Friday 31st of August 0012

Roman Emperor Caligula is born as Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus in Antium, Lazio, Italy.

Saturday 31st of August 1867

Poet and art critic Charles Pierre Baudelaire known for ‘Les Fleurs du Mal’ dies of paresis of the brain due to syphilis at the age of 46 in 1 Rue du Dôme, Paris, XVIe, Île-de-France, France.

Thursday 31st of August 1876

Would-be assassin Violet Albina Gibson known for an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Benito Mussolini in 1926 is born in Dublin, Leinster, Ireland.

Friday 31st of August 1888

43-year-old Mary Ann Nichols aka Polly is throatcut by unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper in Buck's Row, London, Whitechapel, Greater London, United Kingdom.

Nichols' throat had been slit twice from left to right and her abdomen mutilated with one deep jagged wound, several incisions across the abdomen and three or four similar cuts on the right side caused by the same knife at least 15–20 cm long used violently and downwards.

Saturday 31st of August 1895

17-year-old Victor Portalier is found mutilated and stabbed to death by serial killer Joseph Vacher aka L’Eventreur du Sud-Est in Bénonces, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France.

Friday 31st of August 1906

Victim of Fritz Haarmann aka Der Hannover Werwolf Wilhelm Schulze is born in Godshorn, Niedersachsen, Germany.

Friday 31st of August 1928

Actor James Harrison Coburn is born in Laurel, Nebraska, United States.

Saturday 31st of August 1929

Sofie Ruck is attacked with a hammer by serial killer Peter Kürten aka The Vampire of Düsseldorf in Rosstraße, Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

Ruck survived.

Thursday 31st of August 1933

Philosopher Theodor Lessing is assassinated by Sudeten German Nazi sympathizers at the age of 61 in Mariánské Lázně, Karlovarský Kraj, Czechoslovakia.

Lessing was shot through a window of the villa where he lived on the night before by Rudolf Max Eckert, Rudolf Zischka and Karl Hönl. In June it was reported in Sudeten newspapers that a reward had been announced for Lessing's capture.

Friday 31st of August 1934

Murderer Louis Sprague Douglas is executed by the gas chamber at the age of 47 in Arizona State Prison Complex, 1305 E Butte Avenue, Florence, Arizona, United States.

Saturday 31st of August 1935

Minister of Information of the Black Panthers Eldridge Leroy Cleaver known for Soul on Ice is born in Wabbaseka, Arkansas, United States.

Monday 31st of August 1936

Murderer Georges Rapin aka Monsieur Bill is born in Paris, Île-de-France, France.

Thursday 31st of August 1944

Rapist and murderer George C. Mercer aka Tiny is born in Belton, Missouri, United States.

Wednesday 31st of August 1949

Actor Richard Tiffany Gere is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.

Wednesday 31st of August 1955

Mass murderer Lester Edward Bartholomew is executed by the gas chamber at the age of 38 in Arizona State Prison Complex, 1305 E Butte Avenue, Florence, Arizona, United States.

Bartholomew shot and killed his wife Marie, his 3-year-old son Rickie and his 2-year-old daughter Pamela in a motel court in Phoenix, Arizona. 

Saturday 31st of August 1963

Artist Georges Braque dies of natural causes at the age of 81 in Paris, XIVe, Île-de-France, France.

Sunday 31st of August 1969

Serial killer Andrew Phillip Cunanan aka American Gigolo/American Psycho is born in National City, California, United States.

Friday 31st of August 1973

Film director John Ford dies of stomach cancer at the age of 78 in Palm Desert, California, United States.

Monday 31st of August 1981

Car bomb attack by die Rote Armee Fraktion aka Baader-Meinhof Gruppe commando 'Sigurd Debus' in United States' Ramstein Air Base, Ramstein, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany.

Sigurd Debus was a Rote Armee Fraktion member who died hungerstriking in Hamburg on 16 April. 20 people got injured.

Wednesday 31st of August 1983

29-year-old Ralph Calise is beaten and stabbed to death by serial killer Larry Eyler aka The Leather Boy Killer in Lake Forest, Illinois, United States.

Friday 31st of August 1984

17-year-old Angelika Sehl is raped and strangled by serial killer Egidius Schiffer aka Der Würger von Aachen in Geilenkirchen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.

