Interesting events an anniversaries in the month ahead. But yet again there isn’t a lot going on this month, probably because it is holiday season. Anyway, here’s what we have …
1 August
Lammas Day which is the festival of the wheat harvest, and is the first harvest festival of the year. On this day it was customary to bring to church a loaf made from the new crop, which began to be harvested at Lammastide. It coincides with the Christian feats day of St Peter ad Vincula (St Peter in Chains). Lughnasadh (Lammas) is also one of the eight sabbats observed by Pagans and is the first of their three autumn harvest festivals, the other two being the autumn equinox (Mabon) and Samhain.
1 August
This day also marks the Accession of George I in 1714 following the death of Queen Anne. He reigned until his death in 1727 and was also Elector of Hanover from 1698 to 1727. It was during George’s reign that the powers of the monarchy diminished and Britain began its transition to the modern system of cabinet government led by a prime minister.
3 August
Friendship Day. Celebrated on the first Sunday in August, Friendship Day is a worldwide opportunity to celebrate the joys of friendship. Find out more at www.friendshipday.org.
4 to 10 August
National Allotments Week. Once again the National Allotment Society is encouraging allotment sites across England and Wales to open their gates to celebrate the enduring nature of the allotment movement and hold a party for their plot-holders and the wider community. More details at www.nsalg.org.uk/news-events-campaigns/national-allotments-week/.

13 August
Birth in 1814 of the Swedish Anders Jonas Ångström who is generally accepted to be the father of spectroscopy — study of the interaction between matter and radiated energy (light, radio waves, x-rays etc.) — on which so much of modern science and medicine is dependent.
20 August
In 1864 JAR Newlands (1837–98) produced what many consider to be the first periodic table. Although Dmitri Mendeleev is given all the credit for the periodic table, Newlands got a large part of the way to Mendeleev’s solution some five years earlier. However the Chemistry Society in Britain ridiculed Newlands’ ideas and declined to publish his papers, thus possibly denying him a prior claim.
28 August
The 1914 Battle of Heligoland bight between Britain and Germany in the SE North Sea. The battle was won by the British and restricted the movements of the German Navy.