August 3, 1963, The Beatles performed at The Cavern Club for the final time. [Beatles Bible site article] (see Sept 16)
August 3 Music et al
Dylan/Baez
August 3, 1963: Dylan and Joan Baez, a couple, begin a tour together. She is the headline name, but Dylan is the star. The tour provided a huge boost to Dylan’s career.
That same summer, manager Albert Grossman bought a house in Bearsville, NY near Woodstock. He converted space above the barn as a guest room for Dylan. Both he and Baez will be frequent visitors. (see Aug 17)
So Much In Love
August 3 – 9, 1963, “So Much In Love” by The Tymes #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
August 3 & 4, 1968 – The first Newport Pop Festival started at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, California. It is believed to have been the first pop music concert attended by more than 100,000 paying concertgoers.
Doors
August 3 – 16, 1968: “”Hello, I Love You” by the Doors #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
August 3 Music et al
Bumpy Road to Bethel
August 3, 1969: from Dale Bell’s book Woodstock (quoting John Roberts): “Over the course of the spring and summer we had gone to several meetings with film makers like Pennebaker and the Maysles Brothers, and they had all expressed interest in making our movie. But talks had languished and then died when it became clear that we would have to finance their efforts ourselves. Bob Maurice and Mike Wadleigh had been latecomers to this process. I had seen some of Wadleigh’s work and thought it to be original and clever, but noting I had seen altered my fundamental view that financing a documentary was a sane use of my vanishing resources.
Sunday, August 3rd, 1969 was turning into another typical day at the office. …Around noon I decided to take a break and go someplace where the phones wouldn’t ring with Woodstock problems. I walked down to my dad’s apartment in mid-town. …The phone rang. It was Bob Maurice. …I said “What’s on your mind?” “About 90 grand,” he said. “That’s what it will take for you to own this movie.” I lectured him patiently on the economics of documentaries, concluding with a polite but firm refusal. “You’ll have to get it somewhere else, Bob, I’m pretty much tapped.
August 3, 2016: Elliot Tiber died in Boca Raton, Fla. from complications of a stroke. Tiber had helped introduce Woodstock Ventures to the Bethel area when he found out that Wallkill had kicked out the festival. (NYT obit) (see Chronology for expanded Woodstock story)
August 2, 1874: gold discovered in the Black Hills of western South Dakota during an expedition led by Colonel Custer. The land belonged to the Sioux but was invaded by prospectors. Sioux leaders Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull retaliated. (Gold Rush Nuggets dot com article) (see June 17, 1876)
August 2 Peace Love Art Activism
Black History
August 2, 1900: North Carolina approved a constitutional amendment that required residents to pass a literacy test in order to register to vote. Under the provision, illiterate registrants with a relative who had voted in an election prior to the year 1863 were exempt from the requirement.
These provisions effectively disenfranchised most of the state’s African-American voting population. At the same time, the rules preserved the voting rights of most of the state’s poor and uneducated white residents—who were much more likely to have a relative eligible to vote in 1863, before the abolition of slavery and passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments. To the drafters and supporters of the amendment, this outcome was by design. [EJI article] (next BH, see Nov 16)
Jersey City revolt
August 2, 1964: the Jersey City Riots began when police attempted to arrest Dolores Shannon, a 26-year-old black woman, in the Booker T. Washington housing project for alleged disorderly conduct. Walter Mays, 34, a black man sitting on his nearby porch, objected that police were handling Ms. Shannon too harshly. Though police claimed Mr. Mays attacked them, witnesses insisted police physically attacked Mr. Mays and then arrested him. A crowd of black people who had gathered at the scene chanted “police brutality!” in protest, and responding patrolmen were pelted with rocks and garbage. In the three days of riots that followed, black community members angered by police mistreatment and economic depression stoned cars and looted from local stores.
