August 31
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(Redirected from 31 August)
August 31 is the 243rd day of the year (244th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 122 days remaining until the end of the year.
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Births [change]
- 12 – Gaius Caligula, Roman Emperor (d. 41)
- 161 – Commodus, Roman Emperor (d. 192)
- 1569 – Jahangir, Indian Mughal Emperor (d. 1627)
- 1602 – Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, wife of Frederick, Prince of Orange (d. 1675)
- 1663 – Guillaume Amontons, French physicist and instrument maker (d. 1705)
- 1721 – George Hervey, 2nd Earl of Bristol, British statesman (d. 1775)
- 1741 – Jean Paul Egide Martini, French composer (d. 1816)
- 1748 – Jean Etienne Despreaux, French dancer, choreographer, composer, singer and playwright (d. 1820)
- 1749 – Alexander Radishchev, Russian philosopher and writer (d. 1802)
- 1760 – Peter Joseph Triest, Belgian canon of the Roman Catholic Church (d. 1836)
- 1786 – Michel Eugene Chevreul, French chemist (d. 1889)
- 1797 – James Ferguson, Scottish astronomer and engineer (d. 1867)
- 1811 – Theophile Gautier, French poet and novelist (d. 1872)
- 1834 – Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer (d. 1886)
- 1843 – Georg von Hertling, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1919)
- 1853 – Alexei Alekseyevich Brusilov, Russian general (d. 1926)
- 1870 – Maria Montessori, Italian physician and educator (d. 1952)
- 1871 – James E. Ferguson, 26th Governor of Texas (d. 1944)
- 1871 – Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg (d. 1955)
- 1874 – Edward Thorndike, American psychologist (d. 1949)
- 1878 – Frank Jarvis, American athlete (d. 1933)
- 1879 – Alma Mahler, wife of Gustav Mahler, Walter Gropius, and Franz Werfel (d. 1964)
- 1879 – Emperor Taisho, Emperor of Japan (d. 1926)
- 1880 – Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands (d. 1962)
- 1885 – DuBose Heyward, American playwright (d. 1940)
- 1891 – Martin Sennet Conner, 44th Governor of Mississippi (d. 1950)
- 1893 – Raymond E. Baldwin, Governor of Connecticut (d. 1986)
- 1897 – Fredric March, American actor (d. 1975)
- 1903 – Vladimir Jankelevitch, French philosopher and musicologist (d. 1985)
- 1903 – Arthur Godfrey, American television host (d. 1983)
- 1907 – William Shawn, American editor (d. 1992)
- 1907 – Ramon Magsaysay, President of the Philippines (d. 1957)
- 1907 – Altiero Spinelli, Italian politician (d. 1986)
- 1908 – William Saroyan, American novelist and playwright (d. 1981)
- 1913 – Bernard Lovell, British radio astronomer and physicist (d. 2012)
- 1913 – Helen Levitt, American photographer (d. 2009)
- 1914 – Richard Basehart, American actor (d. 1984)
- 1916 – Daniel Schorr, American journalist (d. 2010)
- 1918 – Alan Jay Lerner, American composer (d. 1986)
- 1924 – Buddy Hackett, American actor and comedian (d. 2003)
- 1928 – James Coburn, American actor (d. 2002)
- 1931 – Noble Willingham, American actor (d. 2004)
- 1935 – Frank Robinson, American baseball player and manager
- 1935 – Eldridge Cleaver, American political activist (d. 1998)
- 1938 – Martin Bell, British journalist and politician
- 1945 – Van Morrison, Northern Irish musician
- 1945 – Itzhak Perlman, Israeli violinist
- 1947 – Somchai Wongsawat, Prime Minister of Thailand
- 1948 – Holger Osieck, German football coach
- 1948 – Harald Ertl, Austrian racing driver (d. 1982)
- 1948 – Lowell Ganz, screenwriter
- 1949 – Richard Gere, American actor
- 1949 – Hugh David Politzer, American physicist
- 1954 – Robert Kocharian, former President of Armenia
- 1956 – Masashi Tashiro, Japanese television performer
- 1958 – Edwin Moses, American athlete
- 1959 – Ralph Krueger, Canadian ice hockey coach
- 1962 – Dee Bradley Baker, American actor
- 1963 – Todd Carty, Irish actor
- 1966 – Jan Einar Thorsen, Norwegian alpine skier
