For August 31st:
30BC: Death of St. Paulinius of Trier
12: Caligula, 3rd Roman Emperor (37-41 AD) born
161: Commodus, 18th Roman Emperor (180-91) born
651: Death of St. Aidan of Lindisfarne
1057: Death of Leofric, husband of Lady Godiva
1186: Death of Baldwin V ("Baudouinet"), King of Jerusalem, age 9
1230: Utrecht bishop Willebrand grants Swells state justice
1290: Edward I, King of England, expels the Jews from England
1310: German king Heinrich VII makes his son Johan king of Bohemia
1378: The government of Florence massacres the Ciompi
1422: Death of Henry V, King of England, at Bois de Vincennes
1476: Locusts ravage Poland, causing widespread famine
1521: Cortes and his Indian allies take Tenochtitlan
1522: Adrian VI (Netherlands) is crowned last non-Italian Pope until 1978 CE
1535: Pope Paul II deposes & excommunicates England's King Henry VIII
1569: Great mogol of India Djehangir born
1650: Cromwell retreats to Dunbar
1663: French physicist Guillaume Amontons born
1688: English Puritan author and preacher John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progess, dies at age 69. He had been imprisoned several times between 1660 and 1672, Bunyan used these periods of isolation to pen his two literary masterpieces, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666) and Pilgrim's Progress (1678)
1696: Composer Johann Paul Kunzen born
1741: Composer Johann Paul Aegidius Martini born
1745: Bonnie Prince Charlie reaches Blair Castle Scotland
1748: Composer Jean-Etienne Despreaux born
1749: Writer Radistschew born
1751: English troops under sir Robert Clive occupy Arcot India
1755: Composer Johann Ignaz Walter born
1772: Hurricane destroy ships off Dominica
1775: Composer Francois de Paule Jacques Raymond de Fossa born
1824: American hymnwriter Anna B. Warner . She never married, but lived with her sister Susan in New York state. In 1860, a novel they co-authored contained a poem which became one of the most beloved of all children's hymns: 'I Know.' born
1834: Amicare Ponchielli was born in Cremona. He became an organist and small town conductor, but his operas were occasionally staged with some success. The first Ponchielli opera to be staged at La Scala did pretty well. born
1861: American hymnwriter, Jesse Brown Pounds. During her lifetime she published nine books, 50 cantatas and over 400 religious song texts. Three of her hymns remain popular today: "Anywhere With Jesus," "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" and "The Way of the Cross Leads Home." born
1870: Italian educator Maria Montessori born
1886: An earthquake rocked Charleston, South Carolina, killing up to 110 people
1887: Thomas A. Edison received a patent for his "Kinetoscope," a device which produced moving pictures
1897: Actor Fredric March born
1903: Entertainer Arthur Godfrey born
1903: A Packard automobile completed a 52-day journey from San Francisco to New York, becoming the first car to cross the nation under its own power
1908: Writer William Saroyan born
1913: Astronomer Sir Alfred Lovell born
1916: Broadcast journalist Daniel Schorr born
1924: Comedian Buddy Hackett born
1928: Actor James Coburn born
1928: "The Threepenny Opera" was premiered in Berlin. Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht wrote the music and words, and their wives Lotte Lenya and Helene Weigel sang in it. The brief overture is a witty, cynical, decadent little masterpiece all by itself
1935: Baseball Hall-of-Famer Frank Robinson born
1935: President Roosevelt signed an act prohibiting the export of US arms to belligerents
1937: Actor Warren Berlinger born
1939: Rock musician Jerry Allison (Buddy Holly and the Crickets) born
1940: Actor Jack Thompson born
1941: The radio program "The Great Gildersleeve" made its debut on NBC
1945: Violinist Itzhak Perlman born
1945: Singer Van Morrison born
1949: Actor Richard Gere born
1954: Hurricane "Carol" hit the northeastern United States, resulting in nearly 70 deaths and millions of dollars in damage
1957: Rock singer Glenn Tilbrook (Squeeze) born
1957: Rock musician Gina Schock (The Go-Go's) born
1959: Singer Tony DeFranco (The DeFranco Family) born
1960: Singer Chris Whitley born
1962: The Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago became independent within the British Commonwealth
1963: Rhythm-and-blues musician Larry Waddell (Mint Condition) born
1965: The U.S. House of Representatives joined the Senate in voting to establish the Department of Housing and Urban Development
1969: Rock musician Jeff Russo (Tonic) born
1969: Boxer Rocky Marciano died in a light airplane crash in Iowa, the day before his 46th birthday
1970: Singer-composer Debbie Gibson born
1972: At the Munich Summer Olympics, American swimmer Mark Spitz won his fourth and fifth gold medals, in the 100-meter butterfly and 800-meter freestyle relay; Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut won the gold medal in the floor exercises and the balance beam
1977: Rhythm-and-blues singer Tamara (Trina & Tamara) born
1980: Poland's Solidarity labor movement was born with an agreement signed in Gdansk that ended a 17-day-old strike
1983: Slain Philippine opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Junior was buried in his homeland, ten days after he was shot dead as he ended a self-imposed political exile. Over a million mourners were addressed by his widow Cory
1984: The crew of the space shuttle Discovery launched the second of three communications satellites from the spacecraft's cargo bay
1985: Richard Ramirez, later convicted of California's "Night Stalker" killings, was captured by residents of an East Los Angeles neighborhood
1986: An Aero-Mexico DC-9 collided with a single-engine plane over Cerritos, California, killing 82 people, including 15 on the ground
1986: The Soviet passenger ship "Admiral Nakhimov" collided with a merchant vessel in the Black Sea, causing both vessels to sink; up to 448 people reportedly died
1987: The Justice Department challenged the constitutionality of the 1978 Ethics in Government Act, which provided for the appointment of independent counsels. (The Supreme Court upheld the law.)