Experiencing the most extreme impacts of the city’s economic downturn, Jersey City’s African American community of 280,000 people was primarily comprised of low-income families living in racially segregated neighborhoods plagued by police brutality, limited recreational resources, and poor environmental maintenance from the city government. When the riots erupted, leaders from the local NAACP chapter and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) stepped forward to mediate between the African American community and Jersey City authorities led by Mayor Thomas J. Whelan. (2017 Jersey Journal article) (see Aug 3)
Rainey Pool Murder
August 2, 1999: Joe Oliver Watson entered a guilty plea for manslaughter in the Pool case. (Northeastern University article) (BH & RP, see Nov 10 – 13, 1999)
BLACK & SHOT/Eric Garner
August 2, 2017: according to lawyers involved in the case, a Staten Island (NY) judge approved nearly $4 million in payments to the family of Eric Garner from a $5.9 million wrongful death settlement with the city. [NY Post article] (B & S, see Sept 12; Garner, see April 20, 2018)
August 2 Peace Love Art Activism
Cannabis
1937 Marijuana Tax Act
August 2, 1937: The 1937 Marijuana Tax Act signed. It is widely regarded as a major milestone in the U.S. policy of criminalizing drugs, which escalated into a “war on drugs” in the 1970s — resulting in many civil liberties violations. The law was prompted in part by a national panic over the dangers of marijuana, as can be seen in the now famous 1936 film Reefer Madness (Leafly dot com article) (see CC for expanded chronology)
Illinois
August 2, 2018: Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) signed HB 4870 into law. The bill required schools to let parents or guardians administer medical cannabis to children at school. (see CCC for expanded chronology)
August 2 Peace Love Art Activism
Nuclear News
Einstein
August 2, 1939: Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program. (text via Atomic Archive) (see December 2, 1942)
Cold War agreement terminated
August 2, 2019: the United States terminated a major treaty of the Cold War, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces agreement, and planned to start testing a new class of missiles within a month.
The new missiles were unlikely to be deployed to counter the treaty’s other nuclear power, Russia, which the United States said for years was in violation of the accord. Instead, the first deployments were likely to be intended to counter China, which had amassed an imposing missile arsenal and was now seen as a much more formidable long-term strategic rival than Russia. [NYT article] (next N/C, see Sept 20; next CW, see July 12, 2021)
August 2 Peace Love Art Activism
Cold War
August 2, 1945: the Potsdam Conference ended with the Potsdam Agreement that organized the division and reconstruction of Europe after World War II. The US, France, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union decided to split Germany’s capital, Berlin, into four zones. The Allied powers also agree to start legal trials at Nuremberg of Nazi war criminals. (Office of he Historian article) (see August 6, 1945)
August 2 Peace Love Art Activism
August 2 Music et al
Robert Zimmerman
August 2, 1962: Robert Zimmerman changed his name to Bob Dylan. [Ultimate Classic Rock article] (see Dylan for expanded early chronology)
Dylan attends HS reunion
August 2, 1969: returning to his hometown of Hibbing, MN, Dylan attended the 10-year reunion for Hibbing High’s Class of 1959 at the local Moose Lodge.While there, he brought Sara to see his boyhood home (Bob’s mother no longer lived there) and also got together with some old friends and formed an ad hoc band, The Chartbusters and played a couple of parties in St Cloud, MN. Each of the member had a pseudonym, Dylan’s was Jack Smith. (see August 15 Woodstock notes)
The Road to Bethel
August 2, 1969: Town of Bethel Building Inspector Donald Clark sent letter to Woodstock Ventures stating that he has lifted the Stop Order against it and that all permits would be issued pending approval by the departments of health and agriculture. (see Chronology for expanded story)
William S Burroughs
August 2, 1997: William S. Burroughs died. (see December 22, 2014)
August 2 Peace Love Art Activism
Vietnam
August 2, 1964: Gulf of Tonkin incident. The first sea “battle” between USS Maddox and North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats. (see Tonkin for expanded story)
August 2 Peace Love Art Activism
Irish Troubles
August 2, 1981, Irish Troubles: the eighth hunger striker died. Kieran Doherty (25) died after 73 days on hunger strike. (see Troubles for expanded story)
August 2, 2010: Flow Rate Technical Group reported that the well initially was dumping 62,000 barrels of oil per day initially after the spill and that it dwindled to 53,000 barrels when it was capped as the well was depleted. This means that 4.9 million barrels were went into the Gulf (see July 2, 2015)
August 2 Peace Love Art Activism
Death Penalty
Delaware
August 2, 2016: the Delaware Supreme Court ruled the state’s death penalty law was unconstitutional. The court said Delaware’s current capital punishment statute violates the U.S. Constitution by giving judges, and not juries, the final say to impose a death sentence. (NY Times article) (see Nov 9)
Pope Francis
August 2, 2018: in a major shift in Roman Catholic teaching on the issue, Pope Francis declared the death penalty inadmissible in all cases “because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,”
Francis, who had spoken out against capital punishment before — including in 2015 in an address to Congress — added the change to the Catechism of the Catholic Church — the compendium of Catholic beliefs.