- 1969 – Jonathan LaPaglia, Australian actor
- 1969 – Andrew Cunanan, American serial killer (d. 1997)
- 1970 – Debbie Gibson, American singer
- 1970 – Queen Rania of Jordan, Jordanian Queen
- 1970 – Nikola Gruevski, Macedonian politician
- 1971 – Padraig Harrington, Irish golfer
- 1972 – Chris Tucker, American actor
- 1976 – Roque Junior, Brazilian footballer
- 1976 – Radek Martinek, Czech ice hockey player
- 1977 – Craig Nicholls, American singer, songwriter, and guitarist (The Vines)
- 1977 – Jeff Hardy, American professional wrestler
- 1979 – Simon Neil, Scottish singer and guitarist (Biffy Clyro)
- 1980 – Joe Budden, American rapper
- 1981 – Dwayne Peel, Welsh rugby player
- 1982 – Christopher Katongo, Zambian footballer
- 1982 – Jose Manuel Reina, Spanish footballer
- 1982 – Alexei Mikhnov, Ukrainian-Russian ice hockey player
- 1984 – Ted Ligety, American skier
- 1984 – Ryan Kesler, American ice hockey player
- 1985 – Rolando, Portuguese footballer
- 1987 – Ondrej Pavelec, Czech ice hockey player
Deaths [change]
- 651 – Aidan of Lindisfarne, Irish bishop and missionary
- 683 – Pacal II, Mayan ruler (b. 603)
- 1056 – Byzantine Empress Theodora (b. 981)
- 1158 – Sancho I of Castile (b. 1134)
- 1234 – Emperor Go-Horikawa of Japan (b. 1212)
- 1422 – King Henry V of England (b. 1387)
- 1654 – Ole Worm, Danish physician (b. 1588)
- 1688 – John Bunyan, English writer (b. 1628)
- 1724 – Louis I of Spain (b. 1707)
- 1741 – Johann Gottlieb Heineccius, German jurist (b. 1681)
- 1762 – Emperor Momozono of Japan (b. 1741)
- 1772 – William Borlase, English naturalist (b. 1695)
- 1811 – Louis Antoine de Bougainville, French explorer (b. 1729)
- 1814 – Arthur Phillip, British admiral, first Governor of New South Wales (b. 1738)
- 1864 – Ferdinand Lassalle, German writer and politician (b. 1825)
- 1867 – Charles Baudelaire, French poet (b. 1821)
- 1888 – Mary Ann Nichols, victim of Jack the Ripper (b. 1845)
- 1920 – Wilhelm Wundt, German psychologist (b. 1832)
- 1920 – Jens Oliver Lisberg, Faroese law student (b. 1896)
- 1924 – Todor Aleksandrov, Bulgarian revolutionary (b. 1881)
- 1941 – Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian poet (b. 1892)
- 1963 – Georges Braque, French painter (b. 1882)
- 1969 – Rocky Marciano, American boxer (b. 1923)
- 1973 – John Ford, American film director (b. 1894)
- 1974 – Norman Kirk, Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1923)
- 1979 – Sally Rand, American dancer and actress (b. 1904)
- 1985 – Frank Macfarlane Burnet, Australian biologist (b. 1899)
- 1986 – Henry Moore, English sculptor (b. 1898)
- 1986 – Urho Kekkonen, President of Finland (b. 1900)
- 1986 – Jorge Alessandri, President of Chile (b. 1896)
- 1997 – Diana, Princess of Wales (car accident) (b. 1961)
- 1997 – Dodi Fayed, Egyptian-born film producer (car accident) (b. 1955)
- 2002 – Lionel Hampton, American vibraphone player (b. 1908)
- 2002 – George Porter, English chemist (b. 1920)
- 2004 – Carl Wayne, English singer (b. 1943)
- 2005 – Joseph Rotblat, Polish-British physicist (b. 1908)
- 2006 – Mohamed Abdelwahab, Egyptian footballer (b. 1983)
- 2010 – Laurent Fignon, French cyclist (b. 1960)
- 2011 – Wade Belak, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1976)
- 2011 – Valery Rozhdestvensky, Russian cosmonaut (b. 1939)
- 2012 – Sergey Leonidovich Sokolov, Soviet-Russian military commander (b. 1911)
- 2012 – Carlo Maria Martini, Italian cardinal (b. 1927)
Events [change]
- 1056 – Byzantine Empress Theodora dies suddenly without children to succeed the throne, ending the Macedonian dynasty.
- 1314 – Norway's capital is moved from Bergen to Oslo.
- 1803 – Meriwether Lewis and William Clark start their expedition west by leaving Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at 11 in the morning.
- 1812 – Troop transporter Salvador runs aground on the Rio de la Plata, between Argentina and Uruguay, killing 470 people, of the 600 on board.
