HISTORY ⭕️ AUGUST

[JoGee]

(August 15)

1057 ~
Malcolm slays Macbeth
🌀

At the Battle of Lumphanan, King Macbeth of Scotland is slain by Malcolm Canmore, whose father, King Duncan I, was murdered by Macbeth 17 years earlier.

Macbeth was a grandson of King Kenneth II and also had a claim to the throne through his wife, Gruoch, who was the granddaughter of Kenneth III–the Scottish king who had been overthrown by Duncan’s predecessor King Malcolm II. Under King Duncan, Macbeth was governor of the Scottish province of Moray and a trusted military commander. However, he opposed Duncan’s ties to the Saxons in the South, and he rose in rebellion. On August 14, 1040, Macbeth killed Duncan in a battle near Elgin, and he was crowned king of Scotland in his place.

In 1054, after 14 years of rule, King Macbeth suffered a major military defeat at the Battle of Dunsinane against Siward, the earl of Northumbria. Siward was acting on behalf of Malcolm Canmore, Duncan’s son. Malcolm then gained control of the southern part of Scotland and spent the next three years pursuing Macbeth, who fled to the north. On August 15, 1057, Macbeth was defeated and killed by Malcolm at the Battle of Lumphanan with the assistance of the English. Malcolm Canmore was crowned Malcolm III in 1058.

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[JoGee]

.


(August 16)

1896
George Carmack discovers Klondike gold

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Sometime prospector George Carmack stumbles across gold while salmon fishing along the Klondike River in the Yukon.

George Carmack’s discovery of gold in that region sparked the last great western gold rush, but it was pure chance that he found it. In contrast to the discoverers of many of the other major American gold fields, Carmack was not a particularly serious prospector. He had traveled to Alaska in 1881 drawn by the reports of major gold strikes in the Juneau area, but failing to make a significant strike, he headed north into the isolated Yukon Territory. There he spent his days wandering the wilderness with the friendly Tagis Indians and fishing for salmon.

On this day in 1896, Carmack and two Tagish friends were salmon fishing on Rabbit Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River. As he habitually did, Carmack occasionally stopped to swirl a bit of the river sand in his prospector’s pan. He had seen a little gold, but nothing of particular note. At day’s end, the men made camp along the creek, and Carmack said he spotted a thumb-sized nugget of gold jutting out from the creek bank. The two Tagish Indians later said that Carmack had been napping that evening and one of them found the nugget while washing a dishpan. Regardless, further investigation revealed gold deposits “lying thick between the flaky slabs of rock like cheese in a sandwich.”

Subsequent expeditions in the spring and summer of the following year turned up other sizeable gold deposits. In part, because the summer of 1897 was a slow one for news, the major mass-circulation newspapers played up the story of the gold strikes, sparking a nationwide sensation. In the years to come, as many as 50,000 eager gold seekers arrived in the Klondike-Yukon region. Few found any wealth, though their hardships and adventures inspired the highly romanticized Yukon tales of Jack London and the poems of Robert Service.

Carmack did get rich, reportedly taking a million dollars worth of gold out of his Klondike claims and retiring to Vancouver, B.C. He died in 1922 at the age of 61, a wealthy and honored benefactor of the city.


💰

[JoGee]

(August 17)

1915 ~
Charles Kettering receives patent for electric self-starter
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Charles F. Kettering, co-founder of Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (DELCO) in Dayton, Ohio, is issued U.S. Patent No. 1,150,523 for his “engine-starting device”–the first
electric ignition device for automobiles–on August 17, 1915.

In the early years of the automobile, drivers used iron hand cranks to start the internal combustion process that powered the engines on their cars. In addition to requiring great hand and arm strength, this system was not without certain risks: If the driver forgot to turn his ignition off before turning the crank, the car could backfire or roll forward, as at the time most vehicles had no brakes. Clearly a better system was needed, and in 1911 Cadillac head Henry M. Leland gave Charles Kettering the task of developing one.

Before founding DELCO with his partner Edward Deeds in 1909, Kettering had worked at the National Cash Register Company, where he helped develop the first electric cash register. He drew on this experience when approaching his work with automobiles. Just as the touch of a button had started a motor that opened the drawer of the cash register, Kettering would eventually use a key to turn on his self-starting motor. The self-starter was introduced in the 1912 Cadillac, patented by Kettering in 1915, and by the 1920s would come standard on nearly every new automobile. By making cars easier and safer to operate, especially for women, the self-starting engine caused a huge jump in sales, and helped foster a fast-growing automobile culture in America.

