On This Day - 28th August

1749 - German 18th century author Johann von Goethe born
1774 - The American saint who founded the first new religious community in the US Elizabeth Ann Seton born
1828 - Leo Tolstoy born
1899 - Charles Boyer born
1925 - Donald O'Connor born
1930 - Ben Gazzara born
1943 - David Soul born
1957 - Daniel Stern born
1958 - Scott Hamilton born
1963 - The fight for racial equality moves a step closer to victory as Dr Martin Luther King tells thousands of Americans his dream for freedom.
1965 - Shania Twain born
1969 - Jason Priestley born
1972 - Prince William of Gloucester killed in plance crash
1982 - LeAnn Rimes born
1985 - An East German couple appear before Horseferry Road magistrates court in London charged under the Official Secrets Act.
1994 - Thousands of shops in England and Wales open legally for the first time following a change in the Sunday trading laws.
2003 - The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, appears before the Hutton inquiry and speaks of the "raging storm" which followed a controversial BBC report.
2004 - British athlete Kelly Holmes secures a place in Olympic history by winning the 1500m gold in Athens to go with her 8oom gold..

On This Day - 27th August

1908 - Lyndon B. Johnson born
1910 - Mother Teresa born and the first 'talky' film is demonstrated by Edison
1916 - Martha Raye born
1942 - Daryl Dragon born
1943 - Tuesday Weld born
1947 - Barbara Bach born
1950 - The BBC transmits the first ever live television pictures across the Channel.
1952 - Paul "Pee-wee Herman" Reubens born
1953 - Alex Lifeson born
1967 - The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, is found dead at his Belgravia home in London.
1978 - The Queen's cousin, Lord Louis Mountbatten, is killed by a bomb blast on his boat in Ireland
1979 - 18 British soldiers are killed in two booby-trap bomb attacks at Warrenpoint, South Down, close to the border with the Irish Republic.
1979 - Lord Mountbatten murder by IRA bomb
1987 - Robert Maclennan MP succeeds David Owen as leader of the SDP party.

On This Day - 26th August

1895 - The Niagara Falls Hydroelectric plant is opened
1904 - Christopher Isherwood born
1921 - Ben Bradlee born
1926 - Rudolf Valentino dies
1935 - Geraldine Ferraro born
1959 - American President Dwight D Eisenhower, vows to stand by West Germans in their efforts to remain strong and free, the US President pledges.
1960 - Branford Marsalis born
1975 - Talks between the Rhodesian Government and the African National Council collapse acrimoniously.
1980 - Macaulay Culkin born
1985 - Controversial athlete Zola Budd breaks the world 5,000m record.
1994 - A man is given the world's first battery-operated heart in a pioneering operation in Britain.

On This Day - 25th August

1814 - British troops burn the Whitehouse down
1875 - Captain Webb becomes the first person to swim the English Channel
1900 - Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche dies
1905 - Clara Bow born
1909 - Ruby Keeler born
1916 - Van Johnson born
1917 - Mel Ferrer born
1918 - Leonard Bernstein born
1923 - Monty Hall born
1930 - Sean Connery born
1933 - Regis Philbin born
1944 - General Charles de Gaulle enters the capital of France after French and US troops force a German surrender.
1946 - Rollie Fingers born
1949 - Gene Simmons born
1950 - Willy DeVille born
1954 - Elvis Costello born
1958 - Tim Burton born
1961 - Billy Ray Cyrus born
1967 - The leader of the American Nazi party, George Lincoln Rockwell, is shot and killed by a sniper at a shopping centre in Arlington, Virginia.
1970 - Claudia Schiffer born
1974 - A woman fired from a cannon in Bristol fails to break the English record for the second time.
1978 - Kel Mitchell born
1989 - The unmanned Voyager 2 spacecraft sends back the first close-up pictures of Neptune and its satellite planets.
1997 - A court in Berlin sentences the former East German leader, Egon Krenz, to six-and-a-half years in prison.
2003 - Two powerful bomb blasts hit the Indian city of Bombay within minutes of each other, killing at least 44 and injuring nearly 150.
2012 - Neil Armstrong (First man to walk on the Moon) dies aged 82.

On This Day - 24th August

1890 - Duke Kahanamoku born
1912 - Durward Kirby born
1929 - Yasser Arafat born
1954 - Brazilian president Getulio Vargas resigns under pressure from the military and then commits suicide just hours later.
1958 - Steve Guttenberg born
1960 - Cal Ripken born
1962 - Craig Kilborn born
1965 - Marlee Matlin born
1967 - Two penguins from Chessington Zoo are taken on a day trip to a local ice-rink to cool off during sweltering London temperatures.
1973 - Dave Chappelle born
1981 - Chad Michael Murray born
1985 - Five year old John Shorthouse is shot dead in a police raid on his home in Birmingham.
1988 - Rupert Grint born
1990 - The Irish hostage, Brian Keenan, is released in Beirut after more than four years in captivity.
1993 - Police in Los Angeles investigate allegations of child abuse made against singer Michael Jackson.

On This Day - 23rd August

1912 - Gene Kelly born
1923 - US Vice President Calvin Coolidge becomes President
1930 - Vera Miles born
1932 - Mark Russell born
1934 - Barbara Eden born
1949 - Shelley Long born
1961 - Police launch a murder hunt after a man is found shot dead and his companion seriously wounded in a lay-by in Bedfordshire.
1970 - River Phoenix born
1977 - Nicole Bobek born
1978 - Kobe Bryant born
1979 - Kurds in Iran oust government troops from a large area near the Iraqi border.
1985 - The head of West German counter-intelligence is unmasked as an East German spy.
1990 - Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein appears on state television with western hostages, provoking a storm of outrage.
1991 - Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev begins his purge of cabinet members and officials involved in the failed coup four days ago.

On This Day - 22nd August

1851 - The first Americas cup race is held
1862 - Classical composer Claude Debussy born
1893 - Dorothy Parker born
1904 - Deng Xiaoping born
1911 - The Mona Lisa is stolen
1917 - Blues legend John Lee Hooker born
1920 - Ray Bradbury born
1922 - Irish Nationalist Michael Collins is killed
1934 - Norman Schwarzkopf born
1939 - Carl Yastrzemski born
1940 - Valerie Harper born
1942 - Brazil declares war on Germany and Italy
1947 - Cindy Williams born
1963 - Musician Tori Amos born
1966 - Britain's largest manufacturing company Imperial Chemical Industries announces 1,000 redundancies at its nylon-fibre producing factories.
1972 - Rhodesia is thrown out of the Olympic Games with just four days to go before the opening ceremony in the German city of Munich.
1978 - The Kenyan president, Jomo Kenyatta, dies aged 89 at his home in Mombasa.
1986 - Deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester police John Stalker is cleared of misconduct.
1999 - A 54-year old Tony Martin is arrested after a suspected burglar was killed at his farmhouse in Norfolk.