19th of August

It is the 231st day of the year with 134 days that are remaining until the new year.

43 BC - Octavian, later known as Augustus, compels the Roman Senate to elect him Consul.

14 AD - Augustus, the first Roman emperor, died at the age of 75.

1561 AD - An 18-year-old Mary, Queen of Scots, returns to her homeland after spending nearly 13 years in France.

1612 - Three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury, England, are put on trail, and accused for practicing witchcraft, and hanged.  This event led to other trials and a total of ten women were executed.

1692 - In Salem, Massachusetts, one woman and four men are executed after being convicted of witchcraft.  Interestingly enough, one of the men was a clergyman.  Those convicted were George Burroughs, John Willard, George Jacobs Sr., John Proctor, Rebecca Nurse, and Martha Corey.

1782 - The last major engagement of the American Revolutionary War, The Battle of Blue Licks, occurs almost ten months after the surrender of British commander Lord Cornwallis following the Siege of Yorktown.

1812 - The American frigate USS Constitution, defeats the HMS Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada earning her the nickname, "Old Ironsides."

1848 - The New York Herald breaks the news to the East Coast of the United States, of the gold rush in California.  The rush would eventually begin in January.

1871 - American aviation pioneer, Orville Wright is born. 

1895 - American frontier murderer and outlaw, John Wesley Hardin, is killed by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas.

1919 - Afghanistan gains its full independence from the United Kingdom.

1934 - The first All-American Soapbox Derby is held in Dayton, Ohio.

1934 - The creation of the position of Fuhrer, is approved by the German electorate with 89.9% of the popular vote.

1940 - It is the first flight of the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber.  It will see heavy use during the Second World War.

1944 - The beginning of the liberation of Paris, as natives and Allied troops fight against the German occupation.

1945 - The Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh, take power in Hanoi, Vietnam.

1946 - 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton is born.

1960 - In Moscow, downed American pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to ten years imprisonment by the Soviet Union for espionage.

1960 - The Soviets launch the Sputnik 5 satellite with dogs Belka and Strelka, 40 mice, 2 rats, and a variety of plants.

1980 - Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank, and the sole member of his family to survive the Holocaust dies at the age of 91.  Before the war, he was a businessman and started the company Opekta. It sold spices and pectin for use in the manufacture of jam.

1989 - Several hundred East Germans cross the frontier between Hungary and Austria during the Pan-European Picnic, part of the events which began the process of the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

1991 - Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is placed under house arrest while on holiday in the town of Foros, Crimea.

2008 - American saxophonist, and often music arranger for the Dave Matthews Band, LeRoi Moore, passes  away at the age of 48.

2010 - Operation Iraqi Freedom ends, with the last of the United States brigade combat teams, crossing the border into Kuwait.