United Motors Corporation (later General Motors) bought DELCO in 1916, and Kettering worked as vice president and director of research at GM from 1920 to 1947. Other important auto-related innovations developed during Kettering’s tenure were quick-drying automotive paint, spark plugs, leaded gasoline, shock absorbers, the automatic transmission, four-wheel brakes, the diesel engine and safety glass. He helped develop the refrigerant Freon, used in refrigerators and air conditioners, and the Kettering home in Dayton was the first in the country to be air-conditioned. In the realm of medicine, Kettering created a treatment for venereal disease and an incubator for premature infants, and in 1945 he and longtime General Motors head Alfred P. Sloan established the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research in New York City. Kettering died in 1958.

[JoGee]

(August 18)

1227 ~
Genghis Khan dies

🌏

Genghis Khan, the Mongol leader who forged an empire stretching from the east coast of China west to the Aral Sea, dies in camp during a campaign against the Chinese kingdom of Xi Xia. The great Khan, who was over 60 and in failing health, may have succumbed to injuries incurred during a fall from a horse in the previous year.

Genghis Khan was born as Temujin around 1162. His father, a minor Mongol chieftain, died when Temujin was in his early teens. Temujin succeeded him, but the tribe would not obey so young a chief. Temporarily abandoned, Temujin’s family was left to fend for themselves in the wilderness of the Steppes.

By his late teens, Temujin had grown into a feared warrior and charismatic figure who began gathering followers and forging alliances with other Mongol leaders. After his wife was kidnapped by a rival tribe, Temujin organized a military force to defeat the tribe. Successful, he then turned against other clans and tribes and set out to unite the Mongols by force. Many warriors voluntarily came to his side, but those who did not were defeated and then offered the choice of obedience or death. The nobility of conquered tribes were generally executed. By 1206, Temujin was the leader of a great Mongol confederation and was granted the title Genghis Khan, translated as “Oceanic Ruler” or “Universal Ruler.”

Khan promulgated a code of conduct and organized his armies on a system of 10: 10 men to a squad, 10 squads to a company, 10 companies to a regiment, and 10 regiments to a “Tumen,” a fearful military unit made up of 10,000 cavalrymen. Because of their nomadic nature, the Mongols were able to breed far more horses than sedentary civilizations, which could not afford to sacrifice farmland for large breeding pastures. All of Khan’s warriors were mounted, and half of any given army was made up of armored soldiers wielding swords and lances. Light cavalry archers filled most of the remaining ranks. Khan’s family and other trusted clan members led these highly mobile armies, and by 1209 the Mongols were on the move against China.

Using an extensive network of spies and scouts, Khan detected a weakness in his enemies’ defenses and then attacked the point with as many as 250,000 cavalrymen at once. When attacking large cities, the Mongols used sophisticated sieging equipment such as catapults and mangonels and even diverted rivers to flood out the enemy. Most armies and cities crumbled under the overwhelming show of force, and the massacres that followed a Mongol victory eliminated thoughts of further resistance. Those who survived–and millions did not–were granted religious freedom and protection within the rapidly growing Mongol empire. By 1227, Khan had conquered much of Central Asia and made incursions into Eastern Europe, Persia, and India. His great empire stretched from central Russia down to the Aral Sea in the west, and from northern China down to Beijing in the east.

On August 18, 1227, while putting down a revolt in the kingdom of Xi Xia, Genghis Khan died. On his deathbed, he ordered that Xi Xia be wiped from the face of the earth. Obedient as always, Khan’s successors leveled whole cities and towns, killing or enslaving all their inhabitants. Obeying his order to keep his death secret, Genghis’ heirs slaughtered anyone who set eyes on his funeral procession making its way back to Karakorum, the capital of the Mongol empire. Still bringing death as he had in life, many were killed before his corpse was buried in an unmarked grave. His final resting place remains a mystery.

The Mongol empire continued to grow after Genghis Khan’s death, eventually encompassing most of inhabitable Eurasia. The empire disintegrated in the 14th century, but the rulers of many Asian states claimed descendant from Genghis Khan and his captains.

