service.
1944 There was a heroic but abortive rising against the German occupation by the people of Warsaw on August 1, 1944. Nazi Germany destroyed the Polish city virtually completely following the uprising that resulted in the 500,000 citizens being taken captive. Germany had plans to turn the city into a man made lake to erase it completely from history. Warsaw was the most devastated city in the world during World War II.
1964 The Hiroshima Peace Flame has burned continuously since it was lit on August 1, 1964, and will remain lit until all nuclear bombs on the planet are destroyed and the Earth is free from the threat of nuclear annihilation.
1967 In 1999, Garth Brooks introduced the fictional character of Chris Gaines (who was "born" August 1, 1967, in Brisbane, Australia.) Although The Lamb, the film featuring Garth as Chris Gaines, never materialized, a one-off album, Garth Brooks ... in the Life of Chris Gaines (also titled Greatest Hits) was released and scored a Top 5 pop hit, "Lost in You."
1971 Fallen Astronaut is an 8.5-centimeter (3.3 in) aluminum sculpture meant to depict an astronaut in a spacesuit, commemorating the astronauts and cosmonauts who died in the advancement of space exploration. It was placed on the Moon by the crew of Apollo 15 on August 1, 1971.
 |
| Fallen Astronaut statue on the surface of The Moon |
1976 On August 1, 1976, Formula 1 driver Niki Lauda suffered horrific burns after being trapped inside his Ferrari following an accident at the German Grand Prix. He lost most of his right ear as well as the hair on the right side of his head, Remarkably, Lauda was back in his car six weeks later and finished fourth in the Italian Grand Prix, despite being, by his own admission, absolutely petrified.
1980 When Vigdis Finnbogadottir was elected president of Iceland on August 1, 1980, she became the world's first female democratically elected president. With a presidency of exactly sixteen years, she also remains the longest-serving, elected female head of state of any country to date.
1981 The advent of the music video was marked by the debut on August 1, 1981 of Music Television (MTV), a 24-hour music video channel. MTV (Music Television) made its debut at 12:01 a.m. on August 1, 1981 The first music-video shown on the rock-video cable channel was, appropriately, "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles.
2006 The U.S. Congress passed a tax on long distance phone calls to pay for the Spanish-American War in 1898. The war ended four months later, but the tax remained in place for over 100 years. On August 1, 2006, the IRS announced it would no longer collect the tax.
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