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HISTORY & TIMELINE
19 August

A journey through
19 August in history

The story of 19 August runs from the 19-year-old Octavian forcing his way into the Roman consulship in 43 BC to Burundi’s parliament choosing its first president after a long civil war in 2005. In between come the coronation of Edward I, Mary, Queen of Scots’ return to Leith, the raising of the Jacobite standard at Glenfinnan, the victory that earned USS Constitution the name ‘Old Ironsides’, the public unveiling of Daguerre’s photographic process, the first car races at Indianapolis, the August Revolution in Vietnam, the overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran, the flight of Belka and Strelka, the launch of the first geostationary satellite, the Pan-European Picnic on the Austrian-Hungarian border, the hardliners’ coup in Moscow and Google’s first day on the stock market.

Begin the Timeline ↓ ← Back to Explore This Day
JUMP THROUGH TIME
I
EARLIEST RECORDS

Ancient & Early History

The earliest worthwhile records and events connected with this date.

-43
Fragment of a bronze equestrian statue of Augustus, first century BC, in the National Archaeological Museum, AthensFragment of a bronze equestrian statue of Augustus, first century BC, in the National Archaeological Museum, AthensImage: Ricardo André Frantz (User:Tetraktys) · CC BY-SA 3.0
politics · Europe

The 19-year-old Octavian forces his way into the consulship

After Julius Caesar’s murder in 44 BC, his great-nephew and adopted heir Octavian raised an army of Caesar’s veterans. The Senate used him against Mark Antony, but once both consuls had died in the fighting it tried to sideline him. Octavian marched his legions on Rome and on 19 August 43 BC was made consul, far below the legal age. He later ruled Rome as Augustus, and died on the anniversary of this day in AD 14.

Source: Cassius Dio, Roman History, book 56 (LacusCurtius, University of Chicago) ↗
II
THE MIDDLE AGES

Medieval History

Kingdoms, conflict, faith, power and the changing medieval world.

1274
A medieval painting of a king, thought to be Edward I, on the sedilia in Westminster AbbeyA medieval painting of a king, thought to be Edward I, on the sedilia in Westminster AbbeyImage: Unknown author · Public domain
politics · Europe

Edward I and Eleanor of Castile are crowned at Westminster

Edward I was on crusade in the Holy Land when his father, Henry III, died in November 1272. He was proclaimed king in his absence and took his time coming home, travelling through Italy and France. He and his wife, Eleanor of Castile, were finally crowned together in Westminster Abbey on 19 August 1274, twenty years after their marriage. When Eleanor died in 1290, Edward raised a chain of memorial crosses along the route of her funeral procession.

Source: Westminster Abbey: Edward I and Eleanor of Castile ↗
III
A CHANGING WORLD

Early Modern Era

Exploration, political change, scientific development and expanding global connections.

1561
Mary, Queen of Scots, in a portrait after François ClouetMary, Queen of Scots, in a portrait after François ClouetImage: François Clouet · Public domain
politics · Europe

Mary, Queen of Scots comes home to Scotland

Mary became Queen of Scots when she was six days old, and at the age of five she was sent to France to be brought up at the French court, safe from English attempts to marry her to Henry VIII’s son. In 1558 she married the heir to the French throne, and for little more than a year she was Queen of France. When her young husband, Francis II, died in December 1560, the 18-year-old widow had no future in France and decided to go home. She landed at Leith, the port of Edinburgh, on 19 August 1561, earlier than expected and in thick fog, so that no proper welcome was ready. The country she returned to had changed: in 1560 the Scottish parliament had broken with the pope and made Scotland Protestant. Mary, a Catholic, was allowed to hear Mass privately in her own chapel at Holyrood, but the preacher John Knox thundered against it. Her personal rule would last less than six years.

Source: National Museums Scotland: Life and deathline of Mary, Queen of Scots ↗
1745
The Glenfinnan Monument at the head of Loch Shiel, built in 1815 to mark the raising of the standardThe Glenfinnan Monument at the head of Loch Shiel, built in 1815 to mark the raising of the standardImage: Antony McCallum · CC BY-SA 3.0
world · Europe

Charles Edward Stuart raises the Jacobite standard at Glenfinnan

Charles Edward Stuart, grandson of the exiled James VII and II, landed in the west Highlands in July 1745 with only a handful of companions and no French army behind him. Some clan chiefs urged him to go home, but he won enough of them over, and on 19 August 1745 he raised his father’s standard at Glenfinnan, at the head of Loch Shiel, before a gathering of Highlanders. The last Jacobite rising had begun; it ended at Culloden in April 1746.