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(Now this is a fantastic piece of history!)

[JoGee]

(August 19)

1964
The Beatles kick off first U.S. tour at San Francisco’s Cow Palace

🎶🎤🎶

The Beatles took America by storm during their famous first visit, wowing the millions who watched them during their historic television appearances on The Ed Sullivan Showin February 1964. But after the first great rush of stateside Beatlemania, the Beatles promptly returned to Europe, leaving their American fans to make do with mere records. By late summer of that same year, however, having put on an unprecedented and still unmatched display of pop-chart dominance during their absence, the Beatles finally returned. On August 19, 1964, more than six months after taking the East Coast by storm, the Fab Four traveled to California to take the stage at the Cow Palace in San Francisco for opening night of their first-ever concert tour of North America.

Although in retrospect it would seem a laughable underestimation of their drawing power in America, Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein chose venues like the 17,000-seat Cow Palace for the 1964 tour expressly because he feared that the Beatles might not sell out large sports stadiums like San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, where they would play their final official concert in 1966. Suffice it to say that the Beatles had no difficultly filling the Cow Palace, which was packed with 17,130 screaming fans when the group bounded to the stage shortly after 9:00 p.m. on this day in 1964 and launched into “Twist And Shout.”

The Beatles took America by storm during their famous first visit, wowing the millions who watched them during their historic television appearances on The Ed Sullivan Showin February 1964. But after the first great rush of stateside Beatlemania, the Beatles promptly returned to Europe, leaving their American fans to make do with mere records. By late summer of that same year, however, having put on an unprecedented and still unmatched display of pop-chart dominance during their absence, the Beatles finally returned. On August 19, 1964, more than six months after taking the East Coast by storm, the Fab Four traveled to California to take the stage at the Cow Palace in San Francisco for opening night of their first-ever concert tour of North America.

The Beatles’ set that night and throughout the tour that followed featured only 12 songs, most often in this order:

”Twist and Shout"

“You Can’t Do That”

“All My Loving”

”She Loves You”

“Things We Said Today”

"Roll Over Beethoven”

“Can’t Buy Me Love”

“If I Fell”

“I Want to Hold Your Hand”

“Boys”

“A Hard Day’s Night”

“Long Tall Sally"

At other stops on the tour, the Beatles’ performances would last approximately 33 minutes, but the show that night in San Francisco lasted some five minutes longer—not because of any difference in the Beatles’ performance, but because of police intervention to stem the growing pandemonium. Within the first few seconds of the first song that night, at least one radio journalist traveling with the Beatles had been trampled to the ground along with a young female fan who broke a leg in the melee. And thanks to an offhand comment by George Harrison about the group’s favorite candy in the days leading up to the show, the Beatles themselves were pelted with flying jelly beans throughout that night’s set. Though John, Paul, George and Ringo were uninjured, they left the Cow Palace that night by ambulance after their limousine was swarmed by berserk fans. It was a scene that would become familiar to them as they continued on their first historic tour of America in the months ahead.

🎸🎶

[JoGee]

(August 20)

1975 ~
Viking 1 launched to Mars

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Viking 1, an unmanned U.S. planetary probe, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to Mars.

On June 19, 1976, the spacecraft entered into orbit around Mars and devoted the next month to imaging the Martian surface with the purpose of finding an appropriate landing site for its lander. On July 20–the seventh anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing–the Viking 1 lander separated from the orbiter and touched down on the Chryse Planitia region, becoming the first spacecraft to successfully land on the surface of Mars. The same day, the craft sent back the first close-up photographs of the rust-colored Martian surface.

In September 1976, Viking 2–launched only three weeks after Viking 1–entered into orbit around Mars, where it assisted Viking 1 in imaging the surface and also sent down a lander. During the dual Viking missions, the two orbiters imaged the entire surface of Mars at a resolution of 150 to 300 meters, and the two landers sent back more than 1,400 images of the planet’s surface.

🚀

[JoGee]

(August 21)

1959
Hawaii becomes 50th state

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The modern United States receives its crowning star when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a proclamation admitting Hawaii into the Union as the 50th state. The president also issued an order for an American flag featuring 50 stars arranged in staggered rows: five six-star rows and four five-star rows. The new flag became official July 4, 1960.

