August 15 in Pop Culture History

August 15th Fun Facts, Trivia and History

August 15th History Highlights

  • 1515 – Panama City, Panama was founded.
  • 1870 – The Transcontinental Railway was completed at Promontory Point, UT, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific ports via rail lines.
  • 1914 – The Panama Canal opened, although the first ship to pass through, The SS Ancon, went through the 50-mile waterway on August 3.
  • 1945 Japan’s Emperor Hirohito addressed the nation, regarding the surrender of Japan to the Allied Forces in the Jewel Voice Broadcast.
  • If you were born on August 15th,
    You were likely conceived the week of… November 22nd (prior year)

Emperor Hirohito’ Surrender Address

Assumption of Mary
Check The Chip Day
Leathercraft Day
Lemon Meringue Pie Day
Relaxation Day

Check The (micro) Chip Day

Microchips greatly increase the chances that pets will be reunited with their families if they are lost or stolen… but a microchip only works if its registration information is accurate. To remind pet owners to have their pets microchipped and to keep the registration information up-to-date, AVMA and the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) joined together to create “Check the Chip Day.”

August 15th is…

Assumption of Mary
Check The Chip Day
Leathercraft Day
Lemon Meringue Pie Day
Relaxation Day

August 15th Birthday Quotes

” Living the past is a dull and lonely business; looking back strains the neck muscles, causing you to bump into people not going your way.”
– Edna Ferber

” Find something you’re passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.”
– Julia Child

“If you build an army of 100 lions and their leader is a dog, in any fight, the lions will die like a dog. But if you build an army of 100 dogs and their leader is a lion, all dogs will fight as a lion.”
– Napoleon Bonaparte

“No matter how much you change, you still got to pay the price for the things you’ve done.”
– Ben Affleck

” I like words. I like the way they clash around together and bang up against each other, especially in songs.”
– Jimmy Webb

” On a mission, your worst enemy is idle time.”
– Nipsey Hussle

August 15th Birthdays

1717 – Blind Jack, English engineer (died in 1810)
1732 – Maria Coventry, Countess of Coventry (died in 1760) #27club
1769 – Napoleon, French general and emperor (died in 1821)
1879 – Ethel Barrymore, American actress (died in 1959)
1885 – Edna Ferber, American novelist, short story writer, and playwright (died in 1968)
1900 – Estelle Brody, American silent film actress (died in 1995)
1912 – Julia Child, American chef and author (died in 2004)
1914 – Paul Rand, American graphic designer and art director (died in 1996)
1925 – Mike Connors, American actor (died in 2017)
1933 – Bobby Helms, American singer-songwriter (died in 1997)
1938 – Maxine Waters, American politician
1946 – Jimmy Webb, American singer-songwriter
1961 – Ed Gillespie, American political strategist
1968 – Debra Messing, American actress
1972 – Ben Affleck, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
1985 – Nipsey Hussle, American rapper (died in 2019)
1990 – Jennifer Lawrence, American actress

August 15th History

1483 – Pope Sixtus IV consecrated the Sistine Chapel and dedicated it to the Virgin Mary.

1519 – Panama City, Panama, was founded.

1549 – Jesuit priest Francis Xavier came ashore at Kagoshima, Japan.

1843 – Tivoli Gardens, one of the oldest still intact amusement parks in the world, opened in Copenhagen, Denmark. It may be best known for its wooden roller coaster, Rutschebanen, or Bjergbanen (the Mountain Coaster), built in 1914

1868 (Earthquake) Ecuador

1914 – The Panama Canal opened with the transit of the cargo ship SS Ancon.

August 15, 1917 Birthday (fictional) Howard Stark, Marvel Cinematic Universe

1935 – Entertainer Will Rogers and pilot Wiley Post were killed after their aircraft developed engine problems during takeoff in Barrow, Alaska.

1939 – The Wizard of Oz premiered at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, California.

1947 – India gained Independence from the British Indian Empire.

1948 – CBS launched the first network TV news broadcast.

1960 – #1 Hit August 15, 1960 – September 18, 1960: Elvis PresleyIt’s Now or Never

1964 – #1 Hit August 15, 1964 – August 21, 1964: Dean MartinEverybody Loves Somebody

1965 – The Beatles played at Shea Stadium in New York. It is considered the first major rock concert. There were only a few hundred watts of sound for the band, who did not have monitors to hear each other and could not be heard over the screaming of 55,600 fans. The concert grossed $304,000 – a record at the time.

1969 – The Woodstock Music & Art Fair opened in upstate New York. Tickets for the three-day event were $18 in advance and $24 at the gate, and there was sufficient sound for the 500,000 attendees.

1973 – The United States’ bombing of Cambodia ended.

1977 – The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by Ohio State University as part of the SETI project, received a radio signal from deep space – “6EQUJ5.” The event was named the “Wow! signal” from the notation made by Jerry Ehman on the project. The signal appears to have come to the northwest of the globular cluster of M55 in the constellation Sagittarius, near the Chi Sagittarii star group.

1981 – #1 Hit August 15, 1981 – October 16, 1981: Diana Ross and Lionel RichieEndless Love

1985 – Michael Jackson paid $47.5 Million for the publishing rights to the Beatles’ song catalog.

1992 – #1 Hit August 15, 1992 – November 13, 1992: Boyz II MenEnd Of The Road

1992 – Nickelodeon began airing their Saturday night programming known as SNICK.

August 15, 2014How to Build a Better Boy aired on The Disney Channel

#1 Hit August 15, 2020 – August 21, 2020: Watermelon Sugar Harry Styles

Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts

The largest restaurant in the world is the Bawabet Dimashq Restaurant, in Syria, with seating for 6014 patrons.

“Until you’re ready to look foolish, you’ll never have the possibility of being great.” – Cher

Lewis Carroll – Real Name: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson

The traditional meat in Aztec Pozole was the flesh of human sacrifice. Modern Pozole typically contains pork.

‘Sweet, sweet Connie’ from Grand Funk Railroad’s ‘We’re An American Band’ is a real woman, named Connie Hamzy.

Maybe it was the man on first that let the dogs out #wholetthedogsout

Lucille Le Sueur was better known as Joan Crawford.

“Live long and prosper” – Spock (Star Trek)

“Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact, but maybe everything that dies someday comes back.” #songlyrics

e.g. is the abbreviation of the Latin phrase ‘exempli gratia,’ meaning ‘for example.’

A group of Goats is called a Tribe or Trip or Drove or Herd or Flock.

The word “dude” in The Big Lebowski was spoken 160 times in the movie. #dude

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