Source: National Trust for Scotland: The Jacobites ↗
IV
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

The 1800s

Industry, empire, invention, reform and a century of enormous transformation.

1812
USS Constitution and HMS Guerriere in battle, painted by Anton Otto FischerUSS Constitution and HMS Guerriere in battle, painted by Anton Otto FischerImage: Anton Otto Fischer · Public domain
world · Americas

USS Constitution defeats HMS Guerriere and earns the name ‘Old Ironsides’

Two months into the War of 1812, the American frigate Constitution, under Captain Isaac Hull, met the British frigate Guerriere in the Atlantic off Nova Scotia on 19 August 1812. In a fight of little more than an hour the Guerriere lost all her masts and had to surrender. British shot was seen bouncing off the American ship’s thick oak sides, and she has been called ‘Old Ironsides’ ever since. The victory did much for American morale, and the ship is still in commission in Boston.

Source: USS Constitution Museum: The battle ↗
1839
Boulevard du Temple, Paris, a daguerreotype made by Louis Daguerre in 1838Boulevard du Temple, Paris, a daguerreotype made by Louis Daguerre in 1838Image: Louis Daguerre · Public domain
culture · Europe

Daguerre’s photographic process is revealed to the world in Paris

Louis Daguerre, a Parisian painter of theatre scenery and dioramas, had worked with the inventor Nicéphore Niépce on ways of fixing the images seen in a camera. After Niépce’s death Daguerre perfected a method of his own: a silver-coated copper plate was made sensitive with iodine, exposed in the camera, developed over mercury fumes and fixed, giving a single, astonishingly detailed picture. The scientist and politician François Arago persuaded the French state to buy the process in return for lifetime pensions for Daguerre and Niépce’s son. On 19 August 1839 Arago explained it, step by step, to a joint meeting of the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Fine Arts, while a crowd waited outside. France presented the invention as a gift to the world, and within months daguerreotype cameras were in use across Europe and America.

Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art: Daguerre (1787-1851) and the invention of photography ↗
V
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The 1900s

War and peace, technological leaps, social change, politics, sport and popular culture.

1909
A steam roller on the banked track of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in its early daysA steam roller on the banked track of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in its early daysImage: Unknown author · Public domain
sport · Americas

Cars race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first time

The Indianapolis businessman Carl G. Fisher believed America’s young car industry needed a proper track where cars could be tested and raced, and in 1909 he and three partners built a 2.5-mile oval on farmland outside the city. Its first event, in June, was a balloon race, and motorcycles raced there on 14 August. The first car races began on 19 August 1909. The surface of crushed stone and tar broke up under the speeding cars, and fatal crashes marred the three-day meeting. Fisher’s answer was to pave the whole track with more than three million bricks, which gave it the nickname ‘the Brickyard’, and in 1911 the Speedway held the first Indianapolis 500.

Source: Indianapolis Motor Speedway: The world when IMS opened ↗
1945
Crowds and Viet Minh troops outside the Hanoi Opera House at a rally celebrating the August Revolution in 1945Crowds and Viet Minh troops outside the Hanoi Opera House at a rally celebrating the August Revolution in 1945Image: Uncredited photographer · Public domain
politics · Asia

The Viet Minh take power in Hanoi in the August Revolution

France had ruled Vietnam since the 19th century, but during the Second World War Japan occupied French Indochina, and in March 1945 it threw out the French administration altogether. Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh, a communist-led independence movement, had spent the war building up support and small guerrilla forces in the north, and was ready when Japan’s surrender left a sudden gap in power. The Viet Minh called a general uprising, and on 19 August 1945 huge crowds filled the streets of Hanoi as its supporters took over government offices with almost no resistance. The movement spread to Hue and Saigon within days, the last emperor, Bao Dai, gave up his throne, and on 2 September Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi. France soon returned to fight for its colony, and Vietnam faced 30 years of war. Vietnam still marks 19 August as the day of the August Revolution.

