WHAT HAPPENS IN AUGUST?

August is traditionally holiday time here in the UK, schools are closed, the weather is (hopefully) behaving itself, and Autumn still seems a while away, but what else is the month known for?

Here are a few fun (and not so fun) facts I discovered:

➤ August 1st is Lammas Day; this marked the start of the harvest season during the Anglo Saxon period. The name derives from an Anglo Saxon word - hlāfmæsse - meaning “loaf mass”. Bread was made from the first wheat harvest and blessed before being broken (not cut) into four pieces and buried in each corner of a barn that would be used to store the full harvest. Another loaf would be shared amongst loved ones. Both rituals were thought to protect the upcoming harvest.

➤ In the Roman calendar, August was first known as “Sextilis” - the Latin word for six - as until around 700 BC only ten months were counted. When an extra two months were added, Sextilis was bumped to the eighth month. The name August was not adopted until 8 BC, when it was renamed in honour of Emperor Augustus.

➤ In a non-leap year, August will not share its starting day with any other month. Of course I had to check! This year August 1st will fall on a Tuesday; of the other eleven months of the year, three start on a Wednesday, two on a Sunday, two on a Saturday, two on a Friday, one on a Thursday and one on a Monday. So it appears to be true - but as two other months this year also fall into this solo category, I’m not sure it is such a startling fact.

➤ The Earl of Sandwich “invented” the first sarnie in August 1762 and picnics have never been the same since. To be honest, I’ve always found this “fact” hard to believe - I mean, he couldn’t have been the first person in history to stick a bit of meat between two slices of bread.

➤ August is also the month of…Weeds! In the days of the Anglo-Saxons, August was known as “Weod Monath” or Weed Month, because it was when weeds and plants grew the fastest.

➤ August 26th, 1936, saw the BBC transmit its first high-definition television pictures.

➤ Martin Luther King delivered his famous “I have a dream speech”, August 28th, 1963.

➤ On August 24th, 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted, destroying the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. One thousand eight hundred and sixty six years later, on August 6th, 1945, the US dropped atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

➤ August 13th, 1964, Britain carried out the last two executions before capital punishment was abolished.

➤ August 16th, 1977, Elvis Presley packed up his blue suede shoes and left the world behind.

➤ Princess Diana died in a car accident in Paris on August 31st, 1997.

Whatever you do this August have fun and remember that we could have been stuck with a month named Sextilis - imagine the innuendos!

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