What Happened in August?

The 19th amendment giving women the Constitutional right to vote is formally adopted into the Constitution by proclamation as the US Secretary of State, Bainbridge Colby certifies it, after the State of Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment. It had been first proposed in Congress, forty two years earlier in 1878 and passed by Congress on June 4, 1919. More

Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, Victory Day. It is also known as Turkish Armed Forces Day and commemorates the decisive victory in the Battle of Dumlupınar in 1922, the last battle in the Greco-Turkish War. It is also observed by Northern Cyprus. The victory also marks the end of Greek military presence in Anatolia.

President Warren G. Harding died suddenly of a stroke in a hotel in San Francisco, while on a presidential speaking tour on the West Coast at the age of 58. Early next day Calvin Coolidge was sworn in. At the time, rumors were circulating in Washington about corruption in his administration.

Gertrude Ederle becomes first woman to swim English Channel. She swam across the Channel in 14 hours and 34 minutes, beating the men's record by two hours. More

Anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed after a controversial trial and conviction for a 1920 South Braintree, Massachusetts, shoe factory robbery and murder. Despite worldwide protests and questions surrounding the trial's fairness and the role of anti-immigrant sentiment and radical politics in their conviction. Their electric chair execution took place at Charlestown State Prison. More

A dike along China' Lake Gaoyou is breached during major floods in the Yangtze Valley. The floods covered an area approximately the size of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut combined. All together the floods lasted from June to the end of August and flooded areas of central and eastern China including densely populated cities like Wuhan and Nanjing.  Expand +

Adolf Hitler becomes absolute dictator of Germany under the title of Fuhrer, or “Leader after German President Paul von Hindenburg death. More

The first batch of 137 prisoners arrives at Alcatraz, arriving by railroad from the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, to Santa Venetia, California. In 1850, a presidential order set aside the island for possible use as a United States military reservation and the U.S. Army had used the island for more than 80 years. In 1933, the island was transferred to the U.S. Department of Justice for use by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to open a maximum-security, minimum-privilege penitentiary to deal with the most incorrigible inmates in Federal prisons. More

Hitler becomes President of Germany; 89.9 percent of German voters approved granting Chancellor Adolf Hitler additional powers, including the office of president.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) signs the Social Security Act to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment compensation laws; to establish a Social Security Board; to raise revenue and for other purposes. More

American Aviator Wiley Post and American humorist Will Rogers were killed when Post's aircraft crashed on takeoff from a lagoon near Point Barrow in the Territory of Alaska. Post was piloting a modified Lockheed Orion/Explorer, and the engine failed shortly after takeoff from a lagoon. More

Hitler declares the Berlin Summer Olympics to be open. The 1936 Olympics were the eleventh Olympiad of the modern era. The success of African American athletes, notably Jesse Owens, undermined Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party to showcase the superiority of the “Aryan race.” 

Federico García Lorca, widely considered one of the most important Spanish poet and playwright of the 20th century, was murdered by Nationalist forces at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. His remains have never been found and the motive remains unknown, although a personal dispute is believed to be the more likely reason. 

The U.S. Senate confirms the nomination of Hugo Black to the Supreme Court by a vote of 63-16 on August 17, 1937 despite rumors of his past membership in the Ku Klux Klan. Expand +

Albert Einstein writes a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt regarding the possibility of atomic weapons. Six years later, on August 6, 1945, the first Atomic Bomb, developed by the U.S., was dropped on the Japanese port of Hiroshima.

The Heinkel He 178, a turbojet designed by German engineer Ernst Heinrich Heinkel and piloted by Erich Warsitz makes its first flight. It was the world's first aircraft to fly using a turbojet engine.  Expand +

Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky, dies in Mexico City after being fatally wounded with an ice axe the day before. His assassin, Ramon Mercader, was a Spanish communist and an agent of the secret police of the Soviet Union (NKVD). Mercader was imprisoned for 20 years in Mexico and he was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal, shortly after his release from prison. Trotsky was 60 years old when he died. He was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1927 and had been living in Mexico since 1936. More

FDR and Churchill meet for the first time as leaders of their respective nations on August 9, 1941, for a 3 day meeting on board naval vessels anchored in Placentia Bay, off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.  Expand +

The United States signed the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement with Mexico. An executive order called the Mexican Farm Labor Program established the Bracero Program. This series of diplomatic accords between Mexico and the United States permitted millions of Mexican men to work legally in the United States on short-term labor contracts. The Bracero Program ended on December 31, 1964. More

American forces land on the Solomon Islands of Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Florida. on the morning of August 7,1942. After some fierce fighting, the US Marines cleared Tulagi and Florida by August 9. The main forces on Guadalcanal met little resistance on their way inland to secure the airfield at Lunga Point, Almost immediately, however, Japanese naval aircraft attacked transport and escort ships, and Japanese reinforcements arrived in the area. More