A.D. 14—Death of Augustus, 1st Imperator (Emperor) of the Romans.
This month bearing his name, August, was formerly called Sextilis (or the “sixth” month, before
the addition of January and February) and renamed in his honor by the Roman
Senate in 8 B.C.
1662—Death of Blaise Pascal. He was a pioneer mathematician and scientist,
and an amateur philosopher. He is credited with the invention/discovery of the
hydraulic press, the syringe, an early form of probability theory, and the fact
that vacuums (contra Aristotle) actually
exist. The SI unit of pressure is named for him.
1745—“Bonnie Prince Charlie” Charles Edward Stuart raises the standard
of the Stuarts in Glenfinnan, beginning the second (and last) Jacobite
rebellion against the House of Hanover, known as “the ’45.” His Highlander clans would follow to final defeat at the battle of Culloden eight months later.
1812—The USS Constitution defeats HMS
Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia, during which the British are amazed
that their cannon fire merely bounces off the Constitution’s two-foot-thick oak sides. “Huzzah! Her sides are
made of iron!” the American sailors exclaimed—leading to her nickname, “Old Ironsides” half a century before the U.S. Navy actually commissioned
an iron-constructed vessel. She serves today in Boston harbor, the oldest
continually commissioned ship (since 1791) in the Navy. (A movie buff aside: the Constitution served as the model and historical basis for the Acheron, the enemy ship in Master and Commander.)
1843—Cyrus I. Scofield, a
minister and theologian of the Congregationalist denomination, is born. His
Bible commentary in the Scofield Reference Bible did much to popularize
dispensationalism.
1871—Orville Wright, of the famous Wright Brothers, is born in
Dayton, Ohio.
1895—John Wesley Hardin, the former Texas gunfighter and outlaw, is murdered
by being shot in the back of the head by John Selman in a saloon in El Paso.
1921—Gene Roddenberry, the original writer and founding force of Star Trek, is born.
1942—During WWII, Canadians amphibiously assault Nazi-occupied Dieppe
on the coast of France. Although the operation is a failure, many lessons
learned are carried over to the Normandy invasion two years later.
