Category: Today

On September 2, 44 B.C., Pharaoh Cleopatra VII of Egypt declared her son co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion. On the same day of the same year, Cicero launched the first of his 14 Philippicae (oratorical attacks) on Mark Antony. Just a few years later on the same day, in 31 B.C., the Battle of Actium ended off the western coast of Greece, where forces of Octavian defeating troops under Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Thus ended the Roman Republic, with the consolidation of power by Gaius Octavius (Octavian; Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus), though he was not renamed “First Citizen” Imperator Caesar divi filius Augustus until January 16, A.D. 27.

Slovakia celebrates a Constitution Day on September 1, for the Constitution passed by the Slovak National Council on September 1, 1992.

The Slovaks place their rights provision early in their document, like most American states, and not as amendments, as in the Constitution of the United States of America.

On August 31, 1870, educator Maria Montessori was born.

German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin led aviation progress with his patent for a navigable balloon, on this date in 1895.

August 31 serves as Independence Day for Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, and Trinidad and Tobago.

On August 30, 1918, Fanny Yefimovna Kaplan shot and seriously injured Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. Though perhaps justifiable on some primary level — evil killers with power probably deserve to be killed in turn — this assassination attempt prompted the mass arrests and executions known as the Red Terror.

August 30, 1999, saw East Timor’s referendum vote for independence from Indonesia succeed.

On August 29,1786, Shays’ Rebellion — an armed uprising of Massachusetts farmers — began. It was the first tax rebellion after the successful one in 1775–1783, and it so spooked the political leaders of the federal government that they ordered some amendments to the Articles of Confederation — eventually reconfiguring the federation with the U.S. Constitution.

Though the rebellion is named after former revolutionary soldier Daniel Shays (August 1747 – September 29, 1825), his actual role is disputed.

On August 28, 1789, William Herschel discovered a new moon of Saturn: Enceladus. Over four decades later, the New York penny daily The Sun perpetrated the infamous Great Moon Hoax using Herschel’s son’s name to legitimize its science-fictional “reportage.” The fourth of six installments hit the streets on August 28, 1835, in which “Sir John” tells us of the small, furry human beings with bat-like wings who (from their gesticulations) seemed to be rational. Eventually Richard Adams Locke confessed to having written the work — as “satire.” Edgar Alan Poe accused Locke of plagiarism while The Sun benefitted, on the whole, with increased circulation.

On August 27, 1828, the South American states of Brazil and Argentina recognized the sovereignty of Uruguay in the Treaty of Montevideo.

On August 26, 1863, the Swedish-language liberal newspaper Helsingfors Dagblad proposed the current blue-and-white cross flag as the flag of Finland.

In 1920 on the 26th of August, the 19th amendment to the United States Constitution — giving women the same access to voting as men — was certified.

In 2014 on this day in August, The Jay Report into the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal was published.

On August 25, 1609, Galileo Galilei first demonstrated his new invention, the telescope, to Venetian lawmakers. Magnifying distant images by about eight or nine times, it quickly became a profitable sideline for Galileo, who sold his telescopes to merchants who found them useful both at sea and as items of trade. He published his initial telescopic astronomical observations in March of the next year.

On August 24, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. On the same day, and not coincidentally, Ukraine declared itself independent from the Soviet Union.