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August 15

Original "Bondi Blue" iMac

The iMac G3, originally released as the iMac, is a series of personal computers sold by Apple Computer from 1998 to 2003. Following Steve Jobs's return to the financially troubled company that he co-founded, he aggressively restructured its offerings. The iMac was envisioned as Apple's new inexpensive and consumer-friendly desktop product, focused on easy connection to the Internet. Apple's head of design Jony Ive and his team created a striking teardrop-shaped all-in-one design based around a cathode-ray tube display, shrouded in translucent colored plastic. The iMac eschewed legacy technologies like serial ports and floppy-disk drives in favor of CD-ROMs and USB ports. Selling more than six million units, the iMac was a commercial success for Apple, helping to save it from bankruptcy whilst influencing the look of future computers and consumer products. The original model was revised several times and was succeeded by the iMac G4 and eMac. (Full article...)

August 15: Independence Day in India (1947); National Liberation Day of Korea (1945)

Peter, King of Hungary

• 718 – Forces of the Umayyad Caliphate abandoned a year-long siege of Constantinople, ending their goal of conquering the Byzantine Empire.
• 1038 – Upon the death of his uncle Stephen I, Peter (depicted) became the second king of Hungary.
• 1909 – A military coup against the government of Dimitrios Rallis began in the neighbourhood of Goudi in Athens, Greece.
• 1944 – World War II: Allied forces began Operation Dragoon, their invasion of southern France.
• 1998 – The Troubles: A car bomb attack carried out by the Real Irish Republican Army killed 29 people and injured approximately 220 others in Omagh, Northern Ireland.

August 15

The Kefermarkt altarpiece is a richly decorated wooden altarpiece in the Late Gothic style in the parish church of Kefermarkt in Upper Austria. Commissioned by the knight Christoph von Zelking, it was completed around 1497. Saints Peter, Wolfgang and Christopher are depicted in the central section. The wing panels depict scenes from the life of Mary, and the altarpiece also has an intricate superstructure and two side figures of Saints George and Florian. The identity of its maker, known by the notname Master of the Kefermarkt Altarpiece, is unknown, but at least two skilled sculptors appear to have created the main statuary. Throughout the centuries, it has been altered and lost its original paint and gilding; a major restoration was undertaken in the 19th century under the direction of Adalbert Stifter. The altarpiece has been described as "one of the greatest achievements in late-medieval sculpture in the German-speaking area". This image shows the lower-left wing panel of the Kefermarkt altarpiece, depicting the death of Mary. She lies peacefully in her deathbed, while a diminutive angel holds the curtain apart so that the viewer can see Mary better. The twelve apostles are all present, each one depicted with individual traits. Above the head of Saint Peter, Christ appears in a cloud, receiving the soul of his mother in the form of a small figure. Sculpture credit: Master of the Kefermarkt Altarpiece; photographed by Uoaei1 Recently featured: Mango Royal angelfish Ages Ago Archive More featured pictures

August 16

Complete set of snooker balls

Snooker is a cue sport played on a rectangular billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets. First played by British Army officers stationed in India circa 1875, the game uses twenty-two balls (pictured) – a white cue ball, fifteen red balls, and six other balls collectively called "the colours". Using a snooker cue, individual players (or teams) take turns to strike the cue ball to pot the other balls in a predefined sequence, accumulating points for each successful pot and for each foul committed by the opposing player/team. An individual frame of snooker is won by the player or team that has scored the most points. A snooker match ends when a player/team has won a predetermined number of frames. The standard rules of snooker were first established in 1919. As a professional sport, snooker is governed by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. Top players of many nationalities compete in regular tournaments around the world, earning millions of pounds on the World Snooker Tour. (Full article...)

August 16

San Sebastian Church in Manila

• 1777 – American Revolutionary War: American forces routed British and German troops at the Battle of Bennington in Walloomsac, New York.
• 1819 – Around 15 people were killed and 400 to 700 others injured when cavalry charged into a crowd demanding the reform of parliamentary representation in Manchester, England.
• 1891 – San Sebastian Church (pictured) in Manila, the only all-steel church in Asia, was officially consecrated.
• 1920 – Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians was hit by a pitch and died the following day, becoming the only Major League Baseball player to die directly as a result of injuries sustained during a game.
• 1929 – A long-running dispute between Muslims and Jews over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem escalated into a week-long period of violent riots throughout Palestine.

