August 19

43 BC – Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus ‘Octavian’ is elected consul by the Roman Senate.

14 – Emperor Octavian ‘Caesar Augustus’ dies in Nola, Italy.

1153 – The same day his army retakes Ascalon, Baldwin III of Jerusalem takes control of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from his mother Melisende.

1692 –In Salem, Massachusetts, 5 people, 1 woman and 4 men, including a clergyman, are executed after being convicted of witchcraft.

1782 – In the last major engagement of the Revolutionary War, a force of  Loyalists, along with Indians, ambushes and routs a force of Kentucky militiamen near the Licking River in Virginia

1812 – The frigate USS Constitution earns the nickname “Old Ironsides” during battle with the British frigate HMS Guerriere when an American crewmen yells “Her sides are made of iron!” when a shot merely bounces off the oak hull.

1848 – The New York Herald breaks the news to the east coast of the U.S. of the gold strike earlier in the year in California.

1854 – The 1st Sioux War begins near Fort Laramie, Nebraska Territory, when U.S Army soldiers, under the command of John Lawrence Grattan,  mortally wound Lakota Chief Conquering Bear while attempting to arrest one of his tribe and in return are massacred to the last man.

1862 – At the beginning of an indian uprising in Minnesota, called U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, or more commonly ‘Little Crow’s War’, lasting only a few months, Santee Lakota warriors decide not to attack heavily defended Fort Ridgely and instead turn to the settlement of New Ulm, killing white settlers along the way.

1883 – Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel is born in Saumur, France.

1909 – The Indianapolis Motor Speedway opens for automobile racing.

1934 – Adolf Hitler’s appointment as combined head of state  –Der Führer– is approved by a vote of the German people.

1942 – The 2nd Canadian Infantry Division and allied forces begin a near disastrous assault on the French port of Dieppe during World War II.

1944 – Free French and French Resistance forces, with allied troops, begin the assault to liberate Paris from German occupation.

1945 – Viet Minh forces led by Ho Chi Minh take power in Hanoi, Vietnam.

1960 – At trial in Moscow,  U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for espionage.

1964 – NASA’s Syncom 3, the first geostationary communication satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral.

1981 – 2 U.S. Navy Grumman F-14 fighters intercept and shoot down 2 Libyan Sukhoi Su-22 fighters over the Gulf of Sidra in the Mediterranean.

1991 – During the dissolution of the Soviet Union, hard line communists attempt a coup d’état against President Mikhail Gorbachev

2009 – In Kandahar, Afghanistan,  U.S. Army Sergeant Paul Dumont Jr. is killed in a vehicle accident.

2010 – Operations Iraqi Freedom and Laser Escort ends, with the last of the U.S. Brigade Combat Teams and certain Special Operations Forces crossing the border back into Kuwait.

2017 – A open water net pen at a fish farm near Cypress Island, Washington state, run by Cooke Aquaculture Pacific, breaks, accidentally releasing into the Pacific Ocean over 300,000 non-native Atlantic salmon.