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On this day in 301 AD, San Marino, one of the world’s smallest and oldest republics, was founded by a stonemason named Marinus from the island of Rab, located in present-day Croatia. Marinus fled persecution and sought refuge in the Apennine Mountains, where he established a small Christian community. This would eventually grow into the nation known as the Republic of San Marino, located within modern-day Italy.
The oldest continuously occupied city in the United States established by Europeans was first sighted on this day in 1565. Explorer Pedro Medendez founded St. Augustine, naming it for St. Augustine of Hippo. He and 600 of his soldiers arrived and settled in an Indian village which they turned into a fortified outpost. In 1566, the first child of European ancestry was born in St. Augustine, some 21 years before the English settlement at Roanoke Island.
On August 25, 1944, Paris celebrated liberation from Nazi occupation—a historic moment that echoed the city’s own revolutionary spirit seen in the Storming of the Bastille over 150 years earlier.
On August 21, 1911 a patron of the Louvre Museum in Paris walked into the Salon Carré where Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa was on display for all to see. On this day, however, the famous painting was not on the wall where it had hung for the past five years. A search of the museum turned over no clues - the painting had been stolen. The French poet Guillaume Apollinaire came under suspicion; he in turn, tried to implicate Pablo Picasso. Both were exonerated. Two years later, a man approached the directors of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and tried to sell the Mona Lisa to them. The police were notified and immediately arrested former Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia who had stolen the painting by hiding in a broom closet and walking out with it hidden under his coat. Peruggia claimed the painting belonged in Italy and that he had stolen it for [...]
On August 19, 1692, five people were hung in Salem, Massachusetts for the crime of witchcraft. The five, one woman and four men, were Martha Carrier, George Burroughs, John Willard, George Jacobes and John Proctor.
A tweet from Eritrea’s Information Minister, Yemane Meskel, confirmed that the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia has ended.
On August 7, 1782, General George Washington issued an order to create the Badge of Military Merit, a groundbreaking military decoration that he personally designed. This badge, known today as the Purple Heart, was intended to honor soldiers wounded in battle, representing a notable shift in military recognition.
Between July 6, 1942, and August 4, 1944, a teenage Jewish girl named Anne Frank chronicled her life in hiding during one of the darkest periods of history.
On July 31, 1498, during his third voyage, explorer Christopher Columbus made his first recorded European sighting of the island of Trinidad.
The City of Miami was officially incorporated on July 28, 1896, marking a pivotal moment in the development of southern Florida.
On July 25, 1909, French pilot Louis Blériot made history by becoming the first person to fly a heavier-than-air craft across the English Channel.
On July 24, 1911, American explorer and historian Hiram Bingham made one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the 20th century when he uncovered the ancient Incan city of Machu Picchu.