The pontiff said the church would work “with determination” for the abolition of capital punishment worldwide.
Previously, the catechism had allowed the death penalty in some cases, if it was “the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor,” even if in reality “cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender today are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.” (see Aug 14)
August 2 Peace Love Art Activism
Immigration History
August 2, 2017: President Trump supported a proposal to slash legal immigration to the United States in half within a decade by sharply curtailing the ability of American citizens and legal residents to bring family members into the country.
The plan would enact the most far-reaching changes to the system of legal immigration in decades and represented the president’s latest effort to stem the flow of newcomers to the United States. Since taking office, he had barred many visitors from select Muslim-majority countries, limited the influx of refugees, increased immigration arrests and pressed to build a wall along the southern border.
In asking Congress to curb legal immigration, Mr. Trump intensified a debate about national identity, economic growth, worker fairness and American values that animated his campaign last year. Critics said the proposal would undercut the fundamental vision of the United States as a haven for the poor and huddled masses, while the president and his allies said the country had taken in too many low-skilled immigrants for too long to the detriment of American workers. (2017 NYT article) (see Aug 25)
August 2 Peace Love Art Activism
Environmental Issues
August 2, 2018: the White House announced that it was moving ahead on its much-anticipated plan to roll back the fuel economy mandate set by the Obama administration. The move would likely mean fewer high-efficiency, zero-pollution cars on the road.
The previous guidelines, which were reached during Obama’s first term, call for automakers to steadily reach a fleet average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 — though with credits and other modifications, the actual figure is expected to wind up in the low to mid-40 mpg range. This announcement meant the new standard would be frozen at 2020 levels, around 37 mpg. (see Aug 22)
August 1, 1917: after organizing a strike of metal miners against the Anaconda Company, six masked men dragged Wobbly organizer Frank Little from his Butte, Mont., hotel room and hung him from the Milwaukee Railroad trestle. Years later writer Dashiell Hammett would recall his early days as a Pinkerton detective agency operative and recount how a mine company representative offered him $5,000 to kill Little. Hammett says he quit the business that night. (IWW article on Little) (seeSept 5)
Philadelphia Transportation Company
August 1, 1944: as the US entered World War II, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, quickly became one of America’s largest war production sources. As many as 600,000 workers relied on the Philadelphia Transportation Company (PTC) for transportation to factories and other workplaces.
On August 1, 1944, white PTC employees started a strike to protest the company’s decision to promote eight black workers to the position of trolley driver, a job previously reserved for white men. The men were promoted after President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Orders 8802 and 9436, which prohibited companies with government contracts from discrimination based on race or religion and forced companies to include a nondiscrimination clause in their contracts.