August 16

Ulrich Salchow

World Figure Skating Championships medals are awarded in men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, and ice dance. The championships are an annual figure skating competition sanctioned by the International Skating Union. Generally held in March, the World Championships are considered the most prestigious of the ISU Figure Skating Championships. With the exception of the Olympic title, a world title is considered to be the highest competitive achievement in figure skating. Ulrich Salchow of Sweden (pictured) currently holds the record for the most gold medals won in men's singles (at ten), while Sonja Henie of Norway holds the record for the most gold medals won in women's singles (also at ten). Irina Rodnina and Alexander Zaitsev of the Soviet Union hold the record for the most gold medals won by a pairs team (at six). (Full list...)

August 16

Ceramica pisi, the broom moth, is a species of moth of the family Noctuidae. It is found in a range covering the whole of Europe from the Arctic Circle to northern Spain, and across to the Russian Far East. It lives at heights of up to 2,000 metres. This photograph shows a broom moth caterpillar in Estonia. Photograph credit: Ivar Leidus Recently featured: Kefermarkt altarpiece Mango Royal angelfish Archive More featured pictures

August 17

Pan Am Boeing 707-121, similar to the one destroyed in the accident

On December 8, 1963, Pan Am Flight 214 crashed near Elkton, Maryland, killing all 81 crew and passengers. Flight 214 had originated at Isla Verde International Airport in San Juan, flying to Friendship Airport near Baltimore, and then took off for Philadelphia. The crash was Pan Am's first fatal accident with the Boeing 707-121, which it had introduced to its fleet five years earlier. An investigation by the Civil Aeronautics Board concluded that the probable cause of the crash was a lightning strike that had ignited fuel vapors in one of the aircraft's fuel tanks, causing an explosion that destroyed the left wing. The exact manner of ignition was never determined, but the investigation increased awareness of how lightning can damage aircraft, leading to new regulations. The crash also led to research into the safety of several types of aviation fuel and into ways of changing the design of aircraft fuel systems to make them safer in the event of lightning strikes. (Full article...)

August 17

Richard Wagner

• 1668 – An earthquake struck the North Antolia region, killing over 7,000 people.
• 1876 – Götterdämmerung premiered, the last opera in the Ring cycle by Richard Wagner (pictured).
• 1907 – Pike Place Market, one of the oldest continuously operated public farmers' markets in the U.S. and a popular tourist attraction, opened in Seattle, Washington.
• 1914 – World War I: Ignoring orders to retreat, Hermann von François led a successful counterattack defending East Prussia at the Battle of Stallupönen and scored the first German victory in the Eastern Front.
• 1943 – World War II: The Royal Air Force began a strategic bombing campaign against Nazi Germany's V-weapon programme by attacking the Peenemünde Army Research Center.

August 17

NGC 3324 is an open cluster in the southern constellation Carina, located northwest of the Carina Nebula at a distance of 9,100 ly (2,800 pc) from Earth. The two are often confused as a single object, and together have been nicknamed the "Gabriela Mistral Nebula" due to its resemblance to the Chilean poet. NGC 3324 was first catalogued by James Dunlop in 1826. This infrared photograph by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows a young, star-forming region in the western section of NGC 3324 known as the "Cosmic Cliffs". Photograph credit: NASA Recently featured: Ceramica pisi Kefermarkt altarpiece Mango Archive More featured pictures

August 18

One of Kes's costumes with wig and ear prosthetics

Kes is a fictional character in the science fiction television show Star Trek: Voyager, played by Jennifer Lien. Kes joins the crew of the starship USS Voyager in the pilot episode, opening an aeroponics garden and working as a medical assistant. She is a member of a telepathic alien species with a life span of only nine years. She leaves the ship in the fourth season after her powers threaten to destroy it. She reappears in an episode in the sixth season and features in Star Trek: Voyager novels and short stories. Voyager's creators intended Kes to provide audiences with a different perspective on time. Although Kes is portrayed as fragile and innocent, she is also shown as having hidden strength and maturity. Voyager's producers reluctantly fired Lien after her personal issues affected her reliability on set. Kes was a fan favorite character while Voyager was airing, although critics reacted more negatively, finding her boring and without a clear purpose. Lien was praised for her performance. (Full article...)

