August 10 is the 222nd day of the year (223rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 143 days remaining until the end of the year.
The term ‘the 10th of August’ is widely used by historians as a shorthand for the Storming of the Tuileries Palace on the 10th of August, 1792, the effective end of the French monarchy until it was restored in 1814.
Holidays
- Christian feast day:
- Argentine Air Force Day (Argentina)
- Declaration of Independence of Quito, proclaimed independence from Spain on August 10, 1809. Independence finally occurred on May 24, 1822 at the Battle of Pichincha. (Ecuador)
- International Biodiesel Day (international)
History
General events on August 10th
In 1628 – The Swedish warship Vasa sinks in the Stockholm harbour after only about 20 minutes of her maiden voyage.
In 1675 – The foundation stone of the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London, England is laid.
In 1793 – The Musée du Louvre is officially opened in Paris, France.
In 1813 – Instituto Nacional, is founded by the Chilean patriot José Miguel Carrera. It is Chile’s oldest and most prestigious school. Its motto is Labor Omnia Vincit, which means “Work conquers all things”.
In 1901 – The U.S. Steel Recognition Strike by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers begins.
In 1932 – A 5.1 kilograms (11 lb) chondrite-type meteorite breaks into at least seven pieces and lands near the town of Archie in Cass County, Missouri.
In 1948 – Candid Camera makes its television debut after being on radio for a year as Candid Microphone.
In 1954 – At Massena, New York, the groundbreaking ceremony for the Saint Lawrence Seaway is held.
In 1971 – The Society for American Baseball Research is founded in Cooperstown, New York.
In 2003 – The highest temperature ever recorded in the United Kingdom – 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) in Kent, England. It is the first time the United Kingdom has recorded a temperature over 100 °F (38 °C).
In 2003 – Yuri Malenchenko becomes the first person to marry in space.
Government and Politics on August 10th
In 1241, Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany dies at the age of 57 or 59. She was also known as Damsel of Brittany, Pearl of Brittany, or Beauty of Brittany, was the eldest daughter of Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany, the fourth son of King Henry II of England, and Constance, Duchess of Brittany. After the presumed death in 1203 of her imprisoned younger brother, Arthur, she was heiress to vast lands including England, Anjou, and Aquitaine as well as Brittany, realms where the Salic Law barring the accession of females did not apply. Her uncle John, King of Englandwas the fifth son of Henry II, and Eleanor inherited Arthur’s claim to the throne as child of John’s elder brother Geoffrey. Thus she posed a potential threat to John, and following his death in 1216, equally to her cousin, Henry III of England. She was imprisoned from 1202, and thus became the longest-imprisoned member of an English royal family. As a prisoner she was also unable to press her claim to the Duchy of Brittany as her mother’s heiress.
Like Empress Matilda and Elizabeth of York, her claim to the English throne gained little support from the barons, due to the expectation that the monarch should be male, despite legal provision for a female monarch. Some historians have commented that her imprisonment was “the most unjustifiable act of King John”.
In 1755 – Under the orders of Charles Lawrence, the British Army begins to forcibly deport the Acadians from Nova Scotia to the Thirteen Colonies.
In 1809 – Quito, now the capital of Ecuador, declares independence from Spain. This rebellion will be crushed on August 2, 1810.
In 1821 – Missouri is admitted as the 24th U.S. state.
In 1846 – The Smithsonian Institution is chartered by the United States Congress after James Smithson donates $500,000.
In 1949 – U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act Amendment, streamlining the defense agencies of the United States government, and replacing the Department of War with the United States Department of Defense.
.jpg)
In 1963, Estes Kefauver, American politician (b. 1903) suffered what was reported as a ‘mild’ heart attack on the floor of the Senate while attempting to place an antitrust amendment into a NASA appropriations bill that would have required that companies benefiting financially from the outcome of research subsidized by NASA reimburse NASA for the cost of the research. Two days after the attack, Kefauver died in his sleep in Bethesda, Maryland, of a ruptured aortic aneurysm. He was interred in the family cemetery in Madisonville. He was an American politician from Tennessee. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1939 to 1949 and in the Senate from 1949 to his death in 1963. After leading a much-publicized investigation into organized crime in the early 1950s, he twice sought his party’s nomination for President of the United States. In 1956, he was selected by the Democratic National Convention to be the running mate of presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson. Still holding his U.S. Senate seat after the Stevenson-Kefauver ticket lost to the Eisenhower-Nixon ticket in 1956, Kefauver was named chair of the U.S. Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee in 1957 and served as its chairman until his death.
In 1988 – Japanese American internment: U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, providing $20,000 payments to Japanese Americans who were either interned in or relocated by the United States during World War II.