White PTC employees James McMenamin, James Dixon, Frank Thompson, and Frank Carney led the strike, which they threatened would continue until the black workers were demoted. The strike grew to include over 6000 workers, crippling war production and impacting the entire city. It prevented nearly two million people from traveling and cost businesses almost $1 million per day. (Hidden City Philadelphia article) (see Aug 3)
August 1 Peace Love Art Activism
Black History
Marcus Garvey
August 1 > 31, 1920: the Universal Negro Improvement Association held its first International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World at Madison Square Garden and scheduled a massive parade in Harlem. During this convention, the UNIA adopts and signs a Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, adopts a “nation” flag with the colors of the Red, Black, and Green, and elects officials for its provisional government. Garvey was elected Provisional President of Africa. (next BH, see Aug 10; see Garveyfor expanded story)
Harlem Revolt
August 1, 1943: Harlem Riot of 1943, a NYPD policeman hit an African American woman who was being arrested for disturbing the peace at the Braddock Hotel in Harlem. Robert Bandy, a black soldier in the US Army tried to stop the police officer from striking the woman again. The situation rapidly escalated; the police officer drew his service revolver and shot Bandy in the shoulder.
Bandy’s wound was not serious, but he was taken to a nearby hospital, and crowds quickly gathered at the hospital, the hotel, and police headquarters. An onlooker shouted that an African American soldier had been killed, provoking a riot.
Hundreds of businesses were destroyed and looted, the property damage approaching $5,000,000. Overall, six people died and nearly 400 were injured. Five hundred men and women were arrested in connection with the riot. (see 20015 NY Daily News article) Dail(BH, see Aug 11,; RR, see August 10, 1946; Harlem Riot 1964, see July 16, 1964)
Sarah Keys Evans refuses
August 1, 1952: Sarah Keys Evans refused to give up her seat on a state-to-state charter bus. (next BH, see Sept 4; Sarah Keys, see September 1, 1953)
August 1, 1946: the Atomic Energy Commission was established as President Harry S. Truman signed the Atomic Energy Act, which transfered the control of atomic energy from military to civilian hands. Almost a year after World War II ended, Congress established the United States Atomic Energy Commission to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. The National Laboratory system was established from the facilities created under the Manhattan Project. and Argonne National Laboratory was one of the first laboratories authorized under this legislation as a contractor-operated facility dedicated to fulfilling the new Commission’s mission. (USNRC site) (see Dec 14)
NORAD
August 1, 1957: the United States and Canada announced the creation of NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense) Command, a unified military unit tasked with early warning and defense coordination. NORAD brought the US and Canada into closer cooperation for air defense through a system of radar and sensors to guard against possible long-range Soviet strategic bombers armed with nuclear weapons.
The US Army Corps of Engineers supervised the excavation of Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado and the construction of the tech command and control headquarters. (NAADC site) (see Aug 26)
August 1 Peace Love Art Activism
Calvin Graham
August 1, 1951: Graham left the US Marine Corps after injuring his back in a fall. (see Graham for expanded story)
August 1 Peace Love Art Activism
Native Americans
Resolution 108
August 1, 1953: the federal policy of terminating Native-American tribes began on this day with the passage of House Concurrent Resolution 108. Termination meant that a tribe was no longer officially recognized as a sovereign nation by the federal government. Termination was part of the policy of assimilating Native-Americans into mainstream American life. Between 1953 and 1964, a total of 109 tribes were terminated. The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska was the last to be terminated, in 1966.
By the 1960s as a result of the Native American rights movement attitudes had changed among Native-Americans and other Americans. Both President Lyndon Johnson and President Richard Nixon supported a policy of self-determination. See President Nixon’s speech on July 8, 1970, when he declared “Forced termination is wrong,” and the end of the termination policy January 4, 1975. (Stanford School of Medicine article) (seeAugust 15, 1953)
North Dakota Voter ID
August 1, 2016: U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland struck down a North Dakota law requiring photo IDs in order to vote, ruling that the law unfairly burdened the Native American voters who comprised one-fourth of the state’s electorate. Hovland rejected the state’s argument that the law was “necessary” to prevent voter fraud, writing that “[t]he undisputed evidence before the Court reveals that voter fraud in North Dakota has been virtually non-existent.” (NY Times article) (see Aug 16)
August 1, 1954: Moondog Jubilee Alan Freed, working as a disc jockey in New York, throws the “Moondog Jubilee of Stars Under the Stars” at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York. The performing line-up included black artists Fats Domino and Muddy Waters. (see February 23, 1955)
Bob Newhart
August 1 – September 25, 1960: comedian Bob Newhart’s The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart comedy album is Billboard #1.
