The People History Home

August 1 to 31st

Just a few news items from each day in August click on the link for each day to find more news for that day

August 1

1914 Germany and France Declare war

1936 Berlin Olympics Opens

1966 University Of Texas Shootings

1981 MTV Debuts

1994 Michael Jackson Marries Lisa Marie Presley

August 2

1934 Adolf Hitler becomes Germany's Fuhrer

1943 PT-109 Commanded by Lt. John F. Kennedy Sunk

1964 Gulf of Tonkin Attack On US Destroyer Maddox

1990 Iraq Invades Kuwait

August 3

1914 Germany and France Declare war

1981 US Air Traffic Controllers Strike

August 4

1892 The parents of Lizzie Borden found murdered

1941 Nazi Troops Within 50 miles of Kiev

1944 Anne Frank Captured By Germans

1989 US The Savings and Loan Crisis

August 5

1934 Dust Bowl Drought Continues In Mid West

1957 "American Bandstand" makes its network debut on ABC

1962 Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her bedroom

1975 Dutch Elm Disease Kills 3 million trees in Britain

1983 At&T Broken Up

August 6

1926 Gertrude "Trudy" Ederle Swims English Channel

1945 Nuclear bomb Hiroshima

1965 Voting Rights Act Signed Into Law

1965 Beatles Release the Album "Help!" In UK

1997 Microsoft Buys Stake in Apple Computers

August 7

1947 Kon-Tiki Expedition Completes Trip across the Pacific Ocean

1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution Passed

1998 US Embassies Bombed Kenya

2007 Barry Bonds 756th Home Run

Born in August

Yves Saint Laurent

Born: August 1, 1936, Oran, French Algeria

Peter O'Toole

Born: Peter Seamus O’Toole August 2 1932 Connemara, County Galway, Ireland

Neil Armstrong

Born: August 5, 1930 Wapakoneta, Ohio, U.S.

Steve Wozniak

Born: August 11 1950 San Jose, California, USA

Mae West

Born: Mary Jane West, August 17, 1893, Bushwick, New York, United States

Gene Kelly

Born: Eugene Curran Kelly August 23 1912 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.

Lyndon Baines Johnson

Born: August 27, 1908, Stonewall, Texas

Warren Buffett

Born: 30th August 1930 Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.

