Month: August 2026

On this day in 1992, Hurricane Andrew made landfall in Homestead, Florida. Hurricane Andrew was the most destructive hurricane to ever hit Florida in terms of structures damaged or destroyed, and remained the costliest in financial terms until Hurricane Irma surpassed it 25 years later. Andrew was also the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the United States in decades and the costliest hurricane to strike anywhere in the country, until it was surpassed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Passing directly through the cities of Cutler Bay and Homestead in Dade County (now known as Miami-Dade County), the hurricane stripped many homes of all but their concrete foundations and caused catastrophic damage. In total, Andrew destroyed more than 63,500 houses, damaged more than 124,000 others, caused $27.3 billion in damage (equivalent to $65 billion in 2023), and left 65 people dead.

Damage from Hurricane Andrew in a large mobile home community

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Yes, it’s Monday, but always look on the bright side…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0

Today is the anniversary of Nat Turner’s Rebellion which began on this day in 1831. It was a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831. Led by Nat Turner, the rebels, made up of enslaved African Americans, killed an estimated 55 White people, making it the deadliest slave revolt in U.S. history. Nonetheless, the rebellion was effectively suppressed within a few days, at Belmont Plantation on the morning of August 23, but Turner survived in hiding for approximately ten weeks afterward.

There was widespread fear among the White population in the rebellion’s aftermath. Militias and mobs killed as many as 120 enslaved people and free African Americans in retaliation. After trials, Virginia executed eighteen enslaved people accused of participating in the rebellion, including Turner himself; many Black people who had not participated were also persecuted in the frenzy.

Because Turner was educated and a preacher, Southern state legislatures passed new laws prohibiting the education of enslaved people and free Blacks, restricting the right of assembly and other civil liberties for free Blacks, and requiring White ministers to be present at all worship services.

Today is also the anniversary of a Vodou ceremony held by enslaved Africans in Saint-Domingue, led by Dutty Boukman. his gathering sparked a mass uprising against slavery, marking the beginning of the Haitian Revolution.

“Nat Turner & His Confederates in Conference”, engraving from Orville J. Victor’s History of American Conspiracies

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75!

People sing about ‘Ophelia’! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe7y7ByOrwQ

Lots of people… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTOC_q0NLTk

But it has to end somewhere… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko70cExuzZM

On this day in 1858, Charles Darwin published his Theory of Evolution through natural selection. His proposition that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor is now generally accepted and considered a fundamental scientific concept. In a joint presentation with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history and was honored by burial in Westminster Abbey. Darwin’s discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the unity and diversity of life.

Charles Darwin

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I believe it…

People sing about ‘Carrie Anne’… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgA4-bLcoN8

And others sing about Barbara Ann… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wvx14Qv9cg

On this day in 1953, the CIA and MI6 help to overthrow the government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran and reinstate the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Mosaddegh had been elected to the Iranian parliament in 1923 and served through a contentious 1952 election into the 17th Iranian Majlis, Before its removal from power, his administration introduced a range of social and political measures such as social security, land reforms and higher taxes including the introduction of taxation on the rent of land. His time as prime minister was marked by the clash with the British government, known as the Abadan Crisis, following the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry.

In March 1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles directed the CIA, which was headed by his younger brother Allen Dulles, to draft plans to overthrow Mosaddegh. On 4 April 1953, Dulles approved $1 million to be used “in any way that would bring about the fall of Mosaddegh”. Soon the CIA’s Tehran station started to launch a propaganda campaign against Mosaddegh. Soon afterward, according to his later published accounts, the chief of the CIA’s Near East and Africa division, Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. the grandson of US President Theodore Roosevelt, arrived in Tehran to direct it.

Soon, massive popular protests, aided by Roosevelt’s team, took place across the city and elsewhere with tribesmen at the ready to assist the coup, with anti- and pro-monarchy protesters, both being paid by Roosevelt. The protests turned increasingly violent, leaving almost 300 dead, at which point the pro-monarchy leadership, led by retired army General and former Minister of Interior in Mosaddegh’s cabinet, Fazlollah Zahedi, interceded. Pro-Shah tank regiments stormed the capital and bombarded the prime minister’s official residence.

Mosaddegh in 1951

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Lots of folks think about Gloria, including a young Van Morrison…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhYTb5J2rNc

and, of course, Laura Branigan… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNEb2k_EmMg

On this day in 1977, Steve Biko is arrested at a police roadblock under Terrorism Act No. 83 of 1967 in King William’s Town, South Africa. He later dies from injuries sustained during this arrest, bringing attention to South Africa’s apartheid policies.

was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known as the Black Consciousness Movement during the late 1960s and 1970s.

Raised in a poor Xhosa family, Biko grew up in Ginsberg township in the Eastern Cape. Strongly opposed to the apartheid system of racial segregation and white-minority rule in South Africa, Biko was frustrated that anti-apartheid groups were dominated by white liberals, rather than by the blacks who were most affected by apartheid. he became a leading figure in the creation of the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) in 1968.

By 1973, the government regarded Black Consciousness as a threat. It sought to disrupt Biko’s activities, and in March 1973 placed a banning order on him. This prevented him from leaving the King William’s Town magisterial district, prohibited him from speaking either in public or to more than one person at a time, barred his membership of political organizations, and forbade the media from quoting him.

on 18 August they were stopped at a police roadblock near Grahamstown. The security services took Biko to the Walmer police station in Port Elizabeth, where he was held naked in a cell with his legs in shackles. during the interrogation he was severely beaten by at least one of the ten security police

officers. He suffered three brain lesions that resulted in a massive brain hemorrhage on 6 September. He was the twenty-first person to die in a South African prison in twelve months, and the forty-sixth political detainee to die during interrogation since the government introduced laws permitting imprisonment without trial in 1963.

Steve Biko

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More songs with women’s name as the title: This is ‘Evangeline’ by The Band and Emmylou Harris. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqDqzGG8ba0&list=RDhqDqzGG8ba0&start_radio=1

And we all remember ‘Lola’ by the Kinks… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CzrYXcXweI