1944 – Liberation of Paris, The battle to liberate Paris, which had been under Nazi control since 1940, began on August 19, 1944, and ended on this day. The battle was fought between Nazi soldiers and members of the French resistance group, who were helped by the American Armed Forces headed by General George Patton. The Germans provided little resistance and did not carry out Hitler’s orders of razing Paris to the ground. The Nazi Commander of Paris, General Dietrich Von Choltitz surrendered to the French and American troops. On August 26, General Charles de Gaulle entered Paris and headed a liberation march on the Champs d’Elysees before declaring the Provisional Government of the French Republic
0325 – First Council of Nicaea ends with adoption of the Nicene Creed establishing the doctrine of the Holy Trinity
1212 – Children’s crusade under Nicolas (10) reaches Genoa
1330 – Antipope Nicholas V, having obtained assurance of pardon, presents a confession of his sins to Pope John XXII, at Avignon, who absolved him
1515 – Conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founds Havana in modern day Cuba, on the southern coast of the island. Moved to its current location in 1519.
1609 – Galileo demonstrates his 1st telescope to Venetian lawmakers
1718 – Hundreds of colonists from France arrived in Louisiana. Some settled in present-day New Orleans.
1768 – Captain James Cook departs from Plymouth, England, on his first voyage on board the Endeavour, bound for the Pacific Ocean
1814 – The U.S. Library of Congress was destroyed by British forces.
1825 – Uruguay declared independence from Brazil.
1829 – President Jackson makes an offer to buy Texas, but Mexican government refuses
1835 – First Installment of the Great Moon Hoax is Published, The New York-based newspaper The Sun published a series of articles, starting on this day, that detailed the discovery of civilization on the Moon.
1862 – US Secretary of War authorizes Gen Rufus Saxton to arm 5,000 slaves
1875 – Captain Matthew Webb swam from Dover, England, to Calais, France making him the first person to swim the English Channel. The feat took about 22 hours.
1894 – Japanese scientist Shibasaburo Kitasato discovers the infectious agent of the bubonic plague and publishes his findings in The Lancet
1902 – “Al-Hoda” began publication in New York City making it the first Arabic daily newspaper in the U.S.
1910 – Yellow Cab is founded.
1916 – The National Park Service was established as part of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
1921 – The U.S. signed a peace treaty with Germany.
1921 – The first skirmishes of the Battle of Blair Mountain, a civil uprising in Logan County, West Virginia
1941 – Soviet and British troops invaded Iran. This was in reaction to the Shah’s refusal to reduce the number of German residents. Within four days the Soviet Union and England controlled Iran.
1944 – Liberation of Paris, The battle to liberate Paris, which had been under Nazi control since 1940, began on August 19, 1944, and ended on this day. The battle was fought between Nazi soldiers and members of the French resistance group, who were helped by the American Armed Forces headed by General George Patton. The Germans provided little resistance and did not carry out Hitler’s orders of razing Paris to the ground. The Nazi Commander of Paris, General Dietrich Von Choltitz surrendered to the French and American troops. On August 26, General Charles de Gaulle entered Paris and headed a liberation march on the Champs d’Elysees before declaring the Provisional Government of the French Republic.
1944 – Romania declared war on Germany.
1945 – Jewish immigrants are permitted to leave Mauritius for Palestine
1950 – U.S. President Truman ordered the seizure of U.S. railroads to avert a strike.
1952 – Puerto Rico becomes a US commonwealth
1958 – Momofuku Ando markets the first package of precooked instant noodles (Chikin Ramen)
1971 – Leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party Gerry Fitt presents a number of allegations of brutality by the security forces in Northern Ireland to representatives of the United Nations
1972 – In Great Britain, computerized axial tomography (CAT scan) was introduced.
1978 – The Turin shroud believed to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ went on display for the first time in 45 years.
1981 – The U.S. Voyager 2 sent back pictures and data about Saturn. The craft came within 63,000 miles of the planet.
1983 – The U.S. and the Soviet Union signed a $10 billion grain pact.
1987 – Saudi Arabia denounced the “group of terrorists” that ran the Iranian government.
1988 – Iran and Iraq began talks in Geneva after ending their eight years of war.
1989 – After 12-year, 4-billion-mile journey, Voyager 2 flies over cloudtops of Neptune & its moon Triton, sending back photographs of swamps
1990 – Military action was authorized by the United Nations to enforce the trade embargo that had been placed on Iraq after their invasion of Kuwait.
1991 – Linux is born when Linus Torvalds sends off an email announcing his project to create a new computer operating system
1992 – It was reported by researchers that cigarette smoking significantly increased the risk of developing cataracts.
1995 – Harry Wu, human rights activist, returned to the United States. He said the spying case against him in China was “all lies.”
1997 – Egon Krenz, the former East German leader, is convicted of a shoot-to-kill Berlin Wall policy.
1997 – The tobacco industry agreed to an $11.3 billion settlement with the state of Florida.
1998 – A survey released said that 1/3 of Americans use the Internet.
2006 – Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko is sentenced to 9 years in federal prison for money laundering, wire fraud, and extortion
2010 – Panic caused by escaped crocodile being smuggled aboard domestic Filair flight leads to crash of Let L-410 Turbolet passenger aircraft near Bandundu Airport, Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing all but one of the 21 passengers and crew
2012 – First Spacecraft to Enter Interstellar Space, NASA’s Voyager 1, which was launched on September 5, 1977, left the heliosphere – the part of space that is not influenced by our Sun on this day. In February 1990, the spacecraft took the first overview picture of the solar system. It is the most distant man-made object in space.
2013 – 41 people are killed in a wave of bomb attacks across Iraq
2017 – President Donald Trump grants presidential pardon to Joe Arpaio, who had been convicted of contempt of court for racial profiling
2018 – Afghan Islamic State leader Abu Saad Erhabi and 10 others killed in an air strike in province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan
2020 – WHO announces that Africa has eradicated polio (defined as four years since last case)
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