August 8

1963 "The Great Train Robbery" UK

1974 Richard Nixon Announces his resignation following the Watergate Scandal During a nationally televised broadcast

1976 First Legionnaire’s Disease Harrisburg, Philadelphia

1988 The Burmese 8888 Uprising

August 9

1925 Ku Klux Klan Mass Meeting Washington 50,000 marchers

1936 Jesse Owens wins fourth gold medal Berlin Olympics

1945 Atom Bomb Dropped On Nagasaki

1969 Sharon Tate Found Murdered ( Charles Manson )

August 10

1897 Automobile Club of Great Britain Formed

1945 Truman Announces Japanese Surrender

1954 Construction on the St. Lawrence Seaway began at Massena, New York.

1977 The " Son Of Sam " Serial killer David Berkowitz Arrested

1990 Magellan Space Craft Arrives At The Planet Venus

August 11

1929 Babe Ruth first player in the history of baseball to hit 500 home runs

1965 Race riots Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California

1991 911 Emergency Number pioneered in Schaumburg

1992 Mall of America Opens

August 12

1955 Minimum Hourly Wage Raised To $1.00 Per Hour

1964 South Africa Barred from the Olympic Games

1981 IBM Releases It's First Personal Computer

1990 Tyrannosaurus Rex / Sue Discovered South Dakota

August 13

1961 East Germany Border Closed To West Germany

1966 China has announced It's Cultural Revolution

2006 Tokyo Power Blackout

2011 Stages Collapses at Indiana State Fair

August 14

1935 Social Security Bill Signed Into Law Providing Unemployment Benefit

1945 Truman Announces Japanese Surrender

1947 India and Pakistan Gain Independence

2003 North America Power Outage New York to Canada

August 15

1914 Panama Canal Opens

1965 Beatles Live Concert at Shea Stadium

1965 Los Angeles Watts Riots

1969 Woodstock Music Festival

1998 Omagh Bombing Northern Ireland

100 years of price Change

100 Years Of Price Changes

We spent many hours researching cost of living information for each year and I created this page after being asked a number of times about why I did not include current prices alongside our cost of living information for each year and thought this was the easiest way to make the information available. Includes Average Cost of New Home, Average Wages, New Car cost, Gallon of Gas, and a 1 lb Hamburger Meat, 1920 to 2023.

August 16

1977 Elvis Presley Dies Of Heart Attack

2002 Dresden, Germany Flooding

August 17

1962 East German Border Guards Kill Peter Fechter

1969 Hurricane Camille Make Landfall Bay St. Louis, Mississippi

1969 Woodstock Music Festival Ends

1998 President Clinton acknowledged he had an inappropriate relationship with Monica Lewinsky

August 18

1920 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution Ratified

1931 Yangtze River Floods causing the death of 3.7 million people directly and indirectly

1937 Toyota Motor Company Founded

1963 James Meredith graduates

2006 60hr work week at Apple iPod plant for $60 per month

August 19

1944 Paris is Liberated by the allies

1953 Iran Military Coup Supported By United States

1958 Packard Cars End Production

1987 Hungerford, UK Killing Spree by Michael Ryan

August 20

1920 First Commercial Radio Station Detroit, Michigan

1940 Winston Churchill makes speach "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

1968 "Prague Spring", Czechoslovakia Soviet troops crush protests and restore order.

1989 Marchioness Disaster River Thames London

August 21

1911 The Mona Lisa Stolen in France

1959 Hawaii becomes the 50th state in the United States

2006 Saddam Hussein crimes against humanity trial Begins

August 22

1902 Cadillac Started In Detroit

1941 Germany Attacks Leningrad

1992 Hurricane Andrew Strikes Bahamas, Florida and Louisiana

2003 Alabama chief justice, Roy Moore, is suspended

August 23

1905 New Orleans Yellow Fever Kills Hundreds

1999 West Nile virus Continues It's Spread Around The Country

August 24

1948 Berlin Airlift Increases Aircraft Numbers

1954 Communist Party Outlawed United States

1985 Union Carbide Bhopal Disaster

1996 Hurricane Dolly Strikes Mexico

25 August

1944 Paris Liberated

1950 President Harry S. Truman Places Railroads Under Army Control

1975 Bruce Springsteen album "Born to Run" Released

2005 Hurricane Katrina Makes Landfall In Florida 4 days before striking New Orleans

26 August

1920 The 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote, is formally adopted

1932 Temporary Halt Called On Home Foreclosures

1957 Ford Begins Production of Edsel Automobiles

27 August

1955 Guinness Book of World Records Published For The First Time

1979 Lord Louis Mountbatten Murdered

1989 Sky TV Launched UK

28 August

1937 Japanese Bomb Shanghai

1963 Martin Luther King, Jr. Gives "I Have A Dream Speech"

1968 10s Of Thousands Anti-Vietnam War Protestors Chicago

1996 Charles, Prince of Wales and his wife, Princess Diana, formally divorce

29 August

1949 Russian Troops Mass On The Border Yugoslavia

1949 The Soviet Union test their first atomic bomb

1966 The Beatles play their final US Concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco

2005 Hurricane Katrina Strikes New Orleans

30th August

1935 Wealth Tax Act Passed in the United States

1959 First Mini goes on sale in Britain for £497

1963 Direct Line Set Up Between Moscow and Washington to prevent the possibility of an accidental war

1989 Leona Helmsley convicted and sentenced

31 August :

1888 Jack the Ripper Kills His First Victim

1954 Hurricane Carol Strikes Long Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island

1997 Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed are killed in a car crash in Paris

2005 Curfew Placed On New Orleans