In 2007, Henry Cabot Lodge Bohler, American pilot and lieutenant (b. 1925) dies. He was a member of the prestigious Tuskegee Airmen during World War II who would later aid the advancement of civil rights for African-Americans living in the rural Southern United States. He was born in Augusta, Georgia in 1925, Bohler would spend much of his life being told what he couldn’t do. He dreamed of flying one day, but was told he couldn’t become a pilot because he was black. Instead of accepting that decision, he enlisted in the Army Air Forces at the age of 17. At enlistment, he weighed 109 pounds, which was one pound under the minimum weight for airmen; through persuasion, he was able to join anyway. Bohler would train at the Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama, the home base of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American air corps in the United States. He learned to fly the P-51 Mustang fighter, and earned his wings in 1944. At that point, the air forces did not need any more pilots. Bohler would nonetheless remain with the air forces until 1947, earning the rank of second lieutenant. He then attended and graduated from Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia.
In 2012, The Marikana miners’ strike begins near Rustenburg, South Africa.
War, Crime and Disaster events on August 108th
In 955 – Battle of Lechfeld: Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor defeats the Magyars, ending 50 years of Magyar invasion of the West.
In 991 – Battle of Maldon: the English, led by Byrhtnoth, Ealdorman of Essex, are defeated by a band of inland-raiding Vikings near Maldon, Essex.
In 1316 – The Second Battle of Athenry takes place near Athenry during the Bruce campaign in Ireland.
In 1512 – The naval Battle of Saint-Mathieu, during the War of the League of Cambrai, sees the simultaneous destruction of the Breton ship La Cordelière and the English ship The Regent.
In 1557 – Battle of St. Quentin: Spanish victory over the French in the Habsburg-Valois Wars.
In 1680 – The Pueblo Revolt begins in New Mexico.
In 1776 – American Revolutionary War: word of the United States Declaration of Independence reaches London.
In 1792 – French Revolution: Storming of the Tuileries Palace – Louis XVI of France is arrested and taken into custody as his Swiss Guards are massacred by the Parisian mob.
In 1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Wilson’s Creek – the war enters Missouri when a band of raw Confederate troops defeat Union forces in the southwestern part of the state.
In 1904 – Russo-Japanese War: the Battle of the Yellow Sea between the Russian and Japanese battleship fleets takes place.
In 1905 – Russo-Japanese War: peace negotiations begin in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
In 1913 – Second Balkan War: delegates from Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece sign the Treaty of Bucharest, ending the war.
In 1920 – World War I: Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI‘s representatives sign the Treaty of Sèvres that divides up the Ottoman Empire between the Allies.
In 1944 – World War II: American forces defeat the last Japanese troops on Guam.
In 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Narva ends with a combined German–Estonian force successfully defending Narva, Estonia, from invading Soviet troops.
In 1961 – First use in Vietnam War of the Agent Orange by the U.S. Army.
In 1969 – A day after murdering Sharon Tate and four others, members of Charles Manson‘s cult kill Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.
In 1977 – In Yonkers, New York, 24-year-old postal employee David Berkowitz (“Son of Sam”) is arrested for a series of killings in the New York City area over the period of one year.
In 1978 – Three members of the Ulrich family are killed in an accident. This leads to the Ford Pinto litigation.
In 1981 – Murder of Adam Walsh: the head of John Walsh‘s son is found. This inspires the creation of the television series America’s Most Wanted.
In 1990 – More than 127 Muslims are killed in North East Sri Lanka by paramilitary troops.
In 1993 – An earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter Scale hits the South Island of New Zealand.
In 1995 – Oklahoma City bombing: Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols are indicted for the bombing. Michael Fortier pleads guilty in a plea-bargain for his testimony.
In 1998 – HRH Prince Al-Muhtadee Billah is proclaimed the crown prince of Brunei with a Royal Proclamation.
In 2001 – 2001 Angola train attack, 252 deaths.
In 2009 – Twenty people are killed in Handlová, Trenčín Region, in the deadliest mining disaster in Slovakia’s history.
In 2012, The Marikana massacre begins near Rustenburg, South Africa, resulting in the deaths of 47 people.
In 2014, Forty people are killed when Sepahan Airlines Flight 5915 crashes at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport.
Royalty and Religious events on August 10th
In 1270 – Yekuno Amlak takes the imperial throne of Ethiopia, restoring the Solomonic dynasty to power after a 100-year Zagwe interregnum.
Human Achievement and Science events on August 10th
In 1519 – Ferdinand Magellan‘s five ships set sail from Seville to circumnavigate the globe. The Basque second in command Juan Sebastián Elcano will complete the expedition after Magellan’s death in the Philippines.
In 1990 – The Magellan space probe reaches Venus.
In 2013, The World Championships in Athletics takes place in Moscow, Russia
