**August 13, 1868 **: The 8.9 Arica earthquake in Perukills 10’s of thousands of people and produces deadly tsunamis across the Pacific.
August 13, 1876: The premiere of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen at the recently completed Bayreuth Festspielhaus.
August 14, 1975: The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the longest-running release in film history, opens in London.
August 14, 2005: Helios Airways Flight 522loses air pressure causing, the of occupants the plane to be incapacitated. The airliner runs on autopilot until its fuel is depleted, and then crashes about 40 miles from Athens Greece. All 121 on board die.
August 15, 1901: The SS Islander, a luxury passenger ship, hits an iceberg and sinks near Juneau, Alaska. 39 die. The wreck occurred during the Alaskan gold rush, and the ship was known to have been carrying large amounts of gold. For years salvagers have been trying to get at it. But most of the gold treasure still remains unrecovered.
August 15, 1969: Woodstock opens.
(I was there.)
August 16, 1942: The California Ghost Blimp incident.
At 11:30 in the morning a Navy blimp descends into Dale City, California and becomes trapped in some power lines. People hurry to rescue the crew. But there is no crew. They had last been heard from by radio over the Pacific Ocean where they were investigating a strange oil slick on the water. What happened next? With speculation ranging from accident to enemy action to UFO abduction, the mystery of the “ghost blimp” has never been solved.
August 17, 1899: The San Ciriaco hurricanestrikes Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. This is the strongest hurricane on record to ever hit the Outer Banks. Wind measurements reached as high as 140 mph before the measuring devices blew away. At least 20 die in North Carolina. However the storm itself killed over 3800, with most of those deaths occurring in Puerto Rico. This is the longest lived Atlantic hurricane on record. It formed on August 3rd near the Cape Verde Islands. Remarkably, it did not dissipate until September 12th.
**August 18, 1944 **: The MS* Aramis * was a French passenger liner seized by Japan in 1942 and renamed Teia Maru. She was sunk by a U.S. submarine on this date. 2665 passengers and crew perished.
August 19, 1944: The Japanese landing craft *Tamatsu Maru * is sunk by the submarine USS Spadefish. 4890 lives are lost.
August 20, 1852: The Steamship *Atlantic *collides with the steamer *Ogdensburg *on Lake Erie. Estimates of the death toll range from 150 to 350.
August 21, 1986: Lake Nyos in Cameroon explodes and kills over 1700. No one is quite sure why. A toxic cloud of carbon dioxide burst from this lake with no warning. In the nearby Town of Nyos, 6 of the population of 800 survived. Thousands of livestock and other animals also perished in this bizarre disaster.
August 22, 1944: The Japanese Cargo ship Tsushima Maruis sunk by a US submarine. The ship had been trying to transport schoolchildren to a safer place, from Okinawa to Kagoshima. It had been carrying over 1400 passengers when torpedoed, including over 800 kids. Most perished. It is believed over 760 children were among the dead.
August 23, 1944: The Freckleton Air Disaster. A U.S. military B-24 Liberator plane crashes during a storm into the village of Freckleton in Lancashire, England. The plane destroyed a cafe and plowed into a school. 61 died, including many children. This was the single deadliest civilian death incident in England outside of London during the war.
August 24, 79: Mount Vesuvius erupts killing thousands.
August 25, 1861: The Clayton Tunnel rail crashkills 23 and injures another 176 in England. This train accident is thought to be the inspiration for Charles Dickins’ short story The Signal-Man.
August 25, 1835: The “Great Moon Hoax” begins with the publication of the first in a series of six articles in The Sun newspaper of New York City: Great Moon Hoax - Wikipedia
**August 26, 1871 **: The Great Revere Trainwreck of 1871kills 29 and injures many others near Boston.
August 26, 1789: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is approved by the National Constituent Assembly of France.
August 27, 1893: The Sea Island Hurricane unexpectedly strikes near Savannah, Georgia. Over 2000 die. This is the 4th deadliest hurricane to ever hit the United States.