1988: Fourteen people were killed when a Delta Boeing 727 crashed during takeoff from Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. The airline later blamed crash the on the crew's failure to set the wing flaps in proper position
1989: The fraud and conspiracy trial of PTL founder Jim Bakker in Charlotte, North Carolina, was interrupted after the former TV evangelist suffered an apparent breakdown in his attorney's office
1989: Britain's Princess Anne and Mark Phillips announced they were separating after 16 years of marriage
1989: The Rolling Stones opened their first concert tour in eight years before 50,000 fans in Philadelphia
1990: U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar met twice with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Azizona in Amman, Jordan, trying to negotiate a solution to the Persian Gulf crisis
1990: East and West Germany signed a treaty to harmonize their legal and political systems after merging on October 3
1991: Uzbekistan and Kirghiziz declared their independence, raising to 10 the number of republics seeking to secede from the Soviet Union
1991: In Washington, D.C., hundreds of thousands of union members marched in a "Solidarity Day" protest
1992: White separatist Randy Weaver surrendered to authorities in Naples, Idaho, ending an eleven-day siege by federal agents that claimed the lives of Weaver's wife, son and a deputy US marshal
1993: Mideast peace talks resumed in Washington amid hopes that a historic agreement to establish Palestinian autonomous areas would be concluded within days
1993: Hurricane "Emily" hit North Carolina's Outer Banks, killing three people
1993: Russia withdrew its last soldier from Lithuania, the first Baltic nation to eject all former Soviet troops
1994: The Irish Republican Army declared a cease-fire after 25 years of bloodshed in Northern Ireland
1994: Russia officially ended its military presence in the former East Germany and the Baltics after half a century
1995: At the O.J. Simpson trial in Los Angeles, Judge Lance Ito ruled the defense could play only two examples of police detective Mark Fuhrman's racist comments from taped conversations with a screenwriter
1996: Seven people drowned when their vehicle rolled into John D. Long Lake in Union, South Carolina; they had gone to see a monument to the sons of Susan Smith, who had drowned the two boys in October 1994
1996: New York City police found the body of four-year-old Nadine Lockwood in her family's apartment; she'd been starved to death. (The girl's mother, Carla Lockwood, faces murder charges.)
1997: Prince Charles brought Princess Diana home for the last time, escorting the body of his former wife to a Britain that was shocked, grief-stricken and angered by her death in a Paris traffic accident
1998: Prices on the New York Stock Exchange plunged amid news of political chaos in Russia and North Korea's apparent firing of a missile over part of Japan
1999: Detroit's teachers went on strike, wiping out the first day of class for 172,000 students in one of the largest teachers' strikes in years. (The walkout lasted nine days.)