The first known settlers of the Hawaiian Islands were Polynesian voyagers who arrived sometime in the eighth century. In the early 18th century, American traders came to Hawaii to exploit the islands’ sandalwood, which was much valued in China at the time. In the 1830s, the sugar industry was introduced to Hawaii and by the mid 19th century had become well established. American missionaries and planters brought about great changes in Hawaiian political, cultural, economic, and religious life. In 1840, a constitutional monarchy was established, stripping the Hawaiian monarch of much of his authority.

In 1893, a group of American expatriates and sugar planters supported by a division of U.S. Marines deposed Queen Liliuokalani, the last reigning monarch of Hawaii. One year later, the Republic of Hawaii was established as a U.S. protectorate with Hawaiian-born Sanford B. Dole as president. Many in Congress opposed the formal annexation of Hawaii, and it was not until 1898, following the use of the naval base at Pearl Harbor during the Spanish-American War, that Hawaii’s strategic importance became evident and formal annexation was approved. Two years later, Hawaii was organized into a formal U.S. territory. During World War II, Hawaii became firmly ensconced in the American national identity following the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.


In March 1959, the U.S. government approved statehood for Hawaii, and in June the Hawaiian people voted by a wide majority to accept admittance into the United States. Two months later, Hawaii officially became the 50th state.

🏄

[JoGee]

🎩
(August 22)

1938 -
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers grace Life cover

💃🚶

On this day in 1938, Hollywood’s most famous dancing duo, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, are featured on the cover of Life magazine, offering readers a graceful vision at a time when America is in the grips of the Great Depression.

Born Frederick Austerlitz on May 10, 1899, in Omaha, Nebraska, Astaire began touring the vaudeville circuit with his sister and dancing partner, Adele, in early childhood. By 1917, the siblings were performing in New York and London. After Adele married an English lord, Astaire began working in films, starting with a small role in Dancing Lady(1933). In his second film, Flying Down to Rio (1933), he was paired with Ginger Rogers, who had been born Virginia Katherine McMath on July 16, 1911, in Missouri. As a teenager, Rogers had been a champion Charleston dancer and had also toured on the vaudeville circuit. In 1930, she made a splash on Broadway in George and Ira Gershwin’s musical Girl Crazy.

Astaire and Rogers turned out to be a perfect match on the dance floor, and audiences flocked to see their dazzling, complex routines in the 10 movie musicals they made together, including The Gay Divorcee (1933), Top Hat (1935), Swing Time (1936) and Shall We Dance? (1937). The actress Katherine Hepburn once famously said of the couple: “He gives her class, and she gives him sex.” The pair’s final film together was 1949’s The Barkleys of Broadway.

Although best known for her partnership with Astaire, Rogers made some 70 films during her career and won a Best Actress Academy Award for Kitty Foyle (1940). A savvy businesswoman, she invested her earnings wisely and became one of Hollywood’s wealthiest actresses. Married and divorced five times, Rogers had no children and continued to perform for most of her life, scoring triumphs on Broadway in Hello, Dolly!in 1965 and in London with Mame in 1969. Rogers died on April 25, 1995, at the age of 83.

After his partnership with Rogers in the 1930s, the debonair Astaire continued dancing onscreen with other partners, including Paulette Goddard, Rita Hayworth and Lucille Bremer. He went on to make such films as 1957’s Funny Face, with Audrey Hepburn, and 1974’s The Towering Inferno, which co-starred Steve McQueen and Paul Newman; his performance in the latter film earned Astaire his only Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor. Astaire died at age 88 on June 22, 1987.

🎤

[JoGee]

(August 23)

1902 ~
Fannie Farmer opens cooking school
📖

On this day in 1902, pioneering cookbook author Fannie Farmer, who changed the way Americans prepare food by advocating the use of standardized measurements in recipes, opens Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery in Boston. In addition to teaching women about cooking, Farmer later educated medical professionals about the importance of proper nutrition for the sick.

Farmer was born March 23, 1857, and raised near Boston, Massachusetts. Her family believed in education for women and Farmer attended Medford High School; however, as a teenager she suffered a paralytic stroke that turned her into a homebound invalid for a period of years. As a result, she was unable to complete high school or attend college and her illness left her with a permanent limp. When she was in her early 30s, Farmer attended the Boston Cooking School. Founded in 1879, the school promoted a scientific approach to food preparation and trained women to become cooking teachers at a time when their employment opportunities were limited. Farmer graduated from the program in 1889 and in 1891 became the school’s principal. In 1896, she published her first cookbook, The Boston Cooking School Cookbook, which included a wide range of straightforward recipes along with information on cooking and sanitation techniques, household management and nutrition. Farmer’s book became a bestseller and revolutionized American cooking through its use of precise measurements, a novel culinary concept at the time.