August 18: Ghost Festival in China (2024)

Blackwater Fire

• 684 – Second Fitna: Umayyad partisans defeated the supporters of Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr near Damascus, cementing Umayyad control of Syria.
• 1823 - At least 9,000 enslaved people in the British colony in Demerara-Essequibo (in modern-day Guyana) rebelled, demanding emancipation.
• 1864 – American Civil War: At the Battle of Globe Tavern, Union forces attempted to sever the Weldon Railroad during the Siege of Petersburg.
• 1937 – A lightning strike started the Blackwater Fire (pictured) in Shoshone National Forest, US, consuming 1,700 acres (690 ha) of old-growth forest and killing 15 firefighters.
• 2017 – Two people were killed and eight others wounded when a rejected asylum seeker went on a knife rampage in Turku, Finland.

August 18

W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) was an American sociologist, historian and civil rights activist. The first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. He rose to national prominence as the leader of the Niagara Movement, a group of African-American activists who wanted equal rights for blacks, and was one of the co-founders of the NAACP in 1909. He wrote one of the first scientific treatises in the field of American sociology, and published three autobiographies. Black Reconstruction in America (1935) challenged the prevailing orthodoxy that blacks were responsible for the failures of the Reconstruction era. On August 28, 1963, a day after his death, his book The Souls of Black Folk was highlighted by Roy Wilkins at the March on Washington, and hundreds of thousands of marchers honored him with a moment of silence. A year later, the US Civil Rights Act, embodying many of the reforms for which he had campaigned his entire life, was enacted. This gelatin silver print of Du Bois was taken in 1907 by photographer James E. Purdy, and is now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. Photograph credit: James E. Purdy; restored by Adam Cuerden Recently featured: NGC 3324 Ceramica pisi Kefermarkt altarpiece Archive More featured pictures

August 19

St Oswald's Church, Winwick

The Battle of Winwick was fought on 19 August 1648 between a Scottish Royalist army and a Parliamentarian army during the Second English Civil War. The Scottish army invaded north-west England and was attacked and defeated at Preston on 17 August. The surviving Royalists fled south, closely pursued. Two days later, hungry, cold, soaking wet, exhausted and short of dry powder, they turned to fight at Winwick. Parliamentarian infantry launched a full-scale assault which resulted in more than three hours of furious but indecisive close-quarters fighting. The Parliamentarians fell back, pinned the Scots in place with their cavalry and sent their infantry on a circuitous flank march. When the Scots saw this force appear on their right flank they broke and fled. Parliamentarian cavalry pursued, killing many. The surviving Scottish infantry surrendered either at Winwick church (pictured) or in nearby Warrington; their cavalry on 24 August at Uttoxeter. Winwick was the last battle of the war. (Full article...)

August 19

Edward I of England

• 1274 – Shortly after his return from the Ninth Crusade, Edward I (pictured) was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey, nearly two years after his father's death.
• 1332 – In the first major battle of the Second War of Scottish Independence, a Scottish force led by Domhnall II, Earl of Mar attacked English-backed invaders led by Edward Balliol in the Battle of Dupplin Moor.
• 1934 – A referendum supported the recent merging of the posts of Chancellor and President of Germany, consolidating Adolf Hitler's assumption of supreme power.
• 2002 – Second Chechen War: A Russian Mil Mi-26 was brought down by Chechen separatists with a man-portable air-defense system near Khankala, killing 127 people in the deadliest helicopter crash in history.
• 2017 – Around 250,000 farmed non-native Atlantic salmon were accidentally released into the wild near Cypress Island, Washington.

