Hurricane Bret was the first of five Category 4 hurricanes in the 1999 Atlantic hurricane season and the first tropical cyclone since Hurricane Jerry in 1989 to make landfall in Texas at hurricane intensity. After forming from a tropical wave on August 18, Bret began to track northward, and on August 21 it underwent rapid intensification. It attained its peak intensity with winds of 145 mph (230 km/h) and a barometric pressure of 944 mbar (hPa; 27.88 inHg). Bret turned northwestward on August 22 and weakened to a Category 3 hurricane, making landfall on Padre Island, Texas. It caused relatively little damage in comparison to its intensity, but seven people died from the storm, four in Texas and three in Mexico. Most of the deaths were due to car accidents caused by slippery roads. Heavy rains produced by Bret peaked at 13.18 inches (335 mm) in Texas and were estimated at over 14 inches (360 mm) in Mexico. Roughly 150 people were left homeless after their homes were damaged or destroyed. (Full article...)

Snuffbox

• ... that the factory producing Capodimonte porcelain (snuffbox pictured), including forty workers and nearly five tons of material, was moved from Naples to Madrid in 1759?
• ... that Vicars Bell was the "village chronicler" of Little Gaddesden?
• ... that Stanwood, Washington, was formed by the consolidation of two rival towns in order to fund a modern sewage treatment system?
• ... that Mindy Alper, the visual artist featured in Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405, helped Mary Stuart Masterson prepare for her role as a mentally ill woman in the 1993 film Benny & Joon?
• ... that the flowers of the common sunshine conebush are pollinated by beetles?
• ... that Jenny Sabin's installation Lumen is knitted from solar active yarns that absorb light energy during the day and release it at night?
• ... that the 2018 roguelike video game Wizard of Legend received nearly 50 percent more than its funding goal in its Kickstarter campaign?
• ... that US Army Hurricane Aircat airboats could ram and sink Viet Cong boats?

Atal Bihari Vajpayee

• Former Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee (pictured) dies at the age of 93.
• American soul singer and songwriter Aretha Franklin dies at the age of 76.
• In Afghanistan, hundreds are killed as the Taliban seize most of the strategic city of Ghazni for four days.
• A portion of the Ponte Morandi motorway bridge in Genoa, Italy, collapses, killing at least 41 people.
• NASA's Parker Solar Probe is launched to study the Sun's outer corona.

August 18:

Margaret of Valois

• 1572 – French Wars of Religion: Margaret of Valois (pictured) married Huguenot King Henry of Navarre, in an attempt to reconcile Protestants and Catholics.
• 1868 – Astronomer Pierre Jules Janssen discovered helium while analysing the chromosphere of the sun during a total solar eclipse in Guntur, India.
• 1920 – The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage in America.
• 1948 – Australia won their fifth consecutive Test of the 1948 Ashes series, becoming the first Test cricket team to go undefeated in England, earning them the nickname "The Invincibles".
• 2008 – President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf resigned under impeachment pressure.

Knut Alvsson (d. 1502) · Baji Rao I (b. 1700) · Ruth Norman (b. 1900)