In 1902, Farmer left the Boston Cooking School and founded Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery. In addition to running her school, she traveled to speaking engagements around the U.S. and continued to write cookbooks. In 1904, she published Food and Cookery for the Sick and Convalescent, which provided food recommendations for specific diseases, nutritional information for children and information about the digestive system, among other topics. Farmer’s expertise in the areas of nutrition and illness led her to lecture at Harvard Medical School.

Farmer died January 15, 1915, at age 57. After Farmer’s death, Alice Bradley, who taught at Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery, took over the business and ran it until the mid-1940s. The Fannie Farmer Cookbook is still in print today.

🍲🍗🍰☕️🍴

[JoGee]

(August 24)

1875 ~
Captain Webb swims English Channel

🏊🏽


On August 24, 1875, Captain Matthew Webb of Great Britain becomes the first man to successfully swim the English Channel without assistance. After the feat, Webb became an international celebrity, admired for both his prowess in the water and his penchant for risk-taking.

Born in Shropshire, England on January 19, 1848, Webb taught himself to swim in the River Severn at Coalbrookdale. At just 12 years old, he enlisted as a merchant seaman, and eventually was named captain of the steamship Emerald. Webb had a well-deserved reputation for recklessness, and often had trouble convincing sailors to remain in his employ. In August 1872, he became a hero in England when, while traveling on a ship, he dove into the Atlantic to rescue a fellow passenger who fell overboard. Although the man drowned, Webb emerged unscathed 35 minutes later and was rewarded with medals of bravery for his efforts. He then embarked on a career as a professional distance swimmer, taking huge risks in order to add to his fame and fortune.

After hearing of a failed attempt to swim the English Channel by British swimmer J.B. Johnson in 1873, Webb set his sights on becoming the first man to swim the treacherous body of water without assistance. He made his first attempt on August 12, 1875, but was stymied by high winds and bad conditions. Unfazed, he tried again less than two weeks later.

After covering himself with porpoise oil to keep warm, Webb, trailed by a flotilla of three boats, entered the water near Dover’s Admiralty Pier. Though he was stung by a jellyfish eight hours into his attempt, he persevered after being soothed by a nip of brandy. He swam into the out-rushing tide toward Cape Gris-Nez, which is now often used as the starting point for Channel swims. Finally, after 21 hours and 45 minutes of swimming against the tide—the equivalent of 39 miles–he waded onto the beach at Calais at 10:40 a.m., the morning after he began his swim, exhausted. His achievement was celebrated all over the world.

On July 24, 1883, Webb attempted his final stunt: a swim across the Niagara River, downriver from Niagara Falls. Many warned him the stunt was suicide, and, unfortunately for Webb, they were right. Webb drowned in the whirlpool approximately 10 minutes after entering the water. His body was found four days later.

[JoGee]

(August 25)

1835
The Great Moon Hoax

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On this day in 1835, the first in a series of six articles announcing the supposed discovery of life on the moon appears in the New York Sun newspaper.

Known collectively as “The Great Moon Hoax,” the articles were supposedly reprinted from the Edinburgh Journal of Science. The byline was Dr. Andrew Grant, described as a colleague of Sir John Herschel, a famous astronomer of the day. Herschel had in fact traveled to Capetown, South Africa, in January 1834 to set up an observatory with a powerful new telescope. As Grant described it, Herschel had found evidence of life forms on the moon, including such fantastic animals as unicorns, two-legged beavers and furry, winged humanoids resembling bats. The articles also offered vivid description of the moon’s geography, complete with massive craters, enormous amethyst crystals, rushing rivers and lush vegetation.

