August 1
1859 - Homestead land was first sold in Nebraska City.
August 2
1985 - Five and a half inches of rain fell at Kimball, putting a campground under water.
August 3
1969 - Still spry of heart and mind at 88, John G. Neihardt, Nebraska’s poet laureate, came home to Bancroft, a village he once wrote of as a poet’s town.
August 4
1904 - The cornerstone was laid in Kimball for Fraternal Hall, now the Plains Historical Society Museum.
August 5
1873 - A war party of Sioux Indians routed a group of Pawnee Indians on a buffalo hunt near present-day Trenton. The fight, known as the Battle of Massacre Canyon, left 60 to 75 Pawnees dead and more than 100 wounded or captured.
August 6
1867 - A group of Cheyenne Indians led by Chief Turkey Leg set up a barricade on railroad tracks near Lexington. Two trains smashed into the barricade and derailed. The Indians attacked and killed several people before troops ran them off.
August 7
1864 - Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians attacked settlers and travelers across much of Nebraska. One of the worst attacks during the uprising was at Plum Creek near Lexington. Oglala Sioux attacked a wagon train on the Oregon Trail, killing 11 people.
August 8
1859 - The first homestead land was sold at Brownville.
1961 - Two men robbed a branch of the Westside Bank of Omaha of $71,000 and held the bank manager and his wife hostage overnight.
1970 - Nine people were killed in a car wreck in Grand Island.
1976 - A Sunday school bus collided with a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train in Stratton, killing nine people.
August 9
1881 - Fire roared through Pawnee City, nearly destroying the town.
1921 - Former U.S. Sen. Jim Exon, D-Neb., was born at Geddes, S.D.
August 10
1979 - The State Patrol blocked off traffic on Interstate 80 near Kearney’s Elm Creek exchange as a Rockford, Ill., pilot left Nebraska the same way he arrived when he was forced to land two weeks earlier - via the highway.
August 11
1859 - By this date, 128 steamboats had arrived at Omaha-Council Bluffs during the Colorado gold rush.
August 12
1877 - The city of Omaha issued permit No. 1336 to the New York Life Insurance Co. to erect a 12-story building, now known as the Omaha Building.
1982 - Actor Henry Fonda, who was born in Grand Island, died in Los Angeles.
August 13
1720 - Indians decimated a Spanish expedition traveling in what became Nebraska.
1859 - Lawyer Abe Lincoln of Illinois, who as president would choose Omaha as the eastern terminus of the drive to complete the first transcontinental railroad, gazed at the young city from a bluff on the Iowa side of the Missouri River.
August 14
1867 - A commission of state officials charged with finding a site for the capitol announced its choice of land in Lincoln.
August 15
1969 - The Interstate Commerce Commission criticized the Burlington Railroad for halting a train at Hemingford and ordering passengers to continue to their destination on a chartered bus.
August 16
1955 - About 200 inmates rioted at the state penitentiary in Lincoln, setting fire to building and doing more than $100,000 in damage. National Guard troops quelled the disturbance.
August 17
1864 - Troops drove back Indians in the Battle of the Little Blue in southeast Nebraska, ending a major Indian uprising that summer.
1950 - The Superior-Cortland diversion dam was dedicated.
August 18
1983 - Temperatures across Nebraska soared past 100 for a third day with highs reaching 107 at Grand Island, 103 at Lincoln and 101 at North Platte.
August 19
1804 - Sgt. Charles Floyd died in Nebraska on the Lewis and Clark expedition. He was the only person to die during the expedition.
August 20
1875 - Cattleman Tom Lonergan received the first homestead patent in Ogallala.
1953 - Karen Talbot, 13, disappeared while walking home from a movie in Rushville. Seven weeks later, Rushville High School student Duane McLain confessed to killing her after she refused his attempts to kiss her.
August 21
1873 - After drought and a grasshopper plague had afflicted the state, Gov. Robert Furnas issued a statement saying crops were not failing.
August 22
1865 - Gen. S.R. Curtis left a cannon at the fortified O.K. Store in Grand Island, where settlers congregated to discourage Indian attacks.
August 23
1983 - The Henry Doorly Zoo received a tiger from Moscow, but not the female Siberian tiger promised. Instead, the Omaha zoo received a male Siberian tiger that had been intended for the Bronx Zoo in New York.
August 24
1804 - The Lewis and Clark expedition came upon a Missouri River bluff that appeared to be on fire.
August 25
1967 - Reacting to a Chicago plan, Charles A. Peters, president of the Omaha Board of Education, called transportation of children from their neighborhood schools a “false approach” to improving education in poverty areas.
August 26
1864 - Settlers in the Elkhorn River Valley, fearing an Indian attack that never materialized, headed to Omaha for safety.
1881 - Osceola incorporated.
August 27
1943 - Former U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., was born in Lincoln.
August 28
1952 - Nebraska state government expenditures were running along at the record-breaking clip of $90 million a year, according to the tax commissioner’s monthly report.
August 29
1854 - Richard Brown arrived at the site of the town that would later bear his name, Brownville.
1949 - WOW-TV began regular operation as the first television station in the state.
August 30
1873 - Hitchcock County was organized.
August 31
1890 - Gov. John M. Thayer dedicated the Sugar Palace in Grand Island, a building made and decorated in large part with sugar beets.
1949 - KMTV in Omaha began regular broadcasts, signing on just two days after WOW became the state’s first TV station.
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