That August time it was delight
To watch the red moons wane to white
Swinburne
1674 Tornadoes in Holland destroyed a number of church towers and part of Utrecht cathedral
1906 A 'phantom city' was seen in the sky for three hours at Ballyconneely on the west coast of Ireland.
1933 W. T. (Will) Hay discovered a white spot on the planet Saturn. By August 9 the spot was 29,800 miles (48,000 km.) long, 8,000 miles (13,000 km.) wide and had a period of 101/4 hours.
1831 A tornado at Glanfesk in Ireland destroyed John McCarthy's farm, killing seventeen persons.
1783 The great eruption of Asama-yama in Japan culminated in an avalanche of volcanic material which killed 1,162 persons.
1885 A supernova in the Andromeda galaxy, M31, reached the fringes of naked-eye visibility.
1921 A bright 'star' was seen three degrees above the setting Sun in California. It was an astronomical body whose nature remained undetermined.
1786 Balmot and Paccard made the first ascent of Mont Blanc (14,807 m.), the highest mountain in western Europe.
1892 Hundreds of live freshwater mussels fell with torrential rain from a yellow cloud over Paderborn, Germany.
1944 A B-29 bomber near Sumatra was followed for eight minutes by an orange ball of light. The ball then turned and vanished in cloud.
1946 'Rocket bombs' or 'ghost rockets' were reported over Stockholm, appearing as smoke-trailing fireballs flying towards central Sweden.
1914 A temperature of 122° F. (50° C.) at Leeland, Nevada.
1849 A mass of ice 20 feet (6 m.) in circumference fell at Balvullich in Scotland, after a loud peal of thunder.
1919 Nine people were killed when a huge ice avalanche, estimated to weigh one million tons, fell from a glacier near Chamonix in France.
1950 A magnitude 8.7 earthquake in Assam killed over 1,000 people. Geysers of hot water and steam shot from fissures. Landslides blocked many rivers.
1848 After a long dry summer of intense heat, a fire destroyed the Yagh Kapan district of Constantinople in 71/2 hours. 200 lives were lost.
1876 Thousands of small luminous globes were seen in the air above cliffs at Ringstead Bay, Dorset, during a sultry afternoon.
1769 Lightning exploded a powder magazine at Brescia in Italy, killing 3,000 people.
AD 733 In Europe, "the Sun darkened in an alarming manner...there appeared to be no eclipse by the Moon, but rather an interruption from some meteoric substance." (There was a total solar eclipse in Europe on August 14, AD 733)
1820 The first fatal accident on Mont Blanc occurred when three guides were swept into a crevice by an avalanche. 41 years later their remains were found in a glacier.
1794 A 'compact ball of fire' during a terrific thunderstorm badly damaged a house at Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.
AD 358 The great earthquake of Nicomedia was preceded by two hours of darkness.
1939 A temperature of 113.5° F. (45° C.) was recorded at Lezhe in Albania.
AD 79 A great eruption of Vesuvius shattered the volcano's cone and buried the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
1872 A tornadic waterspout appeared on Lough Neagh, Ireland, as a column of spray and clouds. It crossed the shore and became a tornado near Staffordstown.
1778 A meteor seen from Como in Italy moved by bounds and jerks. With each jerk there was an explosion.
1947 The temperature reached 80° F. (27°C.) at Cape Wrath in northern Scotland.
1893 Nine hundred persons were killed by a hurricane which struck the Sea Islands of Georgia, United States.
1936 One of the greatest temperature variations recorded in one day in Britain: 34° F. (1° C.) to 84.9° F. (29° C.) in the Rickmansworth frost hollow, Hertfordshire.
1930 Pofessor J. C. Jensen photographed ball lightning in Nebraska. A shapeless, luminous mass floated slowly down as a squall line approached.
1944 H. P. Wilkins, while telescopically observing the Moon, saw white spots dotted over the floor of the crater Schickard. They were gone next evening.