Almanac for August-September 2000

Image Gallery Some of the 500,000 who traveled to the ""Woodstock Music & Art Fair"" in 1969.

August
 1 Lammas ("loaf-mass"), also called the Festival of St. Peter's Chains or of the Maccabees; Gaelic holiday Lugnasad.

2 President Warren G. Harding dies in office and is succeeded by Vice President Calvin Coolidge, 1923.

3 Hurricane Celia strikes Corpus Christi, Texas, killing 11 people and causing $454 million in damage, 1970.

5 Saturn south of the Pleiades star cluster (they rise not long before the brighter Jupiter in hour after midnight).

6 FIRST QUARTER MOON,. 9:02 P.M. EDT; Venus near star Regulus (binoculars needed), very low in west at dusk today and tomorrow; atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, 1945.

7 Halfway point of summer.

8 Jesse Owens wins his fourth gold medal at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

9 Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, 1945; Richard Nixon resigns the presidency, 1974.

10 Mercury and Mars close together at dawn, but very low in a bright sky (need binocu lars); Sun enters constellation Leo; Congress establishes the Smithsonian Institute, 1846.

11 First peak of Perseid meteors from northeast late this evening; second peak will be in the hour between moonset and start of morning twilight (3:30 to 4:30 A.M. of August 12).

12 Asteroid Juno at opposition, closest and visible all night long (optical aid and a finder chart are always needed to locate Juno).

14 Victory Day in Rhode Island; temperature hit 113°F in Kansas City, 1936.

15 FULL MOON (Green Corn or Grain Moon), 1:13 A.M. EDT.

16 Elvis Presley dies, 1977.

17 Hurricane Camille hits Mississippi coast with sustained winds of 200 mph and storm surges as high as 24 feet, 1969.

18 Woodstock music festival ends after three days, 1969.

19 Augustus Caesar died at age 76, A.D. 14

20 Viking 1 spacecraft, bound for Mars, launched, 1975; Voyager 2 spacecraft, bound for Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and