The New York Sun, founded in 1833, was one of the new “penny press” papers that appealed to a wider audience with a cheaper price and a more narrative style of journalism. From the day the first moon hoax article was released, sales of the paper shot up considerably. It was exciting stuff, and readers lapped it up. The only problem was that none of it was true. The Edinburgh Journal of Science had stopped publication years earlier, and Grant was a fictional character. The articles were most likely written by Richard Adams Locke, a Sun reporter educated at Cambridge University. Intended as satire, they were designed to poke fun at earlier, serious speculations about extraterrestrial life, particularly those of Reverend Thomas Dick, a popular science writer who claimed in his bestselling books that the moon alone had 4.2 billion inhabitants.

Readers were completely taken in by the story, however, and failed to recognize it as satire. The craze over Herschel’s supposed discoveries even fooled a committee of Yale University scientists, who traveled to New York in search of the Edinburgh Journal articles. After Sun employees sent them back and forth between the printing and editorial offices, hoping to discourage them, the scientists returned to New Haven without realizing they had been tricked.

On September 16, 1835, the Sun admitted the articles had been a hoax. People were generally amused by the whole thing, and sales of the paper didn’t suffer. The Suncontinued operation until 1950, when it merged with the New York World-Telegram. The merger folded in 1967. A new New York Sun newspaper was founded in 2002, but it has no relation to the original.

🌜

[JoGee]

(August 26)

1944
DeGaulle enters a free Paris

🗼

On this day in 1944, French General Charles de Gaulle enters Paris, which had formally been liberated the day before. As he entered the Place de l’Hotel, French collaborationists took a few sniper shots at him. “There are many moments that go beyond each of our poor little lives,” he was quoted at the time. “Paris outraged! Paris broken! Paris martyrized! But Paris liberated!”

For de Gaulle, the liberation of Paris was the end of a long history of fighting Germans. He sustained multiple injuries fighting at Verdun in World War I. He escaped German POW camps five times, only to be recaptured each time. (At 6 feet, 4 inches tall, it was hard for de Gaulle to be inconspicuous.)

At the beginning of World War II, de Gaulle was commander of a tank brigade. He was admired as a courageous leader and made a brigadier general in May 1940. After the German invasion of France, he became undersecretary of state for defense and war in the Reynaud government, but when Reynaud resigned, and Field Marshal Philippe Petain stepped in, a virtual puppet of the German occupiers, de Gaulle left for England. On June 18, de Gaulle took to the radio airwaves to make an appeal to his fellow French not to accept the armistice being sought by Petain, but to continue fighting under his command. Ten days later, Britain formally acknowledged de Gaulle as the leader of the “Free French Forces,” which was at first little more than those French troops stationed in England, volunteers from Frenchmen already living in England, and units of the French navy.

De Gaulle would prove an adept wartime politician, finally winning recognition and respect from the Allies and his fellow countrymen. He returned to Paris from Algiers, where he had moved the headquarters of the Free French Forces and formed a “shadow government” in September 1943. On the eve of the Normandy invasion, de Gaulle demanded that his government be regarded as the “official” government of all liberated areas of France. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, commander of the D-Day invasion, agreed to “not recognize” any government entity other than de Gaulle’s. De Gaulle went on to head two provisional governments before resigning. In 1970, he died suddenly of an aneurysmal rupture at the age of 79.

[JoGee]

(August 27)

1953 ~
Roman Holiday opens, featuring Hepburn’s first starring role

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On this day in 1953, Roman Holiday, featuring Audrey Hepburn in her first starring movie role, premieres in New York City. Hepburn’s performance in Roman Holiday, as a European princess who ditches her official duties and falls for an American journalist (played by Gregory Peck) while on tour in Rome, earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress and instantly established her as a leading Hollywood star.

Hepburn was born on May 4, 1929, in Belgium. Her father, an English businessman, left Hepburn and her mother, a Dutch baroness, when Hepburn was a young girl. She attended school in England, but when World War II broke out, her mother brought her to Holland, thinking her daughter would be safer there. During the war, the Nazis occupied Holland and Hepburn and her family endured hunger and other hardships.

After the war, Hepburn studied ballet in Amsterdam and London and played bit parts on stage and screen until she met the French writer Colette, who insisted that Hepburn be cast as the lead in the Broadway version of her novel Gigi. Hepburn’s Broadway debut brought her enormous attention and led to her role in Roman Holiday. Moviegoers were enchanted by the slender, elegant beauty and she went on to star in a string of hit films, including Sabrina (1954), opposite Humphrey Bogart; Funny Face(1957), with Fred Astaire; Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), in which she played Holly Golightly; and My Fair Lady (1964), in which she starred as Eliza Dolittle.