August 19

Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Drive My Car, a 2021 Japanese drama film directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi (pictured) and written by Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe, won 91 awards from 160 nominations, with particular recognition for Hamaguchi's direction, Hidetoshi Nishijima's performance, and the screenplay. At the 94th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, and won Best International Feature Film. It was the first Japanese film to receive a Best Picture nomination. The film won nine awards at the 45th Japan Academy Film Prize, including Picture of the Year, Director of the Year, and Screenplay of the Year. (Full list...)

August 19

The dusky seaside sparrow (Ammospiza maritima nigrescens) was a non-migratory subspecies of the seaside sparrow, found in Florida in the natural salt marshes of Merritt Island and along the St. Johns River. Discovered in 1872 by Charles Johnson Maynard, it was distinguished from other seaside sparrows by its dark coloration and distinct song. From the 1940s onwards, the dusky seaside sparrow population declined and eventually went extinct. This was the result of human activity in the area including pesticides and flooding applied to reduce mosquito populations, industrial expansion, and highway construction. The last definite known individual died on Discovery Island in Walt Disney World in 1987, and the species was declared extinct in 1990. Photograph credit: P. W. Sykes, United States Fish and Wildlife Service Recently featured: W. E. B. Du Bois NGC 3324 Ceramica pisi Archive More featured pictures

August 20

Alex Beachum, creative director of Outer Wilds

Outer Wilds is a 2019 action-adventure video game developed by Mobius Digital and published by Annapurna Interactive. The game follows the player character as they explore a planetary system stuck in a 22-minute time loop that resets after the sun goes supernova and destroys the system. Through repeated attempts they investigate alien ruins to discover their history and the cause of the time loop. The game began development in 2012 as director Alex Beachum's master's thesis, and became a commercial project in 2015. It was released for Windows, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 in 2019, for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2022, and for Nintendo Switch in 2023. It was positively received, with most critics acclaiming its design and some criticising the uneven difficulty of gameplay and pursuing the game's mysteries. An expansion, Echoes of the Eye, was released in 2021. Outer Wilds won in multiple categories at award shows, including the Best Game award at the 16th British Academy Games Awards. (Full article...)

August 20

Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory

• 1707 – The first Siege of Pensacola came to an end with the British and Creek abandoning their attempt to capture Pensacola in Spanish Florida.
• 1910 – Hurricane-force winds combined hundreds of small fires in the U.S. states of Washington and Idaho into the Devil's Broom fire, which burned about 4,700 square miles (12,100 km²), the largest fire in recorded U.S. history.
• 1920 – The American Professional Football Association, a predecessor of the National Football League, was founded.
• 1998 – The Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory (pictured) in Sudan was destroyed by a missile attack launched by the United States in retaliation for the August 7 U.S. embassy bombings.
• 2008 – Spanair Flight 5022 crashed just after take-off from Madrid's Barajas Airport, killing 154 people.

August 20

The Hoher Göll is a 2,522 m (8,274 ft) mountain in the Berchtesgaden Alps. It is the highest peak of the Göll massif, which straddles the border between the German state of Bavaria and the Austrian state of Salzburg. This photograph shows the Hoher Göll (left) and Hohes Brett (right) from the west side. Photograph credit: Jörg Braukmamm Recently featured: Dusky seaside sparrow W. E. B. Du Bois NGC 3324 Archive More featured pictures

August 21

A map with the area ruled by the Turabays highlighted

The Turabay dynasty was a family of Bedouin emirs during Ottoman rule in the 16th–17th centuries. The sanjak (district) spanned the towns of Lajjun, Jenin and Haifa, and the surrounding area. The family's forebears had served as chiefs of Marj Bani Amir under the Mamluks in the late 15th century. During the Ottoman conquest of the region in 1516–1517, the family aided Ottoman Sultan Selim I. The Ottomans kept them as guardians of the strategic Via Maris and Damascus–Jerusalem highways and rewarded them with tax farms. Although in the 17th century several of their emirs lived in towns, the Turabays largely remained nomads, camping with their tribesmen near Caesarea in the winters and the plain of Acre in the summers. The eastward migration of their tribesmen to the Jordan Valley, Ottoman centralization, and falling tax revenues brought about their political decline and they were permanently stripped of office in 1677. Descendants of the family continue to live in the area. (Full article...)

