“Breathe the sweetness that hovers in August.”
A lot has happened in the month of August throughout history. From natural disasters to amazing inventions and feats of bravery.
Below are 10 interesting historical episodes to recognize and learn about in the eighth month of our year.
- The explorer Christopher Columbus set sail with three ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria in 1492. He landed in the Bahamas a little more than two months later, on October 12. In total, he would complete four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas from 1492 to 1504.
- Scientists developed and tested the first atomic bomb in New Mexico. It was a top secret project called the Manhattan Project. J. Robert Oppenheimer headed the lab. Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves charged all Army activities related to the project. Enola Gay deployed the bomb. It killed an estimated 140,000 people by the end of the year. A second atomic bomb was deployed over Nagasaki three days later.
- President Johnson passed a law. The purpose of this law was to ensure that black people could vote. The law aimed to prevent tests on literacy, knowledge, and character from stopping them. Another thing the Act did was to approve Federal voting examiners to register people to vote. This bill aimed to increase the number of voters in areas with historical discrimination.
- Frederick Douglass was an escaped slave who became an anti-slavery campaigner. He gave an account of his life as a slave at an anti-slavery convention on Nantucket Island. The Massachusetts Anti-slavery Society asked Douglass to be a lecturer after his resoundingly successful speech. Douglass learned to read as a child and knew that education was the way to escape slavery and gain freedom. He successfully escaped by train in 1838.
- The Loch Ness Monster, or Nessie, is commonly referred to in Scottish Folklore. In 1933, a published story documented George Spicer’s account of a sighting. Public, world wide interest in the alleged sea creature grew radically. No one knows when Nessie was spotted for the first time. However, stories date back to the sixth century AD.
- Prospectors discovered gold in Rabbit Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River. This sparked the incredible event of the Great Klondike Gold Rush. This event saw around 100,000 people migrate to the Canadian Yukon region in the hope of finding gold. The gold rush lasted until 1899.
- The first hot air balloon trip across the Atlantic Ocean took place in 1978. Max Anderson, Larry Newman, and Ben Abruzzo, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, flew from Presque Isle, Maine. Their balloon, the Double Eagle II, took them 3,000 miles across the ocean on a journey that lasted 137 hours. They landed in Miserey, France, about 60 miles away from the capital of Paris.
- The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution came into effect in 1920. It gave women the right to vote. Women fought for a long time to get this, starting from the beginning of the United States. In 1865, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton signed a petition to let women vote. Women gained the right to vote in the Constitution 55 years later.
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower made Hawaii the 50th state in the Union when he signed a proclamation. A small group of white planters and businessmen overthrew Hawaii’s last queen, Queen Lili’uokalani, in 1893. President Grover Cleveland condemned the coup, but the temporary government established the Republic of Hawaii. Hawaii became a part of the United States in 1898. However, it took more than 60 years for Hawaii to achieve statehood.
- Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., destroying Pompeii, an Italian city, in its famous volcanic eruption. It also affected the cities of Stabiae and Herculaneum.Today, you can visit Pompeii and see much of the city preserved as it was when the eruption took place.
“August is the slow, gentle month that stretches out the longest across the span of a year. It yawns and lingers …”
Did You Know? August: Ranks number one for the highest total volume of births across the United States. A late August birthday means December conception. Cold weather, snow, romantic fires and holiday parties seem to create just the right equation for the beginning of human mating season, leading to summer pregnancies.