August 3, 1946: Santa Claus Land, the world’s first themed amusement park, opens in Santa Claus, Indiana.
August 3, 1958: The first nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus, passes under the North Pole.
August 6, 1930: Judge Joseph Force Crater steps into a taxi in New York and disappears, never to be seen again.
August 6, 1903: The Wallace Brothers Circus Train Disaster in Michigan kills 23 and injures about 50.
August 6, 1777: American, British and Native American forces clash at the Battle of Oriskany, during the Saratoga Campaign of the American Revolution.
August 7, 1956: The Cali Explosion in downtown Cali, Colombia kills over 1300 and injures another 4000. Seven trucks loaded with dynamite all exploded for reasons still unknown today. Forty-one city blocks were destroyed.
August 8, 1873: The Steamship Wawaset catches fire and burns in the Potomac River. Somewhere between 70 and 100 are killed.
August 9, 1941: The Steamship Erie catches fire and burns on Lake Erie. Around 170 lives are lost.
Date corrected.
August 9, 1974 – As a direct result of the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon becomes the first President of the United States to resign from office. His Vice President, Gerald Ford, becomes president.
August 9, 1930: Betty Boop makes her cartoon debut in Dizzy Dishes.
August 10, 1989: The San Rafael River Train Wreck kills 112 in Mexico. Over 200 are injured.
August 11, 1772: Mt. Papandayan in Indonesia erupts killing nearly 3000.
August 12, 1953: The Great Ionian Earthquake strikes Greece killing hundreds.
August 12, 2000: Russian Navy submarine K-141 (Kursk) explodes and sinks with all hands during military exercises in the Barents Sea.
**August 14, 1962 **: The Great Plymouth Mail Truck Robbery.
At the time this was the largest single cash heist in history. Near Plymouth, Massachusetts armed thieves posing as police stopped a mail truck carrying 1.5 million dollars in small bills and stole it all. The money has never been recovered and the case is still unsolved.
August 14, 1995: Shannon Faulker becomes the first female cadet in the history of The Citadel, South Carolina’s state military college.
August 16, 1868: Earthquakes in Ecuador kill thousands.
August 16, 1962: Pete Best is discharged from The Beatles, to be replaced two days later by Ringo Starr.
August 16,1958 - Madonna Louise Ciccone is born