106 years ago today
The 19th Amendment Is Certified — American Women Win the Vote
On August 26, 1920, Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, making it illegal to deny any American citizen the right to vote on account of sex. The amendment came after more than seven decades of organized suffragist campaigning, punctuated by marches, hunger strikes, arrests, and force-feedings of imprisoned activists. The final battle for ratification came down to a single vote in the Tennessee legislature, cast by 24-year-old Harry Burn who switched his position after reading a letter from his mother urging him to "be a good boy." August 26 is now celebrated in the United States as Women's Equality Day. The amendment enfranchised approximately 26 million women on the eve of the 1920 presidential election.
Mother Teresa
Catholic Missionary & Nobel Laureate
Born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta in 1950 and devoted her life to serving the poor, sick, and dying in India's slums. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and was canonized as Saint Teresa of Calcutta in 2016.
Antoine Lavoisier
French Chemist
The "father of modern chemistry," Lavoisier identified and named oxygen and hydrogen, established the law of conservation of mass, and dismantled the phlogiston theory. His Traité élémentaire de chimie (1789) systematized chemistry as a modern science — before he was guillotined during the Reign of Terror in 1794.
Joseph-Michel Montgolfier
French Inventor of the Hot Air Balloon
Together with his brother Jacques-Étienne, Montgolfier invented the hot air balloon, launching the first untethered crewed flight in November 1783 over Paris. Their invention opened the age of human flight and made them instant heroes of the Enlightenment.
Albert, Prince Consort
Prince Consort of the United Kingdom
Husband of Queen Victoria, Albert was a passionate advocate for science, technology, and the arts, and the driving force behind the Great Exhibition of 1851. His early death at 42 left Victoria devastated; she wore mourning black for the remaining 40 years of her life.
Charles Lindbergh
American Aviator
Lindbergh completed the first nonstop solo transatlantic flight from New York to Paris in May 1927, becoming the most famous man in the world overnight. His 33.5-hour flight in the Spirit of St. Louis transformed public confidence in aviation as a practical mode of transport.
Battle of Manzikert: Seljuks Defeat Byzantium
Seljuk Turkish forces under Sultan Alp Arslan decisively defeat the Byzantine army and capture Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes at the Battle of Manzikert in eastern Anatolia. The defeat opened Asia Minor to Turkish settlement and permanently altered the balance of power between the Islamic world and Christian Byzantium.
Battle of Crécy: English Longbows Shatter French Chivalry
English forces under Edward III defeat a far larger French army at Crécy in northern France, with longbowmen cutting down charging knights in one of the most decisive battles of the Hundred Years' War. The victory demonstrated that disciplined infantry and missile weapons could overcome armored cavalry, revolutionizing European warfare.
Francisco de Orellana Reaches the Mouth of the Amazon
Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana completes the first recorded navigation of the entire Amazon River, reaching its mouth on the Atlantic coast of present-day Brazil. His expedition of 1541–42 opened European eyes to the vast interior of South America.
Captain Cook Sets Sail on His First Voyage
Lieutenant James Cook departs Plymouth, England, aboard HMS Endeavour on his first voyage of exploration to the Pacific Ocean. The expedition would observe the Transit of Venus from Tahiti, chart New Zealand, and map the eastern coast of Australia.
France Adopts the Declaration of the Rights of Man
The French National Constituent Assembly approves the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, proclaiming that all men are born free and equal in rights. The document became the philosophical cornerstone of the French Revolution and a foundational text of modern human rights.
19th Amendment Certified — Women Gain the Vote in America
Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certifies the 19th Amendment, granting American women the right to vote after 72 years of suffragist campaigning. The amendment enfranchised approximately 26 million women in time for the 1920 presidential election.
Munich Olympics Open — Days Before Tragedy
The XX Olympiad opens in Munich, West Germany, designed to project a peaceful, modern image of the Federal Republic. Nine days later, eleven Israeli athletes and coaches would be murdered by Palestinian militants in one of the darkest moments in Olympic history.
Jaycee Dugard Found Alive After 18 Years
Jaycee Dugard, abducted at age 11 from South Lake Tahoe in 1991, is discovered alive in Antioch, California, after being held captive for 18 years by Phillip and Nancy Garrido. Her rescue and the subsequent investigation revealed systemic failures in California's parole monitoring system.
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Start a conversation →Charles Lindbergh
American Aviator
The first solo nonstop transatlantic flyer died of lymphoma in Maui, Hawaii. In his final years Lindbergh became a passionate environmentalist, a remarkable evolution for the man who had once embodied the machine age.
Lon Chaney
American Actor, "The Man of a Thousand Faces"
Chaney was the pre-eminent horror star of silent cinema, transforming himself through elaborate self-applied makeup into the Phantom of the Opera and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. His death from throat cancer robbed Hollywood of its greatest character actor just as the sound era began.
Neil Simon
American Playwright
The most commercially successful playwright in Broadway history, Simon wrote more than 30 plays including The Odd Couple, Barefoot in the Park, and the autobiographical Brighton Beach Memoirs trilogy. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1991 for Lost in Yonkers.
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