Hepburn married the actor and director Mel Ferrer in 1954, and he produced her 1967 film Wait Until Dark, which earned her another Academy Award nomination. (Hepburn also received Best Actress Oscar nominations for Sabrina, 1959’s The Nun’s Story and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.) Ferrer and Hepburn divorced in 1968 (they had two sons together) and the actress married the Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti in 1969. The couple moved to Europe and Hepburn largely retired from Hollywood, devoting her time to charitable causes. She became a special ambassador for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the 1970s. Hepburn’s marriage to Dotti produced another son, and lasted until 1982.


In 1976, after a nine-year hiatus from Hollywood, Hepburn appeared as a middle-aged Maid Marian in Robin and Marian, opposite Sean Connery. She made a handful of film appearances after that, including her final movie role as an angel in Always (1989), directed by Steven Spielberg. Hepburn continued to work for charitable causes until her death from cancer at age 63 on January 20, 1993, in Switzerland.

🌷

[JoGee]

(August 28)

1996 ~
Charles and Diana divorce
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After four years of separation, Charles, Prince of Wales and heir to the British throne, and his wife, Princess Diana, formally divorce.

On July 29, 1981, nearly one billion television viewers in 74 countries tuned in to witness the marriage of Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, to Lady Diana Spencer, a young English schoolteacher. Married in a grand ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral in the presence of 2,650 guests, the couple’s romance was, for the moment, the envy of the world. Their first child, Prince William, was born in 1982, and their second, Prince Harry, in 1984.

Before long, however, the fairy tale couple grew apart, an experience that was particularly painful under the ubiquitous eyes of the world’s tabloid media. Diana and Charles announced a separation in 1992, though they continued to carry out their royal duties. In August 1996, two months after Queen Elizabeth II urged the couple to divorce, the prince and princess reached a final agreement. In exchange for a generous settlement, and the right to retain her apartments at Kensington Palace and her title of “Princess of Wales,” Diana agreed to relinquish the title of “Her Royal Highness” and any future claims to the British throne.

In the year following the divorce, the popular princess seemed well on her way to achieving her dream of becoming “a queen in people’s hearts,” but on August 31, 1997, she was killed with her companion Dodi Fayed in a car accident in Paris. An investigation conducted by the French police concluded that the driver, who also died in the crash, was heavily intoxicated and caused the accident while trying to escape the paparazzi photographers who consistently tailed Diana during any public outing.

Prince Charles married his longtime mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles, on April 9, 2005.

[JoGee]

(August 29)

1914 ~
Women join British war effort

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On this day in 1914, with World War I approaching the end of its first month, the Women’s Defense Relief Corps is formed in Britain.

Though women’s rights organizations in Britain had initially opposed the country’s entrance into the First World War, they reversed their position soon enough, recognizing the potential of the war effort to gain advancement for British women on the home front. As early as August 6, 1914, just one day after Britain declared war on Germany, an article published in the women’s suffrage newspaper Common Causestated that: “In the midst of this time of terrible anxiety and grief, it is some little comfort to think that our large organization, which has been completely built up during past years to promote women’s suffrage, can be used to help our country through the period of strain and sorrow.”


In addition to the two nursing organizations that existed in 1914—the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) and the Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs)—several new women’s organizations sprung into being over the course of the war. Created with the support of the British secretary of state for war, Lord Horatio Herbert Kitchener, the Women’s Defense Relief Corps came into being in late August 1914. The corps was made up of two divisions: a civil section, the goal of which was to substitute women for men in factories and other places of employment in order to free those men for military service; and a “semi-military” or “good citizen” section, where women were actively recruited for the armed forces. This latter group was trained in drilling, marching and the use of arms; its members were exhorted to protect not only themselves but their loved ones on the home front in case of possible invasion by the enemy.

Another organization founded during World War I was the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), created in July 1917. Members of the WAAC supported the war effort more directly, enlisting in the army to perform labors such as cookery, mechanical and clerical work and other miscellaneous tasks. For the first time, British women were sent to the battlefields of the Western Front to serve their country, thus freeing more male soldiers to do battle in the trenches against the German enemy. By the end of the war, some 80,000 women had served Britain as non-combatants, both on the home front and on the front lines in France and Belgium.