📜 This Day in History
August 31
1218Al-Kamil became the fourth sultan of the Ayyubid dynasty of Egypt.- 1876Sultan Murad V of the Ottoman Empire was deposed after a reign of 93 days on grounds of mental illness.* 1888 – The body of Mary Ann Nichols, the alleged first victim of an unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, was found in Buck's Row, London.
- 1897Thomas Edison was granted a patent for the Kinetoscope, a precursor to the modern movie projector.
- 1942The Matagorda hurricane, the most intense and costliest tropical cyclone of the 1942 Atlantic hurricane season, dissipated after causing $26.5 million in damages and eight deaths.
- 1997Diana, Princess of Wales, her partner Dodi Fayed, and their driver were killed in a car crash in Paris.
- 2019A sightseeing helicopter crashed in the mountains of Skoddevarre in Alta, Norway, killing all six people on board.
