August 2023

1588: In a series of naval battles, the British fleet under Admiral Lord Charles Howard of Effingham and Sir Francis Drake defeats the Spanish Armada in the English Channel.
1703: The first number of the “Wiennerische Diarium” is published (from 1780 “Wiener Zeitung” – the oldest daily newspaper in the world, since 1812 the official organ of the Austrian state. The last printed edition was published on June 30, 2023.
1813: Ultimatum from the Austrian Chancellor Prince Metternich to the French Emperor Napoleon I following his defeat in Russia. After facilitating Napoleon’s marriage to Archduchess Marie Louise, daughter of Emperor Franz I, Metternich changed his policies in an attempt to restore European equilibrium.
1918: Decisive German defeat on the western front (Battle of Amiens). The German positions between Amiens and Saint-Quentin are overrun by Allied troops in a major offensive. 16,000 German soldiers are captured within two hours. (Six Austro-Hungarian divisions are transferred from the Italian front to the Western front in support of the German allies.)
1938: In accordance with Hitler’s instructions, construction of the Mauthausen concentration camp begins.
1953: The Soviet Prime Minister Georgy Malenkov announces that the Soviet Union also has the hydrogen bomb.
1963: British mail train robbers stole the equivalent of more than 200 million shillings.
1963: The GDR joins the nuclear test ban agreement.
1968: Former US Vice President Richard Nixon is nominated for the presidency at the Republican convention in Miami Beach, Florida. (He wins the election once morest Democrat Hubert Humphrey and becomes the 37th President of the USA, succeeding Lyndon B. Johnson).
1983: The President of Guatemala, Efraín Ríos Montt, will be invited by a speech. The new Chief of Staff is General Oscar Humberto Mejia Victors.
1988: South Africa, Angola and Cuba agree, with US mediation, to an immediate ceasefire between their forces in Angola.
2008: Transport Minister Werner Faymann is elected at the SPÖ party conference in Linz with 98.3 percent of the delegate votes to succeed Alfred Gusenbauer as SPÖ federal party chairman.
2008: With a bombastic ceremony in the new Beijing National Stadium, the XXIX. Summer Olympics opened. The celebration is overshadowed by the dispute over human rights policy.
2008: The military conflict in the republic of South Ossetia, which has broken away from Georgia, is assuming war-like proportions with numerous dead and injured. Georgia launches a major offensive, Russia is strengthening its troops in the southern Caucasus region. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili hopes in vain for direct help from the West.

Birthday: Paul AM Dirac, Brit. physicist; Nobel Prize 1933 (1902-1984); Arthur J. Goldberg, US politician (1908-1990); Nigel Mansell, Brit. Race Car Driver (1953); Shawn Mendes, Canada. Pop singer (1998).
days of death: Lucas von Leyden, Dutch painter (1494-1533); Joseph Maria Olbrich, German architect (1867-1908); Vilhelm Moberg, Swedish writer (1898-1973); Robert Ricci, French fashion designer (1905-1988); Antonis Samarakis, Greek writer (1919-2003); Karen Black, US actress (1939-2013).
name days: Dominikus, Gustav, Cyriakus, Hartwig, Coloman, Emil.