Factoid Fiesta: The News God Loves August

If February feels like the longest short month of the year, the first to the thirty-first of August seems like a torpid run-on sentence, bracketed between the hurricane season and record-breaking heat.
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If February feels like the longest short month of the year, the first to the thirty-first of August seems like a torpid run-on sentence, bracketed between the hurricane season and record-breaking heat.

But for some ungodly reason, it the eighth month of the year that has a resplendent history of unplanned special events. Don't give up on August: It's a Factoid Fiesta!

(Note: We could go back to August 16, 1587 when Virginia Dare, the first American child was born in what would become the state of Virginia, but there was no news then, as we know it now. Please be advised that this list is quirky, abbreviated and subjective. We begin with the end of World War Two. )

1945: U.S. drops first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. (August 6)
U.S. drops second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. (August 9)
Japan surrenders unconditionally. (August 14)

1948: Babe Ruth dies. (August 16)

1954: Hurricane Carol kills 70 in New England; first hurricane to be named. (August 31)

1955: Hurricane Diane kills 400 in New England. (August 18-19)

1956: Elvis Presley's Hound Dog/Don't Be Cruel reach no. 1. (August 18)

1957: Soviet Union tests first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. (August 26)
U.S. performs nuclear tests at Nevada Test Site. (August 27 & 30)

1958: Floyd Patterson wins world heavyweight title. (August 18)

1960: Chubby Checker releases "The Twist." (August 1)
U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers' trial starts in Moscow. (August 17)
World's largest frog caught in Equatorial Guinea. (August 23)

1961: First case of motion sickness reported. (August 6)

1962: U.S. spy plane sights Soviet missiles in Cuba. (August 29)

1963: Great Train Robbery in U.K. Robbers steals $7.3-million (2.6-million pounds sterling). (August 8)
James Meredith becomes the first African-American to graduate from the University of Mississippi (August 18)
Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers "I Have a Dream" speech; 200,000 protest for civil rights in Washington, D.C. (August 28)
Hotline between the White House and the Kremlin goes into operation. (August 30)

1964: Gulf of Tonkin resolution. U.S. begins bombing North Vietnam. (August 7)

1965: LBJ signs Voting Rights Act, giving African-Americans the right to vote.
(August 6)
Six days of race riots begin in Watts, Los Angeles; 33 people killed. (August 11)
Race riots begin in Chicago. (August 12)
Sonny and Cher's 'I Got You, Babe' reaches no. 1. (August 14)
Beatles play concert for 55,000 fans at Shea Stadium. (August 15)

1966: University of Texas Tower Massacre; 16 killed, 31 wounded. (August 1)
Martin Luther King, Jr. stoned at a march in Chicago. (August 5)
John Lennon says the Beatles are more popular than Jesus. (August 5)
Earthquake in Turkey; 2,400 killed. (August 19)
First U.S. lunar orbiter takes first pictures of earth from the moon. (August 23)

1967: 45,000 U.S. soldiers deployed to Vietnam. (August 3)
Two U.S. bombers shot down in China. (August 21)
Thurgood Marshall becomes first African-American Supreme Court Justice (August 30)

1968: Race riot in Miami. (August 8)
Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia. (August 21)
10,000 protestors clash with police at Democratic convention in Chicago; CBS News reporter Dan Rather is beaten by a guard inside the convention hall. (August 27)
12,000 killed in 7.6 magnitude earthquake in Iran. (August 30)

1969: Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho convene in Paris for secret talks to end the Vietnam war. (August 4)
Charles Manson family murders Sharon Tate and Rosemary La Bianca.
(August 9)
British troops invade Northern Ireland. (August 14)
Some 450,000 people attend Woodstock Festival, Bethel, NY (August 15 - 18)
Hurricane Camille kills 22 along Gulf coast. (August 22)
Race riots in Fort Lauderdale, FL. (August 30)

1970: Courthouse shooting in San Rafael, CA kills 4, including judge. (August 7)

1972: Washington Post publishes first article exposing Watergate. (August 1)
Ugandan leader Idi Amin expels 80,000 Asians. (August 5)
Bloody Sunday. British troops kill 13 civilians, N. Ireland (August 14)

1973: Arab terrorists kill 3; wound 55 after opening fire at Athens airport. (August 5)
U.S. stops bombing Cambodia. (August 14)
University of Texas (Arlington) is first college to teach belly dancing. (August 26)
Oaxaca, Mexico 6.8 magnitude earthquake kills 527 people. (August 28)

1974: President Nixon resigns; Gerald Ford becomes 38th President. (August 9)

1976: 10,000 women protest against British in Northern Ireland. (August 14)
Earthquake/tidal wave kill 8,000 in the Philippines. (August 17)

1977: "Son of Sam" serial killer David Berkowitz arrested in New York. (August 10)
Elvis Presley dies at the age of 42. (August 16)

1978: 175 killed in Beirut bombing. (August 13)
3 Americans complete first successful Transatlantic crossing by balloon. (August 17)

