August 5
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1926: Houdini wins a water fight
On this day in 1926, Harry Houdini set a remarkable endurance record by spending 91 minutes sealed inside an airtight coffin submerged underwater. The feat, staged to surpass rival magician Rahman Bey, showcased Houdini’s extraordinary breath control and determination. Despite experiencing hallucinations near the end, he emerged with little more than lingering irritability and another legendary stunt to his name.
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Upper Volta—now Burkina Faso (which means “Land of Incorruptible People”), a landlocked country in western Africa—proclaimed its independence on this day in 1960, ending more than 60 years of French rule. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about Africa.]
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© Frank Povolny/Twentieth Century Fox/Sunset Boulevard—Corbis Historical/Getty Images
American actress Marilyn Monroe—who achieved stardom as a sex symbol in such films as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and later became a cultural icon—died on this day in 1962 after taking an overdose of sleeping pills.
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Evan Schneider/UN Photo
2024
Sheikh Hasina Wazed, Bangladesh’s five-term prime minister, fled the country amid mass protests against her government; Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel laureate, was named the country’s interim leader. [How much do you know about Asia?]
© Maggie Hardie/Shutterstock.com
2019
American writer Toni Morrison, who earned a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993 for novels that examine the Black experience (particularly Black female experience) within the Black community, died at age 88. [Test your knowledge of Nobel laureates in literature.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
2019
Continued antigovernment protests and a general strike brought Hong Kong to a near standstill; among the demonstrators’ demands were universal suffrage and investigations into allegations of police brutality. [Take our quiz about Asia.]
Facundo Arrizabalaga—WPA/Getty Images
2011
Thai businesswoman and politician Yingluck Shinawatra was elected prime minister of Thailand, becoming the first woman to hold that post. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about Thailand.]
Ian Salas—EPA/Shutterstock.com
2010
Thirty-three workers became trapped after a mine in the Atacama Desert of Chile collapsed, and the resulting rescue took 69 days, attracting international attention. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about Chile.]
Courtesy, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
1981
U.S. President Ronald Reagan fired more than 11,000 air traffic controllers who were on strike. [Take our quiz about U.S. presidents.]
White House Collection
1964
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson put the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution before Congress; it served as the principal constitutional authorization for the subsequent vast escalation of the United States’ military involvement in the Vietnam War. [How much do you know about warfare?]
Robert Knudsen. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston
1963
The United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom signed the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty in Moscow. [Take our quiz about famous documents.]
© Kobal/REX/Shutterstock.com
1957
Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, a TV show in which performers lip-synched their latest songs and the teenage audience danced, began airing nationally. [Test your knowledge of pop culture.]
NASA
1930
U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the Moon, was born in Wapakoneta, Ohio. [Take our quiz about astronauts and cosmonauts.]
Image: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1914
In Cleveland, Ohio, the first electric traffic light was installed; it featured red and green lights. [Test your knowledge of famous inventions.]
Brady-Handy Photograph Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-DIG-cwpbh-01049)
1864
During the Battle of Mobile Bay, Union Admiral David Farragut sealed off the port of Mobile, Alabama, from Confederate blockade runners. [How much do you know about the American Civil War?]