Senator Strom Thurmond

A filibuster lasting 24 hours and 18 minutes was conducted on August 28–29, 1957, by Democratic U.S. senator Strom Thurmond (pictured), intended to prevent the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. He read the election laws of each U.S. state, Supreme Court decisions, and George Washington's Farewell Address. The bill's power to protect the voting rights of African Americans had already been significantly watered down by Senate Democrats, but Thurmond saw the bill as "cruel and unusual punishment" and felt more intervention was needed. In filibustering the bill, Thurmond went against a prior agreement among Senate Democrats and therefore received backlash from some members of his own party in addition to the disapproval of Republicans. Despite this, the filibuster was wildly popular among citizens of the South. The filibuster ultimately failed to change any votes in the Senate and the bill was signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower less than two weeks later. (Full article...)

Vladimirka by Isaac Levitan

• ... that the subject of the painting Vladimirka (pictured) is a road that was used to transport prisoners to Siberia on foot?
• ... that Bill Harkin designed the original Glastonbury Festival Pyramid Stage, which was built from scaffolding and plastic sheeting?
• ... that for decades, the Sand Springs Railway gave all of its profits to a children's home?
• ... that John Dique constructed the machine used by the first Australian patient to receive dialysis?
• ... that the Roman fort Aquis Querquennis periodically emerges from a reservoir?
• ... that casino pit boss Mike Goodman was the author of a book that sold over a million copies?
• ... that Youlgreave in Derbyshire is one of only a few villages in the United Kingdom to be supplied by its own private waterworks?
• ... that radio station WBML made its first broadcast just one hour after the funeral of its manager-to-be?

João Lourenço

• Floods in Pakistan kill more than 1,000 people and over 700,000 livestock.
• Incumbent president João Lourenço (pictured) and his party, the MPLA, are declared winners of the Angolan general election.
• William Ruto is elected President of Kenya.
• In Giza, Egypt, a church fire spreads to a nursery killing 41 people, including at least 18 children.

August 29: Feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist (Catholicism, Anglicanism)

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

• 1350 – Hundred Years' War: Led by King Edward III, a fleet of 50 English ships captured at least 14 Castilian ships and sank several more at the Battle of Winchelsea.
• 1842 – Under the Treaty of Nanking, an "unequal treaty" that ended the First Opium War, the Chinese island from which Hong Kong would grow was ceded to Britain.
• 1903 – Slava, the last of five Borodino-class battleships, was launched by the Imperial Russian Navy.
• 1984 – Followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (pictured) began deliberately infecting people in The Dalles, Oregon, with Salmonella in the first and largest bioterrorist attack in United States history.
• 1996 – Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801 crashed on approach to Svalbard Airport, Norway, killing all 141 on board.