1999: An LAPA Boeing 737-200 crashed on takeoff from Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 72 people, including five on the ground
2001: The final episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood airs
2005: A stampede on Al-Aaimmah bridge in Baghdad kills 1,199 people
2005: Rhode Island District Court freezes Palestinian Authority assets in the US
2005: Several hundred killed after stampede in Baghdad
2005: Total evacuation of New Orleans planned
2005: Carnival style protest held in Sydney
2005: Italian petrol prices rocket to a record EUR 1.30 per litre
2005: Philippine impeachment unlikely to succeed
2006: Stolen on August 22, 2004, Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream was recovered from a raid by Norwegian police. The paintings were said to be in a better-than-expected condition
2006: FBI most-wanted fugitive, polygamist Warren Jeffs, arrested
2006: Bull kills New Zealand man
2006: Astronomers witness supernova
2006: Plane carrying arms to Nepal detained in Gujarat
2006: New UK donor laws may reduce organ shortages
2006: Hard shoulder gets the soft treatment on British motorways
2006: Canadian union upset over Scugog councilor lowering flag
2006: Edvard Munch's The Scream and Madonna found
2006: Portuguese troops leave for Lebanon in October
2006: Space shuttle Atlantis set to launch on September 6
2006: Pilot dies as Dutch F-16 fighter jet crashes in Afghanistan
2006: Annan demands Hezbollah free abducted soldiers and Israel lift blockade
2006: Kids TV star Lunar Jim to tour malls in Canada
2007: The Federal Reserve will take the necessary steps to shelter the economy from turmoil in financial markets but will not bail out investors who made mistakes, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Friday
2007: President George W. Bush on Friday tried to calm financial market turmoil from the credit crisis by announcing proposals intended to prevent homeowners from defaulting on risky mortgages
2007: The U.S. troop surge in Iraq has thrown al Qaeda off balance and led to a reduction in sectarian violence and bombings, the U.S. commander in Iraq was quoted on Friday by an Australian newspaper as saying
2007: Kazakhstan's nuclear orphans are a distressing sight: heads that don't match their undersized bodies, and legs and arms twisted in awful contortions. It's a horrifying reminder of the nation's nuclear past -- that nearly two decades after Soviet nuclear tests ended, children are paying the price
2007: Embattled Sen. Larry Craig accused police after his June arrest of trying to entrap him, but CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin says he puts little faith in such a defense
2007: Two trains collide near Rio de Janeiro
2007: Law banning same sex marriages in Iowa 'unconstitutional' says judge
2007: Jackpot rises on 'Mega Millions' lottery in US; breaks record
2007: Fire kills six, badly injures seven in Croatia
2007: White House spokesman Tony Snow stepping down
2007: Some Gaza Strip students to go without textbooks
2007: Peace talks between Sunnis and Iraqi Shi'ites begin in Finland
2007: Number of suspects in Finnish dogfighting case rises to ten
2007: U.S. Senator Larry Craig to resign
2007: 10 years on Diana, Princess of Wales remembered
2007: Iran unveils part of its nuclear program
2007: Fred Thompson confirms US Presidential bid
2007: "Muslim Brotherhood" facing troubled times
2008: New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered the city's more than 239,000 residents to evacuate on Sunday in the face of powerful Hurricane Gustav, which he called "the mother of all storms."
2008: White House hopeful John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin hit the campaign trail as a team on Saturday, seeking to build on the momentum of her surprise addition to the Republican ticket even as Hurricane Gustav threatened to overshadow next week's party convention
2008: Ferocious Hurricane Gustav moved into the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico on Saturday where it was expected to strengthen and threaten New Orleans after its 150 mile per hour (240 kph) winds cut a swath of destruction through western Cuba
2008: Dennis Kucinich, the Ohio representative and two-time presidential candidate, roused the Democratic National Convention tonight with a fiery speech with the refrain: "Wake up America!" Later, Sen. Hillary Clinton planned to urge her supporters to rally behind Sen. Barack Obama
2008: Every major airport in the United States is experiencing flight delays this afternoon because of a communications breakdown at a Federal Aviation Administration facility. The administration said there are no radar outages and that they have not lost contact with any planes
2008: Hurricane Gustav made landfall this afternoon on Haiti's southwest peninsula, the National Hurricane Center said. Gustav hit near Port-au-Prince with 90 mph winds. It's expected to weaken slightly as it moves over Haiti, but forecasters warn it will restrengthen before approaching Cuba on Wednesday
2008: Radical left computer activists capture data of Blood and Honour web forum with 31,948 users
2008: Mayor of New Orleans tells residents to evacuate ahead of hurricane
2008: Italy will give Libya US$5 billion as compensation for occupation
2008: NASA considers continuing shuttle use after 2010
2009: Pop star Chris Brown has admitted guilt and apologized for assaulting his then-girlfriend Rihanna in February, but he does not remember hitting the singer, he told CNN's Larry King
2009: In an anguished 911 call, a Georgia man told dispatchers he arrived home to find "my whole family's dead."
2009: They kept their bodies alive with rationed crackers, bubble gum, beer and three gallons of water. But spiritually, the three men lost at sea for eight days had something else to keep them going
2009: Hurricane Jimena intensifies off Mexican coast
2009: Japan blames design, maintenance for explosion on China Airlines jet
2009: Australian rules football: West Gippsland Latrobe Football League Finals week one results
2009: Former terrorist arrested for 1970s murder of top German prosecutor
2009: Reports suggest probe into Formula One race-fixing allegations
2009: Study shows that aspirin might do more harm than good
2009: Israeli navy fires on Gazan fishing vessels
2009: U.S. General McChrystal submits plan on Afghanistan to President Obama
