On August 22nd...

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1639 Madras (now Chennai), India, was founded by the British East India Company.

1647 Physicist Denis Papin was born.

1760 Pope Leo XII was born.

1770 James Cook's expedition landed on the east coast of Australia.

1775 King George III proclaimed the American colonies to be in open rebellion.

1787 John Fitch successfully demonstrated the first steamship in America.

1788 Sierra Leone was established by British as a haven for former slaves.

1818 The Savannah, the first steamship to cross the Atlantic, was launched.
1818 Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of India, died.

1834 Aviation pioneer Samuel Pierpont Langley was born.

1851 Gold was discovered in Australia.
1851 The America won the first Royal Yacht Squadron Cup (now the America's Cup).

1862 Composer Claude Debussy was born.

1864 The Geneva Convention, outlining provisions for the care of war wounded and prisoners, was signed.

1867 Fisk University was established.

1902 President Theodore Roosevelt became the first President to ride in an automobile in public when he was driven around Hartford, Connecticut, in a Victoria.
1902 The Cadillac Company was formed in Detroit.

1904 Deng Xiaoping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, was born.

1911 The "Mona Lisa" was stolen from the Louvre by Vincenzo Perugia.

1920 Author Ray Bradbury was born.

1927 Niccola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in Massachusetts.

1932 Astronaut Gerald P. Carr was born.

1934 U.S. General Norman Schwarzkopf was born.

1939 Baseball player Carl Yastrzemski was born.

1940 Actress Valerie Harper was born.

1941 Football coach Bill Parcells was born.

1947 Actress Cindy Williams was born.

1952 The penal colony on Devil's Island was permanently closed.

1967 The AMC Javelin was unveiled.

1976 Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira, former President of Brazil, died.

1977 Actor Sebastian Cabot died.

1978 Twenty-five members of the Sandinista National Liberation Front took control of the National Palace in Managua, Nicaragua.
1978 Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta died.

1984 The last Volkswagen Rabbit was produced.

1989 Black Panther Huey Newton was murdered.

2016 S. R. Nathan. former President of Singapore, died.

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This page was last updated on January 11, 2019.