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August 1
The Dickin Medal was established in 1943 in the UK by Maria Dickin to honour the work of animals in war. It is a bronze medallion bearing the words "For Gallantry" and "We Also Serve" within a laurel wreath, carried on a ribbon of striped green, dark brown and pale blue. It is awarded to animals that have displayed "conspicuous gallantry or devotion to duty while serving or associated with any branch of the Armed Forces or Civil Defence Units". The award is commonly referred to as "the animals' Victoria Cross". The first recipients were three pigeons in December 1943, serving with the Royal Air Force, all of which contributed to the recovery of air crew from downed aircraft during the Second World War. The most recent animal to be honoured is Treo, a black Labrador, for his "heroic actions as an arms and explosives search dog in Afghanistan". As of August 2011, the Dickin Medal has been awarded 63 times. (Full list...)
August 8
In the aftermath of the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, the Ottoman Empire began to draw up plans for the development of a stronger Ottoman Navy. Earlier Ottoman attempts to construct battleships, such as the Abdul Kadir, had ended in failure. As a result, the Ottoman Navy Foundation was established to purchase new ships rather than building them locally. However, the fleet's inability to respond to naval threats was still evident in its defeat by the Greek Navy in the battles of Elli and Lemnos in the First Balkan War. At the start of the First World War, half of the battleships owned by the Ottoman Empire were still under construction in the UK, and were either scrapped or seized by the British in the early days of the conflict. The Ottomans turned to assistance from Germany, and it was the donation of German-built ships that paved the way for a military alliance with that country and the eventual Ottoman entry into the war. (Full list...)
August 15
Donkey Kong is a video game series created by game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. It is published by Nintendo, with entries in the series developed by Nintendo, Rare, Namco, and Paon. The series debuted in 1981 with the arcade game Donkey Kong, a sales success that brought Nintendo into the North American market. Most Donkey Kong games have either been arcade games or released for Nintendo consoles and handhelds, from the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1983 to the current generation of video game consoles. However, some of the original arcade games were ported into versions on third-party home consoles and developed by several companies. Donkey Kong is among the best-selling video game franchises, with more than 48 million games sold worldwide. Most of the games in the franchise are platform games, although the series includes genres such as racing and rhythm games. (Full list...)
August 22
Seventy-six of the longest rivers and creeks of the U.S. state of Oregon run for at least 50 miles (80 km). All of these streams originate in the United States except the longest, the Columbia, which begins in the Canadian province of British Columbia and flows 1,249 miles (2,010 km) to the sea near Astoria. The Snake River—second-longest at 1,040 miles (1,670 km)—is the only other stream of more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) to pass through Oregon; the Snake begins in Wyoming and also flows through parts of Idaho and Washington. Some of the other streams also cross the borders between Oregon and California, Nevada, Idaho, and Washington, but most flow entirely within Oregon. (Full list...)
August 29
To date, a total of 778 individual episodes of the British BBC science fiction television programme Doctor Who (TARDIS pictured) have been broadcast, encompassing 218 stories and including one television movie. The show's high episode count resulted in Doctor Who holding the world record for the highest number of episodes for a science fiction programme. For comparison, the Guinness World Record holder for the highest number of consecutive episodes, Stargate SG-1, aired 214 episodes. Each story in the original version (1963–1989) is a multi-episode serial, with an episode usually lasting 25 minutes. During the early series of the programme, most serials were linked together and one typically would lead directly into the next. Beginning with the 2005 revival, the production team abandoned the traditional serial format for a largely self-contained episodic format with occasional multi-part stories and loose story arcs. The new episodes usually are 45 minutes long. (Full list...)