1455 The first battle of St.Albans.

1455 The First Battle of St Albans.May22nd, The First Battle of St Albans was the first battle of the Wars of the Roses and was fought in the town of St Albans 22 miles, north of London. Richard, Duke of York and his ally, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, defeated the Lancastrians under Edmund, Duke of Somerset, who was killed. Richard Duke of York was also captured Henry VI and had himself appointed Constable of England. The Lancastrian army of 2,500 troops arrived at St Albans first, and proceeded to defend it by placing troops along the Tonman Ditch, and at the bars in Sopwell Lane, and Shropshire Lane.The 3,000 strong Yorkist army arrived and camped in Keyfield to the east. Lengthy negotiations ensued with heralds moving back and forth between the rival commanders. After several hours, Richard Duke of York, despairing of a peaceful solution, decided to attack. The bulk of Henry VI's forces were surprised by the speed of Richard Duke of York's attack; most of the army was expecting a peaceful resolution. (similar to the one at Blackheath in 1452) However, two frontal assaults down the narrow streets against the barricades made no headway and resulted in heavy casualties for the Yorkists. Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick took his reserve troops through an unguarded part of the town's defenses, through back lanes and gardens. Suddenly Richard Neville, Earl Of Warwick appeared in the Market Square, where the main body of Henry V1's troops were talking and resting.There is evidence they were not yet expecting to be involved in the fighting, as many were not even wearing their helmets. Richard Neville Earl of Warwick charged instantly with his force, routing the Lancastrians and killing Edmund the Duke of Somerset. Richard Neville Earl of Warwick then ordered his archers to shoot at the men around King Henry V1, killing several and injuring King Henry and Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke Buckingham. The Lancastrians manning the barricades realized the Yorkists had outflanked them, and fearing an attack from behind abandoned their positions and fled the town The First Battle of St Albans was relatively minor in military terms, but politically was complete victory for Richard Duke of York: he had captured King Henry V1 and returned himself to complete power;his rival Edmund Duke of Somerset was dead; and Richard Neville Earl of Warwick's arch-enemies;Henry Percy,2nd Earl of Northumberland and Lord de Clifford both fell during the rout. Several prominent Lancastrians were killed but their heirs remained at feud with Richard Duke of York although peace was temporarily restored,the Lancastrians were inspired by Queen Consort Margaret of Anjou, to contest Yorks influence.

1942 The battle of Stalingrad.

Historical Background.

By the spring of 1942, despite the failure of Operation Barbarossa to decisively defeat theSoviet Union in a single campaign, the war had been progressing well for the Germans: the U-Boat offensive in the Atlantic had been very successful and Rommel had just taken Tobruk.  In the east, they had stabilized their front in a line running from Leningrad in the north to Rostov in the south. There were a number of salients in the line where Soviet offensives had pushed the Germans back (notably to the northwest of Moscow and south ofKharkov) but these were not particularly threatening. Hitler was confident that he could master the Red Army after the winter of 1942, because even though Army Group Centre had suffered heavy punishment west of Moscow the previous winter, 65% of its infantry had not been engaged and had been rested and re-equipped. Neither Army Group North nor Army Group South had been particularly hard pressed over the winter. Stalin was expecting the main thrust of the German summer attacks to again be directed against Moscow.

The Germans decided that their summer campaign in 1942 would be directed at the southern parts of the Soviet Union. The initial objectives in the region around Stalingrad were the destruction of the industrial capacity of the city and positioning forces to block theVolga River. The river was a key route between the Caspian Sea and northern Russia. Its capture would disrupt commercial river traffic of various commodities. It would also make the delivery of Lend Lease supplies via the Persian Corridor much more difficult.

The German operations were initially very successful. On 23 July 1942, Hitler personally rewrote the operational objectives for the 1942 campaign, greatly expanding them to include the occupation of the city of Stalingrad. Both sides began to attach propaganda value to the city based on it bearing the name of the leader of the Soviet Union. It was assumed that the fall of the city would also firmly secure the northern and western flanks of the German armies as they advanced on Baku with the aim of securing these strategic petroleum resources for Germany. The expansion of objectives was a significant factor in Germany's failure at Stalingrad. It was based on a sort of victory fever and an underestimation of Soviet reserves. 

The Soviets realized that they were under tremendous constraints of time and resources and ordered that anyone strong enough to hold a rifle be sent to fight.

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1546 Execution of Anne Askew.

1546 July 16th. Anne Askew (née Anne Ayscough, married name Anne Kyme) (born 1520/1521) was an English poet and Protestant who was condemned as a heretic. She is the only woman on record known to have been both tortured in the Tower of London and burnt at the stake.
Execution:She was burnt at the stake at Smithfield, London, aged 26, on July 16th.with John Lascelles and two other Protestants. She was carried to execution in a chair wearing just her shift as she could not walk and every movement caused her severe pain. She was dragged from the chair to the stake which had a small seat attached to it, which she sat astride. Chains were used to bind her body firmly to the stake at the ankles, knees, waist, chest and neck. Because of her recalcitrance she was burned alive slowly rather than being strangled first or burned quickly. Those who saw her execution were im- pressed by her bravery, and reported that she did not scream until the flames reached her chest. The execution lasted about an hour and she was unconscious and probably dead after fifteen minutes or so. Prior to their death, the young martyrs were offered one last chance at pardon. Bishop Shaxton mounted the pulpit and began to preach to them. His words were in vain, however. Anne Askew, in spite of her sufferings, listened attentively throughout his discourse. When he spoke anything she con- sidered to be the truth she audibly expressed agreement, but when he said anything contrary to what she believed Scripture stated, she exclaimed; "There he misseth, and speaketh without the book."