Source: Britannica: Vietnam, World War II and independence ↗
1953
Crowds of the shah's supporters around a vehicle in Tehran during the coup of August 1953Crowds of the shah’s supporters around a vehicle in Tehran during the coup of August 1953Image: William Arthur Cram · Public domain
politics · Middle East

A coup backed by the CIA and MI6 topples Iran’s prime minister

In 1951 Iran’s parliament, led by the nationalist Mohammad Mosaddegh, voted to nationalise the country’s oil industry, which had been run for decades by the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Britain answered with a boycott of Iranian oil, and as the economy suffered Mosaddegh fell out with the shah, the clergy and parts of the army. Britain persuaded the United States, which feared that Iran might drift towards communism, to join a secret plan to remove him. A first attempt in mid-August 1953 failed, and the shah fled the country. Then on 19 August crowds, some of them paid, and army units loyal to General Fazlollah Zahedi took over the streets of Tehran, seized the radio station and attacked Mosaddegh’s house. Some 300 people were killed. Zahedi became prime minister, the shah returned in triumph, and Mosaddegh spent three years in prison and the rest of his life under house arrest. The coup left a lasting distrust of the West in Iran.

Source: Britannica: 1953 coup in Iran ↗
1960
Belka and Strelka on a Russian stamp issued in 2010 for the 50th anniversary of their flightBelka and Strelka on a Russian stamp issued in 2010 for the 50th anniversary of their flightImage: Russian Post, Publishing and Trade Centre "Marka" (ИТЦ «Марка»). The design of the stamp by O. Yakovleva. · Public domain
science · Asia

Belka and Strelka become the first animals to return alive from orbit

The Soviet dog Laika had reached orbit in 1957, but there was no way to bring her back. Before risking a person, Soviet engineers needed to show that a spacecraft could carry living things into orbit and land them safely, and in 1960 they began flying test versions of the capsule that would later carry Yuri Gagarin. On 19 August 1960 one of these test ships, known as Korabl-Sputnik 2, was launched from Baikonur carrying two dogs, Belka and Strelka, together with a rabbit, 40 mice, two rats, flies and plants. It circled the Earth 17 times and came down the next day, and the dogs became the first living creatures to go into orbit and return alive. Less than a year later Gagarin followed them. Strelka later had puppies, and Nikita Khrushchev gave one, Pushinka, to the daughter of President Kennedy.

Source: NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive: Sputnik 5 ↗
1964
Syncom 2, of the same design as Syncom 3, in a NASA photographSyncom 2, of the same design as Syncom 3, in a NASA photographImage: NASA · Public domain
science · Global

Syncom 3, the first geostationary satellite, is launched

A satellite 36,000 kilometres above the equator circles the Earth once a day, so it seems to hang still in the sky and can link the same places all the time. Syncom 3, built by Hughes Aircraft for NASA, was launched from Cape Kennedy on 19 August 1964 and became the first satellite placed in such an orbit. Stationed over the Pacific, it carried live television pictures of the Tokyo Olympic Games across the ocean that October.

Source: NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive: Syncom 3 ↗
1989
Miklós Melocco's memorial to the Pan-European Picnic near Sopron, HungaryMiklós Melocco’s memorial to the Pan-European Picnic near Sopron, HungaryImage: Kaboldy · CC BY-SA 3.0
politics · Europe

East Germans slip through the Iron Curtain at the Pan-European Picnic

In the summer of 1989 thousands of East Germans were in Hungary, hoping to reach the West. Hungarian opposition groups and the Paneuropean Union organised a ‘picnic’ for a Europe without borders on the Austrian frontier near Sopron, and on 19 August 1989 a border gate was opened for a few hours. Several hundred East Germans rushed through into Austria while the guards stood back. Weeks later Hungary opened its border, and in November the Berlin Wall fell.

Source: German Federal Government: Pan-European Picnic ↗
1991
A barricade on the Gorbaty Bridge beside the Russian parliament building in Moscow, photographed on 22 August 1991A barricade on the Gorbaty Bridge beside the Russian parliament building in Moscow, photographed on 22 August 1991Image: Ivan Petrovich Vtorov · CC BY-SA 4.0
politics · Europe

Hardliners try to seize power from Gorbachev in Moscow

By the summer of 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms had loosened the Communist Party’s grip on the Soviet Union, and several republics were pushing for independence. A new Union Treaty, which would hand far more power to the republics, was due to be signed on 20 August. On 18 August, while Gorbachev was on holiday at Foros in Crimea, a delegation from Moscow demanded that he hand over power. He refused, and was cut off and held at his villa. Early on 19 August 1991 Soviet radio announced that Gorbachev was too ill to govern and that a State Committee for the State of Emergency, led by Vice President Gennady Yanayev with the heads of the KGB, the army and the government, had taken charge. Tanks rolled into Moscow. Boris Yeltsin, the newly elected president of Russia, climbed onto a tank outside the Russian parliament building and called the coup illegal, and crowds built barricades to defend it. Within three days the plot collapsed and the plotters were arrested, but the Soviet Union itself survived only until the end of the year.