Saturday 31st of August 1985

25-year-old Serial killer Richard Ricardo Leyva Muñoz Ramirez aka The Night Stalker is recognized and chased by members of the Hispanic community Jose Burgoin and Faustino Pinon, beaten up and finally arrested by a patrolman named Ramirez in 3700 Hubbard Street, Los Angeles, California, United States.

Sunday 31st of August 1986

423 die in Admiral Nakhinov passenger liner and Pyotr Vasev bulk carrier collision in Off Novorossiysk port, Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Krai, Russia.

The event was not reported in the news for forty eight hours. The survivors were only allowed to send telegrams saying "Alive and well in Novorossiysk."

Sunday 31st of August 1986

Sculptor Henry Spencer Moore dies of natural causes at the age of 88 in Much Hadham, Perry Green, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom.

Sunday 31st of August 1986

82 die in Aeroméxico Flight 498 McDonnell Douglas DC-9 and Piper PA-28-181 Archer mid-air collision in Los Angeles, Cerritos, California, United States.

All 67 on both aircraft dies and an additional fifteen on the ground also died.

Monday 31st of August 1987

83 die in Thai Airways Flight 365 Boeing 737-200 crash in Off Ko Phuket, Phuket, Phuket, Thailand.

Friday 31st of August 1990

Multiple murderer George Clifton Gilmore is executed by lethal injection at the age of 44 in Missouri State Penitentiary aka The Walls, 115 Lafayette Street, Jefferson City, Missouri, United States.

Tuesday 31st of August 1993

Mass murderer Richard J. Wilkerson aka The Grand Prix Killer is executed by lethal injection at the age of 29 in Huntsville Prison, 815 12th Street, Huntsville, Texas, United States.

Wilkerson stabbed to death 18-year-old Anil Varughese, 22-year-old Roddy Harris, 19-year-old Arnold Pequeno and 18-year-old Joerene Pequeno at the Malibu Grand Prix Race Track Amusement Center in Houston in 1983.

Thursday 31st of August 1995

Kidnapper, rapist and murderer Barry Lee Fairchild is executed by lethal injection at the age of 41 in Varner Unit, Highway 65, Grady, Arkansas, United States.

Sunday 31st of August 1997

Princess of Wales Diana Frances Spencer aka Lady Di dies as a result of injuries sustained in a car crash  at the age of 36 in Pont de l'Alma road tunnel, Paris, VIIIe, Île-de-France, France.

Diana's 42-year-old companion Dodi Fayed and the 41-year-old driver of the Mercedes S280 Henri Paul were pronounced dead at the scene. 31-year-old bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones was seriously injured but survived. Diana's heart had been displaced to the right side of the chest which tore the pulmonary vein and the pericardium. Diana died at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital despite lengthy resuscitation attempts including internal cardiac massage. Although the media blamed the behaviour of the paparazzi who followed the car a French judicial investigation in 1999 found that the crash was caused by Henri Paul who lost control of the Mercedes at high speed while he was intoxicated and under the effects of prescription drugs.

Friday 31st of August 2001

Murderer Ronald Wayne Frye is executed by lethal injection at the age of 43 in Raleigh State Prison, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States.

Friday 31st of August 2001

A view on the North Sea from atop the highest building in Oostende, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium.

Saturday 31st of August 2002

Musician and bandleader Lionel Leo Hampton aka Gates aka Hamp dies of heart failure at the age of 94 in New York City, New York, United States.

Wednesday 31st of August 2005

46-year-old Performance artist Danny Devos aka DDV performs 'Vel' with Tim Vanhamel in Factor 44, Bleekhofstraat 44, Antwerpen, Borgerhout, Antwerpen, Belgium.

With Tim Vanhamel I made a Noise performance about ‘Thaipoosam’, a Hindi religious festival I attended in the Batu Caves near Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.

Wednesday 31st of August 2005

953 die in stampede in Jisr al-'Ā'immah, Baġdād, Muḥāfaẓät Baġdād, Iraq.

Rumours of an imminent suicide bomb attack broke out, panicking many pilgrims.

Thursday 31st of August 2006

Double murderer Derrick Wayne Frazier is executed by lethal injection at the age of 29 in Huntsville Prison, 815 12th Street, Huntsville, Texas, United States.

Monday 31st of August 2009

Sculptor Barry Flanagan dies of motor neurone disease at the age of 68 in Santa Eulalia del Río, Ibiza, Spain.