- 1813 – At the final stage of the Peninsular War, British and Portuguese forces capture Donostia, now known as San Sebastian, in the Basque Country, resulting in a rampage and eventual destruction of the town.
- 1864 – American Civil War: Union forces led by General William T. Sherman launch an assault on Atlanta, Georgia.
- 1876 – Ottoman sultan Murat V is deposed and succeeded by his brother Abd-ul-Hamid II.
- 1886 – An Earthquake kills 100 in Charleston, South Carolina.
- 1888 – Mary Ann Nicholls is murdered. She is perhaps the first of Jack the Ripper's victims
- 1895 – John Brallier is paid US$10 plus expenses to play football for the Latrobe, Pennsylvania YMCA, making him the first professional football player.
- 1897 – Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector.
- 1897 – Initiated by Theodor Herzl, the Zionist World Congress in Basel, Switzerland, calls for the creation of a Jewish state.
- 1907 – England, Russia and France form the Triple Entente alliance.
- 1914 – Ecuador becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
- 1915 – Brazil becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
- 1920 – Polish-Bolshevik War: A decisive Polish victory in the Battle of Komarów.
- 1920 – First news radio program broadcast in Detroit, Michigan.
- 1931 – Production of Ford Motor Company's Model A ends, with 4.3 million produced.
- 1936 – Radio Praha, now the official international broadcasting station of the Czech Republic, goes on the air.
- 1939 – Nazi Germany mounts a staged attack on Gleiwitz radio station, giving them an excuse to attack Poland the following day, starting World War II.
- 1940 – Pennsylvania Central Airlines Trip 19 crashes near Lovettsville, Virginia.
- 1941 – World War II: Serbian paramilitary forces defeat German forces in the Battle of Loznica.
- 1943 – The USS Harmon, the first U.S. Navy ship to be named for a black person, is commissioned.
- 1945 – The Liberal Party of Australia is formed by Robert Menzies.
- 1950 – East Germany bans Jehovah's Witnesses from practising their faith.
- 1957 – The Federation of Malaya gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
- 1958 – An assassination attempt on King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia fails, when a parcel bomb sent by Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother and advisor to Ngo Dinh Diem, fails to detonate.
- 1962 – Trinidad and Tobago become independent.
- 1963 – Sarawak, North Borneo and Singapore achieve technical independence, pending accession to the Federation of Malaya.
- 1968 – An earthquake in Iran kills at least 12,000 people.
- 1978 – William and Emily Harris, founders of the Symbionese Liberation Army, plead guilty to the 1974 kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst.
- 1980 – The Solidarity trade union is formed in Poland.
- 1980 – Heavy rain causes flooding in Ibadan, Nigeria, killing over 300 people.
- 1985 – Richard Ramirez, the "Night Stalker" serial killer, is arrested in Los Angeles, California.
- 1986 – An Aeroméxico Douglas DC-9 collides with a Piper PA-28 over Cerritos, California, killing 67 in the air and 15 on the ground.
- 1986 – The Soviet passenger liner Admiral Nakhimov sinks in the Black Sea after colliding with the bulk carrier Pyotr Vasev, killing 398.
- 1987 – Thai Airways Flight 365 crashes into the ocean near Ko Phuket, Thailand, killing all 83 people on board.
- 1989 – Buckingham Palace officials confirm that Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips are to be separated.
- 1991 – Kyrgyzstan declares its independence from the Soviet Union.
- 1992 – Pascal Lissouba is inaugurated as the President of the Republic of the Congo after a multiparty presidential election, ending a long history of one-party oppressive rule under the Congolese Workers Party.
- 1994 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army declares a ceasefire.
- 1997 – Diana, Princess of Wales, dies in a car crash in Paris.
- 1998 – North Korea reportedly launchs Kwangmyongsong, its first satellite.
- 1999 – A LAPA Boeing 737-200 crashes during take-off from Jorge Newbury Airport, Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 65 people, including 2 on the board.
- 1999 – The first of a series of Russian Apartment Bombings in Moscow, killing one person and wounding 40 others.
- 2004 – Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ is released on DVD and VHS in stores across the United States, selling approximately 4.1 million copies by the end of the day.
- 2005 – A stampede at the Al-Aimmah Bridge in Baghdad kills 1,199 people.
- 2006 – Edvard Munch's painting The Scream is recovered in a police raid, more than two years after it was stolen.
- 2010 – Iraq War officially ends.
Observances [change]
- Independence Day (Malaysia, Trinidad and Tobago, Kyrgyzstan)
- Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne
