Air-show accident burns spectators

Elizabeth Ann Bayley is born in New York City on August 28, 1774. She went on to found the first Catholic school and the first female apostolic community in the United States. She was also the first American-born saint beatified by the Roman Catholic Church. Elizabeth Ann Bayley was born to an eminent physician, Richard […]

King Cetshwayo, the last great ruler of Zululand, is captured by the British following his defeat in the British-Zulu War. He was subsequently sent into exile. Cetshwayo’s defiance of British rule in southern Africa led to Britain’s invasion of Zululand in 1879. In 1843, Britain succeeded the Boers as the rulers of Natal, which controlled […]

Between August 26 and August 28, 1941, more than 23,000 Hungarian Jews are murdered by the Gestapo in occupied Ukraine. The German invasion of the Soviet Union had advanced to the point of mass air raids on Moscow and the occupation of parts of Ukraine. On August 26, Hitler invited Benito Mussolini to Brest-Litovsk, to […]

Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman four days earlier.

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the African American civil rights movement reaches its high-water mark when Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech to about 250,000 people attending the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The demonstrators—Black and white, poor and rich—came together in the nation’s capital to […]

The bodies of Tracy Paules and Manuel Taboada are discovered at the Gatorwood Apartments, near the campus of the University of Florida. Their murders came two days after the discovery that three young female students had been killed and mutilated in two separate locations near the campus. The serial killer was known for positioning his […]

In what became an instantly iconic moment of early 2000s pop culture, Britney Spears and Madonna share a passionate kiss at the MTV Video Music Awards on August 28, 2003. MTV was hoping for a newsworthy performance when they invited Madonna to perform at that year’s VMAs. The pop star headlined the very first VMAs […]