August 19

The American Revolutionary War ended on October 19, 1781 when England’s Lord Cornwallis surrendered to General George Washington at the head of the combined American and French troops at the culmination of the Siege of Yorktown. Not withstanding Cornwallis’ surrender, it took a while for everyone to find out that the Americans had won the war. On the 19th of August in 1782, ten months after the British threw in the towel, the last battle of the Revolutionary War took place near the Blue River in Mount Olivet, Kentucky. This confrontation came to be known as the Battle of Blue Licks. The legendary Kentucky frontiersman Daniel Boone led the combined forces of French and American soldiers.

August 18

When Virginia Dare was born on the 18th in 1587, she was the first English child born in the New World. Her mother was Eleanor Dare, whose father was John White, governor of the colony of Roanoke, Virginia. Shortly after Virginia’s birth, the governor left Roanoke to return to England to get more supplies for the struggling community. When he finally returned in 1590, on what would have been his grand daughter’s third birthday, he discovered that neither his daughter, granddaughter, nor anyone else for that matter, was there. The entire colony had disappeared!

August 17

Robert Fulton’s paddle wheel steamship the Clermont, left Manhattan on the 17th in 1807, bound for Albany, New York. This voyage marked the first successful steamboat service in the world.
The name of Fulton’s vessel has been popularly known as the Clermont since that time. The actual name of the boat, however, was the North River Steamboat. The North River was the Dutch name for the Hudson River.

August 16

Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó, known professionally as Bela Lugosi, died after suffering a heart attack on the 16th in 1956. He was an actor perhaps best known for his portrayal of the title character in both the stage production and the film adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. Lugosi’s career had been hampered by the close identification he had with the Dracula character. His sudden, unexpected, death did not hinder his film career as much as one might think however. Mr. Lugosi gave a riveting post-mortem performance in Ed Wood’s movie Plan 9 From Outer Space, arguably the worst movie ever made. Lugosi died in the midst of filming this marvel of bad movie making and an actor bearing absolutely no similarity, either in height or appearance, to Lugosi was hired to film the scenes left remaining after Lugosi’s death.

August 15

On the 15th in 1877, inventor Thomas Alva Edison made the first audio recording. The recording was of Edison reading the poem Mary Had a Little Lamb, which had been written by Sara Hale and was first published on May 24, 1830.

Sara Hale self-published her poetry in 1823. The book was titled The Gift of Oblivion. In her career, she would go on to publish more than 45 volumes of her work. She was the editor of Godey's Lady's Book for 40 of that publication’s 68-year life.

August 14

Wellington Timothy Mara was born on the 14th in 1916. He was the owner of the football team the New York Giants from 1959 until his death in 2005. His father had formed the team in 1925 so Mara carried some measure of influence on both the team and the sport of football in general. One reason for his considerable success may very well have been the positive spin he put on the game even when things were not going particularly well. Following the Giants winning the NFC’s championship game on January 14, 2001, Mara was quoted as saying, “This team was referred to as the worst team ever to win the home-field advantage in the National Football League. And today, on our field of painted mud, we proved we're the worst team ever to win the NFC championship. In two weeks, we're going to try to become the worst team ever to win the Super Bowl."

The Baltimore Ravens beat the New York Giants 34 to 7

August 13

Walt Disney has a well-deserved reputation for having made enjoyable movies for the whole family. With the release of each successive movie, people have come to count on Disney to provide charming stories that delight parents and children alike. He is known for good, wholesome stories. On the 13th in 1942, he released his fifth animated movie. The movie was Bambi and in this movie, Bambi’s mother made out just as well as all the mothers in all of Disney’s movies made out. This is to say that his mother died a horrible and painful death, leaving Bambi to face a brutal life with a dead mother and a father who had abandoned him.