On August 21, 1897, Ransom Eli Olds of Lansing, Michigan,
founded Olds Motor Vehicle Company, which would later
become Olds Motor Werks and then Oldsmobile.

Born in Geneva, Ohio, in 1864, Olds went to work for his
family’s machine-repair and engine-building business in
1883.

In 1896, Olds completed his first gasoline-powered vehicle,
and the following year he founded Olds Motor Vehicle
Company with financial backing from Samuel L. Smith,
who had made his fortune in lumber.

Ransom Eli Olds (1864 – 1950)

On or about August 20, 1619, “20 and odd” Angolans, kidnapped
by the Portuguese, arrived in the British colony of Virginia and 
were then bought by English colonists.

The exact date is not definitively known (a letter from the time
identified the ship’s arrival coming in "the latter part of August"),
but this date has been chosen by many to mark the arrival of the enslaved Africans in the New World—beginning two and a half
centuries of slavery in North America.

Viking 1, an unmanned U.S. planetary probe,was launched from
Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to Mars on this day in
1975.

On June 19, 1976, the spacecraft entered into orbit around Mars
and devoted the next month to imaging the Martian surface with
the purpose of finding an appropriate landing site for its lander.

The same day, the craft sent back the first close-up photographs
of the rust-colored Martian surface.

In September 1976, Viking 2—launched only three weeks after
Viking 1—entered into orbit around Mars, where it assisted Viking
1 in imaging the surface and also sent down a lander.

First "clear" image ever transmitted from the surface of Mars
– shows rocks near the Viking 1 Lander (July 20, 1976).

First color image taken by the Viking 1 lander (July 21, 1976).

On August 19, 1964, more than six months after taking the East
Coast by storm, the Fab Four travel to California to take the
stage at the Cow Palace in San Francisco for opening night of
their first-ever concert tour of North America.

On August 19, 1911, the first race was held at the Indianapolis
Motor Speedway, now the home of the world’s most famous
motor racing competition, the Indianapolis 500.

Built on farmland five miles northwest of Indianapolis, Indiana,
the speedway was started by local businessmen as a testing         
facility for Indiana’s growing automobile industry.

Ray Harroun won the race in his Harmon Wasp with an
average speed of 74.6 mph.