Hard Day’s Night
August 1 – 14, 1964: “A Hard Day’s Night” #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. (see Aug 11)
Atlantic City Pop Festival
August 1 – 3, 1969: Atlantic City (NJ) Pop Festival took place at the Atlantic City Race Track. Approximately 100,000 people were there. (see Atlantic City for expanded story)
Concert for Bangladesh
August 1, 1971: George Harrison and Ravi Shankar organized and hosted The Concert for Bangladesh raising nearly a quarter of a million dollars for the hungry of the poor country. The concert ushered in a new type of proactive political activism (Beatles, see Sept 9; Bangladesh, see Dec 16; concert movie, see March 23, 1972)
Cultural milestone: MTV
August 1, 1981: MTV (Music Television) made its debut at 12:01 a.m. The first music video shown on the rock-video cable channel was, appropriately, Video Killed the Radio Star, by the Buggles. MTV’s original five veejays were Martha Quinn, Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, J.J. Jackson and Alan Hunter. MTV changed the way that popular music was presented from the traditional way of simply listening to watching as well as listening. [HUFFPOST article on first videos] (MTV, see March 1983; CM, see July 29, 1987)
August 1 Peace Love Art Activism
Independence Day
August 1, 1960: Benin independent from France. (see Aug 3)
August 1 Peace Love Art Activism
Austin Rampage
August 1, 1966: 25-year old Charles Whitman, a student at the University of Texas at Austin and a former Marine, killed 16 people and wounded 32 others during a shooting rampage on and around the university’s campus.
August 1 Peace Love Art Activism
Vietnam
August 1, 1968: 541,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam (see Aug 25 – 29)
August 1 Peace Love Art Activism
Watergate
August 1, 1972: a $25,000 cashier’s check, apparently earmarked for the Nixon campaign, wound up in the bank account of a Watergate burglar, The Washington Post reports. (seeWatergate for expanded story)
August 1 Peace Love Art Activism
Nominations
August 1, 1972, Thomas Eagleton, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, withdraws from the race after revealing he was once treated for mental illness. (2012 NPR article)
August 1 Peace Love Art Activism
Irish Troubles
August 1, 1981: The seventh hunger striker died. Kevin Lynch (25) died after 71 days on hunger strike. Lynch was a member of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). (see Troubles for expanded story)
August 1 Peace Love Art Activism
Terrorism
August 1, 1989: a terrorist group in Lebanon said that it had hanged hostage Marine Lieut. Col. William R. Higgins and distributed a grisly videotape that showed a figure identified as the American twisting at the end of a rope. (NYT article) (next T, see Dec 18; Higgins, see July 6, 1990)
August 1 Peace Love Art Activism
Native Americans
August 1, 2016: U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland struck down a North Dakota law requiring photo IDs in order to vote, ruling that the law unfairly burdened the Native American voters who comprised one-fourth of the state’s electorate. Hovland rejected the state’s argument that the law was “necessary” to prevent voter fraud, writing that “[t]he undisputed evidence before the Court reveals that voter fraud in North Dakota has been virtually non-existent.” [NYT article] (see Aug 16)
August 1 Peace Love Art Activism
Cannabis
August 1, 2021: marijuana decriminalization took effect in Louisiana and advocates and lawmakers were working to ensure that residents know what they can and cannot do without going to jail under the new law.
Gov. John Bell Edwards (D) had signed the legislation in June, and he emphasized that it was “not a decision I took lightly,” but he recognized that criminalization had significant consequences for families and taxpayers.
Under the law, possession of up to 14 grams of cannabis is now punishable by a $100 fine, without the threat of jail time. The governor has pushed back against the definition of the policy as “decriminalization,” but that’s exactly how advocates define policies that remove the threat of incarceration for low-level possession. [MM article] (next Cannabis, see or see CAC for expanded chronology)
August 1 Peace Love Art Activism
What's so funny about peace, love, art, and activism?