1979: Massive book burnings in Iran. (August 12)
1,200 killed by Hurricane David in Florida and Dominican Republic. (August 30)

1980: Bologna, Italy train station bombing kills 86. (August 2)
Hurricane Alien kills 272 in Texas and Caribbean (August 4)
Lech Walesa leads 17,000 workers in a strike in Gdansk, Poland. (August 14)

1981: MTV launched. (August 1)
President Reagan fires 11,500 striking air traffic controllers. (August 3-5)
IBM releases the first personal computer with PC DOS 1.0. (August 12)
Gulf of Sidra incident. Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi tries to intercept two U.S. fighters. (August 19)

1982: Israel begins Beirut air strikes. (August 1)
The world's first CD's come out in Germany. (August 17)
U.S. Marines arrive in Beirut. (August 21)

1984: President Reagan jokes that he signed legislation to "outlaw Russia forever...we begin bombing in five minutes." The joke goes out live on national radio. (August 11)

1985: Air crash at Dallas-Ft. Worth airport kills 137. (August 2)

1986: Oklahoma mail carrier goes postal; 14 dead. (August 20)

1987: Harmonic Convergence: Age of Aquarius begins. (August 17)

1988: Rush Limbaugh's first radio show. (August 1)
Tompkins Square Park police riot (August 6)
70 killed when three Italian air force fighter jets crash at German air show. (August 28)

1989: Congressman Mickey Leland is among 16 people killed in a plane crash over Ethiopia. (August 7)
51 people killed in boat crash on River Thames, U.K. (August 20)

1990: Iraq invades Kuwait. (August 2)
Operation Desert Shield begins. U.S. sends troops to Saudi Arabia/Kuwait. (August 7)
13 people are killed when C-5 transport plane crashes in West Germany. (August 29)

1991: Actress Hedy Lamarr, 77, is arrested for shoplifting in Florida. (August 1)
Kremlin coup takes over Soviet government. (August 19 -21)
Estonia and Latvia declare independence from U.S.S.R. (August 20-21)
Ukraine declares independence from U.S.S.R.; Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev resigns. (August 24)

1992: Four Los Angeles police officers indicted of beating Rodney King. (August 4)
500 die in Philippine mine explosion (August 31)

1993: Pope John Paul II visits U.S. (August 12 - 16)

1994: Provisional Irish Republican Army declares cease-fire. (August 31)

1995: NASA announces possibility of life on Mars. (August 6)
Osama bin Laden declares war on United States. (August 23)

1997: Princess Diana and her fiancé Dodi Fayed die in Paris tunnel car accident. (August 31)

1998: U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania bombed; Al-Qaeda takes credit. (August 7)
Monica Lewinsky scandal breaks. (August 17)
U.S. bombs alleged Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and Sudan in retaliation for August 7 attacks. (August 20)

1999: 17,000 are killed, 44,000 injured in a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in Turkey. (August 17)

2001: 7 people killed during an I.R.A. car bomb attack in London. (August 3)

2002: 118 Russian soldiers killed in a Chechnyan missile attack. (August 19)

2003: 70,000 die in European heat wave, according to World Health Organization. Highest recorded temperature in U.K.: 101.3 degrees Fahrenheit. 14,802 die in France; $15-billion in damages. (July - mid-August)
Power blackout hits northeastern U.S. and Canada. (August 14)
Power blackout in southeast England. (August 28)

2004: Edvard Munch's painting The Scream, stolen from Oslo art museum. (August 22)
Chechnyan suicide bombers cause two planes to explode outside Moscow, killing 89 people. (August 24)

2005: Hurricane Katrina; more than 1,186 people killed and more than $115-billion in damages along Gulf coast. (August 28 -30)
Baghdad bridge stampede kills 1,119 people. (August 31)

2006: The Scream, stolen on August 22, 2004, is recovered. (August 31)

2007: First tornado since 1889 hits Brooklyn, NY. (August 8)
An internet worm sends out a record 57-million e-mails in one day. (August 22)

2008: Democrat Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to be nominated as a candidate for president. (August 27)

2009: 101 people are killed, 565 injured in a Baghdad bombing. (August 19)
Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), dies. (August 25)

2010: Great Russian heat wave kills 11,000 in Moscow. (June - mid-August)
Operation Iraqi Freedom ends; U.S. troops withdraw. (August 19)

2011: 38 people, including members of Navy SEAL team 6, are killed when a helicopter is shot down over Afghanistan. (August 6)
Libyan dictator Muammar Gadaffi is overthrown. (August 26)
Earthquake (5.8 magnitude) hits Mineral, Virginia near Washington, DC. Shock is felt as far north as Canada. (August 23)
Hurricane Irene hits northeastern U.S., killing 34 people and injuring 70, according to Fox News. Thousands remain without power for a week. (August 27)

2012: Worst drought since 1956 affects 55 percent of U.S. Crops threatened; food prices expected to surge later this year. (Ongoing.)

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