August 31

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[edit] Births

• 12 - Gaius Caligula, Roman Emperor (d. 41)
• 161 - Commodus, Roman Emperor (d. 192)
• 1811 - Theophile Gautier, French poet and novelist (d. 1872)
• 1834 - Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer (d. 1886)
• 1870 - Maria Montessori, Italian educator (d. 1952)
• 1878 - Frank Jarvis, American athlete (d. 1933)
• 1879 - Alma Mahler, wife of Gustav Mahler, Walter Gropius, and Franz Werfel (d. 1964)
• 1880 - Queen Wilhelmina I of the Netherlands (d. 1962)
• 1885 - DuBose Heyward, playwright (d. 1940)
• 1897 - Fredric March, actor (d. 1975)
• 1903 - Arthur Godfrey, television host (d. 1983)
• 1907 - William Shawn, editor
• 1907 - Ramon Magsaysay, President of the Philippines
• 1908 - William Saroyan, novelist and playwright (d. 1981)
• 1914 - Richard Basehart, actor (d. 1984)
• 1916 - Daniel Schorr, journalist
• 1918 - Alan Jay Lerner, composer
• 1924 - Buddy Hackett, actor, comedian
• 1928 - James Coburn, actor (d. 2002)
• 1931 - Noble Willingham, American actor (d. 2004)
• 1935 - Frank Robinson, baseball player and manager
• 1935 - Eldridge Cleaver, American political activist (d. 1998)
• 1938 - Martin Bell, British journalist and politician
• 1945 - Van Morrison, musician
• 1945 - Itzhak Perlman, Israeli violinist
• 1948 - Lowell Ganz, screenwriter
• 1949 - Richard Gere, actor
• 1949 - H. David Politzer, physicist
• 1956 - Masashi Tashiro, Japanese television performer
• 1958 - Edwin Moses, athlete
• 1968 - Todd Carty, British actor
• 1970 - Debbie Gibson, singer
• 1972 - Chris Tucker, actor
• 1977 - Craig Nicholls, singer, songwriter, and guitarist (The Vines)
• 1977 - Jeff Hardy, professional wrestler

[edit] Deaths

• 651 - Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne, Irish bishop and missionary
• 1056 - Byzantine Empress Theodora (b. 981)
• 1422 - King Henry V of England (b. 1387)
• 1688 - John Bunyan, English writer (b. 1628)
• 1741 - Johann Gottlieb Heineccius, German jurist (b. 1681)
• 1772 - William Borlase, English naturalist (b. 1695)
• 1814 - Arthur Phillip, British admiral, first Governor of New South Wales (b. 1738)
• 1867 - Charles Baudelaire, French poet (b. 1821)
• 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)
• 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)
• 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)
• 2004 - Carl Wayne, English singer (b. 1943)

[edit] Events

• 1056 - Byzantine Empress Theodora dies suddenly without children to succeed the throne, ending the Macedonian dynasty
• 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 - 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 1943 - The USS Harmon, the first U.S. Navy ship to be named for a black person, is commissioned.
• 1957 - The Federation of Malaya gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
• 1962 - Trinidad and Tobago become independent.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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 - 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.