What Happened on August 31st in History
30 historical events on this date
Pennsylvania Central Airlines Trip 19 crashes near Lovettsville, Virginia. The CAB investigation of the accident is the first investigation to be conducted under the Bureau of Air Commerce act of 1938.
On August 31, 1940, Pennsylvania Central Airlines Flight 19, a new Douglas DC-3, was flying from Washington, D.C. to Detroit with a stopover in Pittsburgh. While the aircraft was flying near...
World War II: Serbian paramilitary forces defeat Germans in the Battle of Loznica.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major...
USS Harmon, the first U.S. Navy ship to be named after a black person, is commissioned.
USS Harmon (DE-678) was a Buckley-class destroyer escort of the United States Navy. USS Harmon was named after Mess Attendant Leonard Roy Harmon, who was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for his...
The retreat of the Democratic Army of Greece into Albania after its defeat on Gramos mountain marks the end of the Greek Civil War.
The Democratic Army of Greece was the army founded by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), on 28 October 1946, as the General Headquarters of Partisans, which was renamed to Democratic Army of...
TWA Flight 903 crashes near Itay El Barud, Egypt, killing all 55 aboard.
TWA Flight 903 was a regularly scheduled flight from Bombay International Airport, India to New York-Idlewild Airport, via Cairo-King Farouk Airport and Rome-Ciampino Airport. On 31 August 1950, the...
The Federation of Malaya (now Malaysia) gains its independence from the United Kingdom.
Malaya, officially the Federation of Malaya, was a British protectorate (1948-1957) and later a country (1957-1963) in Southeast Asia. It succeeded the Malayan Union and, before that, British...
A parcel bomb sent by Ngô Đình Nhu, younger brother and chief adviser of South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm, fails to kill King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.
A letter bomb is an explosive device sent via the postal service, and designed with the intention to injure or kill the recipient when opened. They have been used in terrorist attacks such as those...
Trinidad and Tobago becomes independent.
Trinidad and Tobago, officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost archipelagic country in the Caribbean, comprising the main islands of Trinidad and Tobago, along with several...
Crown Colony of North Borneo (now Sabah) achieves self governance.
The Crown Colony of North Borneo was a Crown colony on the island of Borneo established in 1946 shortly after the dissolution of the British Military Administration. The Crown Colony of Labuan...
Start of the Congress of Carrara, one of the major 20th century anarchist congresses.
The Congress of Carrara, held from 31 August to 5 September 1968, in the eponymous city, is one of the major anarchist congresses of the 20th century. Led by anarchist federations from 31...
Aeroflot Flight 558 crashes in the Abzelilovsky District in Bashkortostan, Russia (then the Soviet Union), killing all 102 people aboard.
Aeroflot Flight 558 was a scheduled Ilyushin Il-18V domestic passenger flight from Karaganda to Moscow that crashed into a field in the Abzelilovsky District on August 31st 1972 as a result of a...
Aeroméxico Flight 498 collides with a Piper PA-28 Cherokee over Cerritos, California, killing 67 in the air and 15 on the ground.
Aeroméxico Flight 498 was a scheduled commercial flight from Mexico City, Mexico, to Los Angeles, California, United States, with several intermediate stops. On Sunday, August 31, 1986, the...
The Soviet passenger liner Admiral Nakhimov sinks in the Black Sea after colliding with the bulk carrier Pyotr Vasev, killing 423.
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's...
Thai Airways Flight 365 crashes into the ocean near Ko Phuket, Thailand, killing all 83 aboard.
Thai Airways Flight 365 was a Thai Airways Company Boeing 737-2P5 with the registration number HS-TBC. On 31 August 1987, the plane crashed during a scheduled flight from Hat Yai International...
Delta Air Lines Flight 1141 crashes during takeoff from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, killing 14.
Delta Air Lines Flight 1141 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight between Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, Texas, and Salt Lake City International Airport, Utah. On August 31, 1988, the...
CAAC Flight 301 overshoots the runway at Kai Tak Airport and crashes into Kowloon Bay, killing seven people.
CAAC Flight 301, a Hawker Siddeley Trident operated by CAAC Guangzhou Regional Administration from Guangzhou Baiyun to Hong Kong Kai Tak, ran off the runway in Hong Kong on 31 August 1988 after...
Kyrgyzstan declares its independence from the Soviet Union.
Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, formerly known as Kirghizia, is a landlocked country in the eastern regions of Central Asia, lying in the Tian Shan and Pamir mountain ranges. It is...
Russia completes removing its troops from Lithuania.
Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to...
Russia completes removing its troops from Estonia.
Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic...
Saddam Hussein's troops seized Irbil after the Kurdish Masoud Barzani appealed for help to defeat his Kurdish rival PUK.
Saddam Hussein was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until his overthrow in 2003 during the United States-led invasion of Iraq. He previously...
Diana, Princess of Wales, her partner, Dodi Fayed, and driver Henri Paul die in a car crash in Paris.
Diana, Princess of Wales, was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of Charles III and mother of Princes William and Harry. Her activism and glamour made her an international...
The first of a series of bombings in Moscow kills one person and wounds 40 others.
In September 1999, a series of explosions hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk, killing more than 300, injuring more than 1,000, and spreading a wave...
A LAPA Boeing 737-200 crashes during takeoff from Jorge Newbury Airport in Buenos Aires, killing 65, including two on the ground.
Líneas Aéreas Privadas Argentinas, more commonly known by the acronym LAPA, was an airline based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. At its heyday, the carrier operated international services to the United...
Typhoon Rusa, the most powerful typhoon to hit South Korea in 43 years, made landfall, killing at least 236 people.
Typhoon Rusa was a deadly and destructive typhoon that severely affected South Korea in 2002. The twenty-first tropical depression, the fifteenth named storm, and the tenth typhoon of the 2002...
The 2005 Al-Aaimmah bridge stampede in Baghdad kills 953 people.
The Al-Aimmah Bridge disaster occurred on August 31, 2005 when 965 people died following a panic, and subsequent crowd crush, on the Al-Aaimmah Bridge, which crosses the Tigris river in the Iraqi...
Edvard Munch's famous painting, The Scream, stolen on August 22, 2004, is recovered in a raid by Norwegian police.
Edvard Munch was a Norwegian painter. His 1893 work The Scream has become one of the most iconic and acclaimed images in all of Western art.
Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff is impeached and removed from office.
Dilma Vana Rousseff known mononymously as Dilma, is a Brazilian economist and politician who served as the 36th president of Brazil from 2011 until her impeachment and removal from office on 31...
A helicopter crashes in Kamchatka Krai in the Russian Far East, killing all 22 occupants.
On 31 August 2024, a Mil Mi-8 helicopter operating a scheduled charter flight crashed in Kamchatka Krai, Russia, killing all 22 people on board. The aircraft, which was operated by Vityaz-Aero on a...
A landslide in the Darfur region of Sudan kills over 1000 people. 26
On 31 August 2025, a landslide destroyed the village of Tarasin in the Marrah Mountains in Central Darfur, western Sudan, killing between 375 and 1,500 people.
An earthquake in eastern Afghanistan kills over 1400 people. 25
On 31 August 2025, at 23:47 AFT, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.0 on the moment magnitude scale (Mw ) struck eastern Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan. The epicenter of the quake was...