On This Day August 8

A scandal called "Watergate" in which Richard Nixon attempted to protect men ordered to burglarize the Democratic National Headquarters cost him much of his political support in his second term. On August 8, 1974, Richard Nixon announced he was resigning — the first USA President to do so — in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word "criminal." The second was William Jefferson Clinton.

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On This Day August 7

On August 7, 1974 Philippe Petit performed a high wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center 1,368 feet (417 m) in the air. Philippe Petit's famous high-wire performance between the Twin Towers is known as "the artistic crime of the century". After completing his stunt, Petit was charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct. These charges were dropped on the condition that the tightrope performer put on a free high-wire performance for children in Central Park.

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On This Day August 6

1991 Tim Berners-Lee released files describing his idea for the World Wide Web, a publicly available service on the Internet on August 6, 1991. This date also marked the debut of the Web as a publicly available service on the Internet, although new users could only access it after August 23rd. In December 1993 there were just 623 websites on the internet.

1991 The first ever website to be built was http://info.cern.ch. While inventing and working on setting up the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee spent many of his working hours in Building 31 at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN. The first web page went live on August 6, 1991. Built by Berners-Lee, it was dedicated to information on the World Wide Web project and ran on a NeXT computer at CERN.

Below is the NeXT Computer used by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, which. became the world's first web server

By Coolcaesar at the English-language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, 

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On This Day August 5

A group of independent English Christians borrowed £4,000 from a London company of investors to subsidize a voyage across the Atlantic to a plot of land they had obtained near the Hudson River in the New World. The ship they hired for the voyage, The Mayflower, was tiny, with a deck just 90ft long. This small ship departed from Southampton, England on August 5, 1620 taking their 102 passengers to the New World, as well as its crew of 25-30.

Mayflower II, a replica of the original "Mayflower" By GmaJoli

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On This Day August 4

The blind Benedictine monk Dom Pierre Pérignon was appointed the wine master of the Abbey of Hauteville in Champagne, France in 1668. After years of experimentation, he developed a sparkling wine. On trying this new fizzy white wine he cried excitedly  "Oh, come quickly. I am drinking the stars." The date traditionally ascribed to Dom Perignon's invention of champagne is August 4, 1693.

Dom Pierre Pérignon

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On This Day August 3

Gioachino Rossini's William Tell opera premiered on August 3, 1829. Rossini had high hopes for his work about the legendary Swiss bowman. He considered it his masterpiece from which he could retire but because of its four-hour length and concerns it was glorifying a revolutionary figure, the opera flopped. Today, William Tell is remembered mostly for its famous overture, especially the high-energy galloping finale, known through its use in The Lone Ranger TV and radio shows.

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On This Day August 2

Albert Einstein sent a letter to President Roosevelt on August 2, 1939 suggesting America start researching the atom bomb with war looking imminent in order to prevent Germany making it first. Roosevelt agreed to set up the project to build the bomb under J. Robert Oppenheimer, with Einstein's special theory of relativity forming its theoretical basis. Einstein later reacted to the destructive elements of the atom bomb by saying. "If only I had known I should have become a watchmaker."

A copy of the letter

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