August
1
Independence
Day
Benin : August 1 1960
Switzerland : August 1 1291
August
1 to 7 : World Breastfeeding Week
World
Breastfeeding Week is celebrated every year
from 1 to 7 August in more than 120 countries
to encourage breastfeeding and improve the health
of babies around the world. It commemorates
the Innocenti Declaration made by WHO and UNICEF
policy-makers in August 1990 to protect, promote
and support breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding
is the best way to provide newborns with the
nutrients they need. WHO recommends exclusive
breastfeeding until a baby is six months old,
and continued breastfeeding with the addition
of nutritious complementary foods for up to
two years or beyond.
Events
30
BC – Octavian (later known as Augustus) enters
Alexandria, Egypt, bringing it under the control
of the Roman Republic.
69 – Batavian rebellion: The Batavians in Germania
Inferior (Netherlands) revolt under the leadership
of Gaius Julius Civilis.
527 – Justinian I becomes the sole ruler of
the Byzantine Empire.
607 – Ono no Imoko is dispatched as envoy to
the Sui court in China (Traditional Japanese
date: July 3, 607).
902 – Taormina, the last Byzantine stronghold
in Sicily, is captured by the Aghlabid army.
1192 – Richard the Lionheart landed on Jaffa
and defeated the army of Saladin
1203 – Isaac II Angelus, restored Eastern Roman
Emperor, declares his son Alexius IV Angelus
co-emperor after pressure from the forces of
the Fourth Crusade.
1291 – The Old Swiss Confederacy is formed with
the signature of the Federal Charter.
1498 – Christopher Columbus becomes the first
European to visit what is now Venezuela.
1664 – The Ottoman Empire is defeated in the
Battle of Saint Gotthard by an Austrian army
led by Raimondo Montecuccoli, resulting in the
Peace of Vasvár.
1759 – Seven Years' War: The Battle of Minden,
an allied Anglo-German army victory over the
French. In Britain this was one of a number
of events that constituted the Annus Mirabilis
of 1759 and is celebrated as Minden Day by certain
British Army regiments.
1798 – French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of
the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay) – Battle begins
when a British fleet engages the French Revolutionary
Navy fleet in an unusual night action.
1800 – The Act of Union 1800 is passed in which
merges the Kingdom of Great Britain and the
Kingdom of Ireland into the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland.
1801 – First Barbary War: The American schooner
USS Enterprise captures the Tripolitan polacca
Tripoli in a single-ship action off the coast
of modern-day Libya.
1831 – A new London Bridge opens.
1834 – Slavery is abolished in the British Empire
as the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 comes into
force.
1838 – Non-labourer slaves in most of the British
Empire are emancipated.
1840 – Labourer slaves in most of the British
Empire are emancipated.
1842 – The Lombard Street Riot erupts in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, US.
1855 – The first ascent of Monte Rosa, the second
highest summit in the Alps.
1876 – Colorado is admitted as the 38th U.S.
state.
1894 – The First Sino-Japanese War erupts between
Japan and China over Korea.
1907 – The start of first Scout camp on Brownsea
Island, the origin of the worldwide Scouting
movement.
1914 – Germany declares war on Russia at the
opening of World War I. The Swiss Army mobilises
because of World War I.
1927 – The Nanchang Uprising marks the first
significant battle in the Chinese Civil War
between the Kuomintang and Communist Party of
China. This day is commemorated as the anniversary
of the founding of the People's Liberation Army.
1937 – Josip Broz Tito reads the resolution
"Manifesto of constitutional congress of
KPH" to the constitutive congress of KPH
(Croatian Communist Party) in woods near Samobor.
1944 – The Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi
occupation breaks out in Warsaw, Poland.
1957 – The United States and Canada form the
North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).
1960 – Dahomey (later renamed Benin) declares
independence from France.
1960 – Islamabad is declared the federal capital
of the Government of Pakistan.
1964 – The Belgian Congo is renamed the Republic
of the Congo.
1966 – Charles Whitman kills 16 people at The
University of Texas at Austin before being killed
by the police.
1966 – Purges of intellectuals and imperialists
becomes official People's Republic of China
policy at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
1968 – The coronation is held of Hassanal Bolkiah,
the 29th Sultan of Brunei.
1974 – Cyprus dispute: The United Nations Security
Council authorizes the UNFICYP to create the
"Green Line", dividing Cyprus into
two zones.
1975 – CSCE Final Act creates the Conference
for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
1980 – Buttevant Rail Disaster kills 18 and
injures dozens of train passengers in Ireland.
1980 – Vigdís Finnbogadóttir is elected President
of Iceland and becomes the country's first democratically
elected female head of state
1981 – MTV begins broadcasting in the United
States and airs its first video, "Video
Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles.
1984 – Commercial peat-cutters discover the
preserved bog body of a man, called Lindow Man,
at Lindow Moss, Cheshire, North West England.
1993 – The Great Flood of 1993 comes to a peak.
2001 – Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy
Moore has a Ten Commandments monument installed
in the judiciary building, leading to a lawsuit
to have it removed and his own removal from
office.
2004 – A supermarket fire kills 396 people and
injures 500 in Asunción, Paraguay.
2007 – The I-35W Mississippi River Bridge spanning
the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota,
collapses during the evening rush hour.
Holidays
and observances
Armed
Forces Day (Lebanon)
Armed Forces Day or Anniversary of the Founding
of the People's Liberation Army (People's Republic
of China)
Christian Feast Day:
Abgar V of Edessa (Syrian Church)
Alphonso Maria de' Liguori
Æthelwold of Winchester
Eusebius of Vercelli
Exuperius of Bayeux
Felix of Girona
Peter Apostle in Chains
August 1 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Celebration of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833
which ended the slavery in the British Empire,
generally celebrated as a part of Carnival,
as the Caribbean Carnival takes place at this
time (British West Indies):
Earliest day on which Caribana celebration can
fall, celebrated on the first Weekend of August.
(Toronto)
Earliest day on which Emancipation Day can fall,
celebrated on the first Monday of August. (Anguilla,
the Bahamas, British Virgin Islands)
Emancipation Day (Barbados, Bermuda, Guyana,
Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago)
Earliest day on which Civic Holiday can fall;
celebrated on the first Monday of August. (Canada)
Earliest day on which Commerce Day, or Frídagur
verslunarmanna, can fall; celebrated on the
first Monday of August. (Iceland)
Earliest day on which International Friendship
Day can fall, celebrated on the first Sunday
of August.
Feast of Kamál (Perfection); First day of the
eighth month of the Bahá'í calendar. (Bahá'í
Faith)
Liberation of Haile Selassie from slavery. (Rastafari
movement)
National Day, celebrates the independence of
Benin from France in 1960.
National Day, commemorates Switzerland becoming
a single unit in 1291.
Procession of the Cross and the beginning of
Dormition Fast (Eastern Orthodoxy)
Statehood Day (Colorado)
The beginning of Autumn observances:
Lughnasadh, traditionally begins on the eve
of August 1. (Gaels, Ireland, Scotland, Neopagans)
Lammas (England, Scotland, Neopagans)
The first day of Carnaval del Pueblo (Burgess
Park, London)
Yorkshire Day (Yorkshire, England)
World Scout Day, anniversary of the first day
of the Brownsea Island Camp in 1907, where Robert
Baden-Powell began scouting.
For details, contact Datacentre
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