this month IN HISTORY
August
A
hh. August. Dog Days. When I was growing up as a country boy in very rural southwest Alabama, I heard people mention the hot, hot dog days of August. There was no Google or Internet back in the mid-1950s. Heck, it took an hour to get to a library from my house. The Mobile Public Library’s Bookmobile came around a few times to show us country folks books from the extensive downtown library. I don’t know if the Bookmobiles carried encyclopedias, but I don’t think so. Therefore, in my eight-year-old mind, I learned basically by observation, especially in the summer. And in August, I saw our rabbit dogs lying around in their pen. So, obviously, Dog Days must mean that it is so hot in August that even dogs don’t move. Made sense to me! According to Wikipedia, Dog Days were the days … “which Hellenistic astrology connected with heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs, and bad luck.” I like my eight-year-old definition better, and really, I wasn’t too far off. BY » Mickey Dunaway
August 1, 1944
Anne Frank wrote the last entry into her Diary. “[I] keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would like to be, and what I could be, if...there weren’t any other people living in the world.” She died at age 15 in the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp.
August 2, 1776
Declaration of Independence signed by 55 members of Continental Congress. The Declaration was approved on July 4 but not formally written and signed until August 2.
August 2, 1939
Einstein wrote to FDR about the possibility of an atomic bomb that could destroy an entire city. The nuclear age was born with the dropping of the Fat Boy bomb on Hiroshima six years later.
August 5, 1962
Everyone’s Blonde Bombshell, Marilyn Monroe, died of an overdose of sleeping pills at age 36. MM made 29 films in her short career. 22 LimitlessMagOnline.com | August 2021
August 6, 1945
The first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. 105,000 killed immediately, and another 100,000 died of radiation’s effects.
August 6, 1965
August 13, 1961
The Berlin Wall came into existence. A significant symbol of the Cold War, it was torn down by the end of 1990.
August 14, 1935
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law by President Johnson. Voting is a civil right of every American and protected by the 14th Amendment.
President FDR signed into existence the Social Security Act. Also provides funds to states for dependent children, the blind, and administers unemployment insurance.
August 7, 1964
August 14, 1945
Gulf of Tonkin (Vietnam) Resolution granted President Johnson full authority to take all necessary measures in prosecuting the Vietnam War. America was now officially and fully engaged in the Vietnam War.
August 9, 1945
The second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. 70,000 killed. Half the city was destroyed.
August 9, 1974
Richard Nixon resigned as President effective at 12 p.m. The only President ever to resign. Gerald Ford, the only non-elected President, assumed the office.
Having been persuaded to sue for peace following the two atomic bombs, Emperor Hirohito surrendered. The surrender document was signed on September 2 aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Harbor with General Douglas MacArthur representing the U.S.
August 15, 1969
Woodstock began in a field on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in Bethel, N.Y. Hmmm. I wonder. Did you attend?
August 16, 1977
Elvis died at Memphis Baptist Hospital. Do you remember where you were when you heard? I do.