August 21

A subject assigned as a prisoner breaks down

• 1716 – Seventh Ottoman–Venetian War: Ottoman forces suddenly abandoned their siege of Corfu, allowing the Republic of Venice to preserve its rule over the Ionian Islands.
• 1945 – American physicist Harry Daghlian accidentally dropped a tungsten carbide brick onto a plutonium bomb core, exposing himself to neutron radiation and later becoming the first Manhattan Project fatality due to a criticality accident.
• 1971 – The Stanford prison experiment (pictured) ended early after subjects assigned as guards began abusing subjects assigned as prisoners.
• 1986 – A limnic eruption of Lake Nyos in Cameroon released a cloud of carbon dioxide, suffocating 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock.
• 2013 – Syrian civil war: Areas controlled by the Syrian opposition in Ghouta, Damascus, were attacked by rockets containing sarin, killing at least 281 people.

August 21

Marie Curie (1867–1934) was a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. Born in Warsaw, she studied in Poland until she was 24, when she moved to Paris to earn her higher degrees. In 1895, she married French physicist Pierre Curie, and in 1903 she shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and with physicist Henri Becquerel for their pioneering work developing the theory of "radioactivity" - a term she coined. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. She won a second Nobel Prize in 1911, the first person to do so, for her discovery of the elements polonium and radium. Under her direction, the world's first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms by the use of radioactive isotopes and during World War I, she developed mobile radiography units to provide X-ray services to field hospitals. She founded the Curie Institute in Paris in 1920, and the Curie Institute in Warsaw in 1932. This photograph of Curie was taken in around 1920 by French photographer Henri Manuel. Photograph credit: Henri Manuel; restored by FMSky and Bammesk Recently featured: Hoher Göll Dusky seaside sparrow W. E. B. Du Bois Archive More featured pictures

August 22

Paul Verhoeven, director, in 2016

Total Recall is a 1990 American science-fiction action film directed by Paul Verhoeven. Based on a 1966 short story by Philip K. Dick, the film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Ronny Cox, and Michael Ironside. It tells the story of Douglas Quaid (Schwarzenegger) and the shadow organization that tries to prevent him from recovering memories of his past as a Martian secret agent. Schwarzenegger convinced Carolco Pictures to develop the film with him as the star, after the project had lingered in development hell at multiple studios over sixteen years. The film was one of the most expensive ever made at the time, and became the fifth-highest-grossing film of the year. Reviewers liked its themes of identity and questioning reality, but criticized content perceived as vulgar and violent. The practical special effects were well received, earning the film an Academy Award, and the score by Jerry Goldsmith has been praised as one of his best works. (Full article...)

August 22: Madras Day in Chennai, India (1639)

Photograph of famine in Calcutta published in The Statesman

• 1639 – The Vijayanagara Empire leased a small strip of land in present-day Chennai, the capital of the present-day Indian state of Tamil Nadu, to the East India Company.
• 1642 – King Charles I raised the royal standard at Nottingham, marking the beginning of the First English Civil War.
• 1914 – First World War: A squadron of the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards attacked a German scout party, the first engagement of British forces on the Western Front.
• 1943 – Ian Stephens, editor of The Statesman, defied British censorship to publish pictures of death and misery (example pictured) on Calcutta's streets, informing the world of the Bengal famine of 1943.
• 1984 – The constitution of Singapore was amended to apportion seats to defeated opposition candidates in Parliament, which had hitherto entirely comprised members of the People's Action Party.

August 22

The sailfin snapper (Symphorichthys spilurus) is a species of marine ray-finned fish in the snapper family, Lutjanidae. It is found in the eastern Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean, at depths between 5 and 60 m (16 and 197 ft). It lives in areas of sand near to reefs in lagoons and over outer reefs. The sailfin snapper is targeted in mixed-species fisheries throughout its range, being caught predominantly using handlines and bottom trawling. The juveniles appear in the aquarium trade. This sailfin snapper was photographed in the Wilhelma Zoological-Botanical Garden in Stuttgart, Germany. Photograph credit: H. Zell Recently featured: Marie Curie Hoher Göll Dusky seaside sparrow Archive More featured pictures