1546 Background: In the last year of Henry VIII's reign,Anne Askew was caught up in a court struggle betwe- en religious traditionalists and reformers. Bishop Stephen Gardiner was telling the king that diplomacy; the prospect of an alliance with the Catholic Emperor Charles V ; required a halt to religious reform. The traditionalist party pursued tactics tried out three years previously,with the arrests of minor evange- licals in the hope that they would implicate those who were more highly placed. In this case measures were taken that were "legally bizarre and clearly desperate". The persons rounded up were in many cases strongly linked to Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, who spent most of the period absent from court in Kent: Anne Askew's brother Edward Ayscough was one of his servants, and Nicholas Shaxton who was brought in to put pressure on Anne Askew to recant was acting as a curate for Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, at Hadleigh. Others in Cranmer's circle who were arrested were Rowland Taylor and Richard Turner.

The traditionalist party included Sir Thomas Wriothesley (Earl of Southampton) and Richard Rich who racked Anne Askew in the Tower, Edmund Bonner and Thomas Howard (3rd Duke of Norfolk). The intention of her interrogators may have been to implicate the Queen, (m6) Catherine Parr, through the latter's ladies-in-waiting and close friends, who were suspected of having also harboured Protestant beliefs. These ladies included the Queen's sister, Anne Parr, Katherine Willoughby, Anne Stanhope, and Anne Calthorpe. Other targets were Lady Denny and Lady Hertford,wives of evangelicals at court. 

1940 August 20th. Winston Churchhill

Never was so much owed by so many to so few was a wartime speech made by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on 20 August 1940. The name stems from the specific line in the speech, Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few, referring to the ongoing efforts of the Royal Air Force pilots who were at the time fighting the Battle of Britain, the pivotal air battle with the German Luftwaffe with Britain expecting a German invasion. The speech also refers to the aerial bombing campaign by RAF Bomber Command, although the speech is usually taken to only refer to Fighter Command. With the Battle of Britain won a few months later and German plans postponed, the Allied airmen of the battle ultimately became known as "The Few".

1612 August 19th. The Samlesbury witches.

The Samlesbury witches were three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury – Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley – accused by a 14-year-old girl, Grace Sowerbutts, of practising witchcraft. Their trial at Lancaster Assizes in England on 19 August 1612 was one in a series of witch trials held there over two days, among the most famous in English history.  The trials were unusual for England at that time in two respects: Thomas Potts, the clerk to the court, published the proceedings in his The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster; and the number of the accused found guilty and hanged was unusually high, ten at Lancaster and another at York. All three of the Samlesbury women were acquitted however.

The charges against the women included child murder and cannibalism. In contrast, the others tried at the same assizes, who included the Pendle witches, were accused ofmaleficium – causing harm by witchcraft. The case against the three women collapsed "spectacularly" when the chief prosecution witness, Grace Sowerbutts, was exposed by the trial judge to be "the perjuring tool of a Catholic priest".

Many historians, notably Hugh Trevor-Roper, have suggested that the witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries were a consequence of the religious struggles of the period, with both the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches determined to stamp out what they regarded as heresy. The trial of the Samlesbury witches is perhaps one clear example of that trend; it has been described as "largely a piece of anti-Catholic propaganda", and even as a show-trial, to demonstrate that Lancashire, considered at that time to be a wild and lawless region, was being purged not only of witches but also of "popish plotters" (i.e. Catholics).

1942 15th. August Operation Pedestal.

Operation Pedestal was a British operation to get desperately needed supplies to the island of Malta in August 1942, during the Second World War. Malta was the base from which surface ships, submarines and aircraft attacked Axis convoys carrying essential supplies to the Italian and German armies in North Africa. In 1941–42, Malta was effectivelyunder siege, blockaded by Axis air and naval forces. To sustain Malta, the United Kingdom had to get convoys through at all costs. Despite serious losses, just enough supplies were delivered for Malta to survive,  although it ceased to be an effective offensive base for much of 1942. The most crucial supply was fuel delivered by the SS Ohio, an American-built tanker with a British crew. The operation started on 9 August 1942, when the convoy sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar. 

The convoy is also known as the "Battle of Mid-August" in Italy and as the Konvoj ta' Santa Marija in Malta. The arrival of the last ships of the convoy on 15 August 1942, coincided with the Feast of the Assumption (Santa Marija) and the name Santa Marija Convoy or Sta Marija Convoy is still used. That day's public holiday and celebrations, in part, celebrate the arrival of the convoy. The attempt to run fifty ships past bombers, E-boats, minefields, and submarines has gone down in military history as one of the most important  British strategic victories of the Second World War. However, it was at a cost of more than 400 lives, with only five of the original 14 merchant ships reaching the Grand Harbour.

1944 Aug 12th. Wola Massacre.

The Wola massacre (Polish: Rzeź Woli, "Wola slaughter") was the systematic killing of around 40,000–50,000 people by Nazi German troops during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. Between 5 and 12 August 1944, tens of thousands of Polish civilians along with captured resistance fighters were indiscriminately shot or killed in organised mass executions throughout the Wola district of the Polish capital Warsaw. The action was designed to crush the Poles' will to fight and put the uprising to an end without having to commit to heavy city fighting. However the Germans soon found that the atrocities in Wola only stiffened Polish resistance. German authority across the city was only achieved after more than two months of heavy fighting and the total destruction of Warsaw.

• 1944 – Waffen-SS troops massacre 560 people in Sant'Anna di Stazzema.