Aug. 21
1831: Nat Turner launched a violent slave rebellion in Virginia, resulting in the deaths of at least 55 white people.
1911: Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris.
1959: President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a proclamation officially declaring Hawaii the 50th state.
Aug. 22
1851: The schooner America outraced over a dozen British ships off England to win a trophy later known as the America’s Cup.
1791: The Haitian Revolution began as enslaved people of Saint-Domingue rose up against French colonizers.
1910: Japan annexed Korea, which remained under Japanese control until the end of World War II.
1922: Irish revolutionary Michael Collins was shot to death, apparently by Irish Republican Army members opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
Aug. 23
1970: The Salad Bowl strike began, led by Cesar Chavez, as 5,000 to 10,000 laborers walked off the job in the largest U.S. farm worker strike.
1305: Scottish rebel leader Sir William Wallace was executed by the English for treason.
1775: Britain’s King George III proclaimed the American colonies to be in a state of “open and avowed rebellion.”
1927: Amid protests, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in Boston for 1920 robbery murders; 50 years later, Gov. Michael Dukakis said they were unfairly tried.
Aug. 24
1814: During the War of 1812: British forces invaded Washington, D.C., setting fire to the still-under-construction Capitol and the White House.
1954: President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Communist Control Act, outlawing the Communist Party in the United States.
1992: Hurricane Andrew smashed into Florida; the storm resulted in 65 deaths and caused more than $26 billion in damage across Florida, Louisiana and the Bahamas.
Aug. 25
1916: Woodrow Wilson signed the National Park Service Organic Act, creating the agency to protect natural and historic sites for future generations.
1875: Matthew Webb became the first person to swim across the English Channel, crossing from Dover, England, to Calais, France.
1944: Paris was liberated by Allied forces after four years of Nazi occupation during World War II.
Aug. 26
1944: French Gen. Charles de Gaulle led a victory march in newly liberated Paris, defying the threat of German snipers.
1939: The first televised major league baseball games were broadcast on experimental station W2XBS: a doubleheader between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field.
1958: Alaskans went to the polls to overwhelmingly vote in favor of statehood.
Aug. 27
1883: The island volcano Krakatoa erupted with a series of cataclysmic explosions. The explosions (which could be heard 3,000 miles away) and tsunamis in Indonesia’s Sunda Strait claimed some 36,000 lives.
1894: Congress passed the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act, which contained a provision for a graduated income tax.
1964: The film “Mary Poppins” had its world premiere in Los Angeles, California.
1990: Blues musician Stevie Ray Vaughn and four others were killed in a helicopter crash near East Troy, Wisconsin.
