And here’s the second (this one’s actually August 26th):

Forty miles? Your eardrums would break
At five thousand, your ship would still shake
Global temperatures dropped
‘Neath a sky photoshopped
In the epic paroxysm’s wake

Event: Krakatoa begins its final, cataclysmic eruption
Year: 1883
Learn more: Krakatoa Eruption

Apologies for missing last week. I was on vacation. So we’ll have a bonus TWO entries today. Here’s the first, which should have been for August 19th:

She knew fashion impossibly well
How to look, what to wear, how to smell
The black dress’s mystique
Even tans became chic
Chalk it all up to Coco Chanel

Event: Birth of Coco Chanel
Year: 1883
Learn more: Coco Chanel

At the end, in Octavian’s grasp
She had nothing to which she could clasp
With her dynasty done
There was nowhere to run
Cleopatra then turned to the asp

Event: Cleopatra VII Philopator, last of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, dies, according to popular belief, from the bite of an asp
Year: 30 BC
Learn more: Cleopatra

On the great Union sea blockade wheel
The last stop was the Bay of Mobile
Though Tecumseh got slammed
They let ‘pedoes be damned
And the southern Gulf Coast off did seal

Event: The Battle of Mobile Bay
Year: 1864
Learn more: The Battle of Mobile Bay