Source: Britannica: 1991 Soviet coup attempt ↗
VI
2000 TO TODAY

Modern Day

The events of recent decades that have already become part of the historical record.

2004
Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey BrinGoogle’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey BrinImage: Ehud Kenan · CC BY 2.0
world · Americas

Google’s shares go on sale on the stock market

Google was started by two Stanford graduate students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and by 2004 its search engine had become the most used on the web. The company sold its first shares to the public through an unusual online auction, at $85 each, and on 19 August 2004 they began trading on the Nasdaq exchange under the symbol GOOG. The sale raised well over a billion dollars, and within a few months the share price had more than doubled.

Source: US Securities and Exchange Commission: Google Inc. annual report on Form 10-K for 2004 ↗
2005
Pierre Nkurunziza at the World Economic Forum on Africa in 2008Pierre Nkurunziza at the World Economic Forum on Africa in 2008Image: World Economic Forum/Eric Miller · CC BY-SA 2.0
politics · Africa

Burundi’s parliament chooses a president to end a long transition

Burundi, a small country in the hills of central Africa, was torn by civil war after its first elected Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye, was murdered in an army coup in 1993. Fighting between the Tutsi-led army and Hutu rebel groups cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Peace talks led to the Arusha agreement of 2000, a power-sharing government and, in 2003, a deal with the largest rebel movement, the CNDD-FDD. In 2005 Burundians approved a new constitution and the CNDD-FDD won the parliamentary elections. On 19 August 2005 the two houses of parliament, meeting together, elected the movement’s leader, Pierre Nkurunziza, a former teacher and rebel commander, as the first president since the transition, by 151 of 162 votes. He was sworn in a week later. Nkurunziza went on to rule for 15 years, and his bid for a third term in 2015 plunged the country into a new crisis.

Source: Britannica: Pierre Nkurunziza ↗
RESEARCH

Sources & Further Reading

Selected authoritative references supporting the events on this page.

Cassius Dio, Roman History, book 56 (LacusCurtius, University of Chicago)↗Livius: Gaius Julius Caesar, inheritance↗Westminster Abbey: Edward I and Eleanor of Castile↗The Royal Family: Edward I ‘Longshanks’↗National Museums Scotland: Life and deathline of Mary, Queen of Scots↗National Library of Scotland: 1561, Mary returns to Scotland↗National Trust for Scotland: The Jacobites↗National Library of Scotland: Jacobites, a timeline↗USS Constitution Museum: The battle↗Naval History and Heritage Command: Frigate Constitution↗Metropolitan Museum of Art: Daguerre (1787-1851) and the invention of photography↗Library of Congress: The daguerreotype medium↗Indianapolis Motor Speedway: The world when IMS opened↗Indiana Historical Society: Indianapolis Motor Speedway↗Britannica: Vietnam, World War II and independence↗Britannica: Ho Chi Minh, World War II and the founding of the Vietnamese state↗Britannica: 1953 coup in Iran↗Encyclopaedia Iranica: Coup d’etat of 1332 S./1953↗NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive: Sputnik 5↗NASA StarChild: First living thing to return from space↗NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive: Syncom 3↗NASA: Communications satellites, making the global village possible↗German Federal Government: Pan-European Picnic↗Britannica: Hungary, political reforms↗Britannica: 1991 Soviet coup attempt↗Britannica: Soviet Union, the attempted coup↗US Securities and Exchange Commission: Google Inc. annual report on Form 10-K for 2004↗Wikipedia: History of Google↗Britannica: Pierre Nkurunziza↗ReliefWeb: Burundi parliament elects Nkurunziza nation’s president↗
WHY THESE MOMENTS?

Significance before volume

This page is not the longest possible list of events. It is a chronological journey through 19 August, where each entry is chosen for historical significance, human interest and reliability.

Facts are checked against authoritative museums, archives, universities and reference works. Where sources disagree, the page says so.

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