August 1, 1838 - Slavery was abolished in Jamaica. It had been introduced by Spanish settlers 300 years earlier in 1509

August 1, 1944 - Anne Frank penned her 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." Three days later, Anne and her family were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps. Anne died at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on March 15, 1945, at age 15.

August 2, 1939 - Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt concerning the possibility of atomic weapons.

August 3, 1492 - Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, with three ships, Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria.

August 4, 1964 - Three young civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, were found murdered and buried in an earthen dam outside Philadelphia, Mississippi.

August 5, 1962 - Film star Marilyn Monroe died at age 36 from an overdose of sleeping pills. She made 29 films during her career and came to symbolize Hollywood glamour.

August 6, 1945 - The first Atomic Bomb was dropped over the center of Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m., by the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay. The bomb detonated about 1,800 ft. above ground, killing over 105,000 persons and destroying the city. Another estimated 100,000 persons later died as a result of radiation effects.

August 7, 1990 - Just five days after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, President George Bush ordered Desert Shield, a massive military buildup to prevent further Iraqi advances.

August 8, 1945 - Soviet Russia declared war on Japan and sent troops into Japanese-held Manchuria.

August 9, 1945 - The second Atomic bombing of Japan occurred as an American B-29 bomber headed for the city of Kokura, but because of poor visibility then chose a secondary target, Nagasaki. About noon, the bomb detonated killing an estimated 70,000 persons and destroying about half the city.

August 10, 1921 - While staying on holiday at his summer home on the Canadian island of Campobello, Franklin D. Roosevelt at 39 years old suffers from the first signs of Polio ( paralytic poliomyelitis ) during the next 7 days the paralysis spreads over the rest of his body.

August 11, 1841 - Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, spoke before an audience in the North for the first time.

August 12, 1676 - King Philip's War ended with the assassination of Metacom, leader of the Pokanokets, a tribe within the Wampanoag Indian Federation.

August 13, 1961 - The Berlin Wall came into existence after the East German government closed the border between east and west sectors of Berlin with barbed wire to discourage emigration to the West.

August 14, 1945 - Following the two Atomic Bomb drops and believing that continuation of the war would only result in further loss of Japanese lives, delegates of Emperor Hirohito accepted Allied surrender terms originally issued at Potsdam on July 26, 1945, with the exception that the Japanese Emperor's sovereignty would be maintained.

August 15, 1969 - Woodstock began in a field near Yasgur's Farm at Bethel, New York. The three-day concert featured 24 rock bands and drew a crowd of more than 300,000 young people.

August 16, 1977 - Elvis Presley was pronounced dead at the Memphis Baptist Hospital at 3:30 p.m., at age 42.

August 17, 1943 - During World War II in Europe, the Allies completed the conquest of the island of Sicily after just 38 days. This gave the Allies control of the Mediterranean and also led to the downfall of Benito Mussolini and Italy's eventual withdrawal from the war.

August 18, 1920- The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, granting women the right to vote.

August 19, 1934 - In Germany, a plebiscite was held in which 89.9 percent of German voters approved granting Chancellor Adolf Hitler additional powers, including the office of president.

August 20, 1920 - The first commercial radio station begins operating in Detroit, Michigan with call sign 8MK (Now WWJ Newsradio 950).The radio station was started by The Detroit News newspaper and is now owned and run by CBS.

August 21, 1959 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a proclamation admitting Hawaii to the Union as the 50th state

August 22, 1986 - Deadly fumes from a volcanic eruption under Lake Nios in Cameroon killed more than 1,500 persons.

August 23, 1963 - The Beatles release "She Loves You" in UK which becomes goes to Number 1 on September 12 and staying number 1 for 4 weeks.

August 24, 79 A.D. - Vesuvius, an active volcano in southern Italy, erupted and destroyed the cities of Pompeii, Stabiae and Herculaneum.

August 25, 1944 - Paris is liberated after more than four years of Nazi occupation by the French 2nd Armored Division and the U.S. 4th Infantry Division.

August 26, 1883 - One of the most catastrophic volcanic eruptions in recorded history occurred on the Indonesian island of Krakatoa. Explosions were heard 2,000 miles away. Tidal waves 120 ft. high killed 36,000 persons on nearby islands, while five cubic miles of earth were blasted into the air up to a height of 50 miles.

August 27, 1928 - Frank LLoyd Wright, the celebrated architect, has remarried his long time girlfriend, Olga Millinoff, at Montenegren Dancer in California.

August 28, 1963 - The March on Washington occurred as over 250,000 persons attended a Civil Rights rally in Washington, D.C., at which Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made his now-famous I Have a Dream speech.

August 29, 1991 - Following the unsuccessful coup of August 19-21, the Soviet Communist Party was suspended, thus ending the institution that ruled Soviet Russia for nearly 75 years.

August 30, 1945 - General MacArthur landed in Japan today with 18,150 occupation forces.

August 31, 1786 - Shays' Rebellion began in Massachusetts as ex-Revolutionary War Captain Daniel Shays led an armed mob. The rebellion prevented the Northampton Court from holding a session in which debtors, mostly poor ex-soldier farmers, were to be tried and likely put in prison.