What happened on August 31 ?
Events
1056 - Byzantine Empress Theodora dies suddenly without children to succeed the throne, ending the Macedonian dynasty
1864 - American Civil War: Union forces led by General William T. Sherman launch an assault on Atlanta, Georgia.
1876 - Ottoman sultan Murat V is deposed and succeeded by his brother Abd-ul-Hamid II.
1886 - Earthquake kills 100 in Charleston, South Carolina
1888 - Mary Ann Nicholls is murdered. She is the first of Jack the Ripper's known victims
1895 - John Brallier is paid US$10 plus expenses to play football for the Latrobe, Pennsylvania YMCA, making him the first professional football player.
1897 - Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector.
1907 - England, Russia and France form the Triple Entente alliance.
1914 - Ecuador becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
1915 - Brazil becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
1920 - Polish-Bolshevik War: A decisive Polish victory in the Battle of Komarów.
1920 - First news radio program broadcast in Detroit, Michigan.
1939 - Nazi Germany mounts a staged attack on Gleiwitz radio station, giving them an excuse to attack Poland the following day, starting World War II in Europe.
1943 - The USS Harmon, the first U.S. Navy ship to be named for a black person, is commissioned.
1945 - The Liberal Party of Australia is founded by Robert Menzies.
1957 - The Federation of Malaya gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
1962 - Trinidad and Tobago become independent.
1965 - The Aero Spacelines Super Guppy Aircraft makes its first flight.
1978 - William and Emily Harris, founders of the Symbionese Liberation Army, plead guilty to the 1974 kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst.
1980 - The Solidarity trade union is formed in Poland.
1986 - An Aeroméxico Douglas DC-9 collides with a Piper PA-28 over Cerritos, California, killing 67 in the air and 15 on the ground.
1986 - The Soviet passenger liner Admiral Nakhimov sinks in the Black Sea after colliding with the bulk carrier Pyotr Vasev, killing 398.
1991 - Kyrgyzstan declares its independence from the Soviet Union.
1992 - Pascal Lissouba is inaugurated as the President of the Republic of the Congo after a multiparty presidential election, ending a long history of one-party oppressive rule under the Congolese Workers Party.
1994 - The Provisional Irish Republican Army declares a ceasefire.
1997 - Diana, Princess of Wales, dies in a car crash in Paris.
1998 - North Korea reportedly launchs Kwangmyongsong, its first satellite.
1999 - The first of a series of Russian Apartment Bombings in Moscow, killing one person and wounding 40 others.
2005 - A stampede on Al-Aaimmah bridge in Baghdad kills 1,199 people.
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