August 12
1960: NASA launched Echo 1A, the agency’s first successful communications satellite.
2018: NASA launches the Parker Space Probe, its first mission to the Sun and its outermost atmosphere, the corona.
2019: Baltimore Orioles concede 7 home runs in doubleheader defeats against NY Yankees to break the American League single season HRs allowed record with 248 and counting.
August 13
1898: The first near-Earth asteroid, 433 Eros, was discovered by German astronomer Carl Gustav Witt in Berlin.
2016: The dominant Great Britain men’s crew wins the eight at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics; US scores a comfortable win over GB in the women’s eight.
2019: Entertainment companies CBS and Viacom announce they will merge with a combined 28 billion revenue.
August 14
1040: King Duncan I of Scotland was killed in battle against his first cousin and rival Macbeth, who ascended to the throne.
1848: Oregon Territory was organized by act of Congress.
2018: 2.3 million estimated Venezuelans have left crisis-hit Venezuela since 2015 according to the UN.
2019: “It is raining plastic,” survey published, plastic found in 90% of rain samples taken in Colorado by the US Department of the Interior and US Geological Survey.
August 15
1927: Rollo Gallagher, age unknown, of Salt Lake City, Utah, died when he broke through a thin crust of mud and fell into a boiling hot spring in Yellowstone National Park.
1977: The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by Ohio State University as part of the SETI project, received a radio signal from deep space. The event was named the “Wow! signal” from the notation made by a volunteer on the project.
2018: Bar-hopping for pintxos (Basque tapas) in San Sebastián, Spain, named world’s best food experience in Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Eatlist.
2019: Disney Studios is the first studio to have five films earn over $1 billion each in one year with “Toy Story 4”, “Avengers: Engame”, “Captain Marvel”, “Aladdin” and “The Lion King”.
August 16
1939: The last stage performance was held at the Hippodrome vaudeville hall in New York.
2010: China surpassed Japan as world’s second-biggest economy.
2018: British Columbia, Canada, declares State of Emergency with 566 wildfires burning, prompting evacuation of 3,000 people.
2019: Huge fire in Chalantika slum in Dhaka, Bangladesh, destroys 1,200 houses and leaves up to 10,000 homeless.
August 17
1959: An earthquake struck the Madison River Canyon in southwest Montana, causing a massive landslide that buried a highway and a campground, and formed Earthquake Lake.
2017: Collision of two neutron stars witnessed for the first time first picked up by US-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (Ligo).
2017: On This Day helps launch Borneo Dictionary, an online not for profit dictionary of indigenous Borneo languages with translations in English and Bahasa Malaysia.
August 18
1868: French astronomer Pierre Janssen discovered helium.
1920: The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women’s suffrage.
1938: The Thousand Islands Bridge, connecting New York, United States, with Ontario, Canada, over the Saint Lawrence River, was dedicated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
2018: Archaeologists confirm first-ever cheese found from Ancient Egypt 3,200 years old in tomb of Ptahmes, mayor of Memphis.
2019: US President Donald Trump confirms he is interested in buying Greenland for the US.