Today In History – This Day In History Funny Events

The sack of Rome on 24 August 410 AD was undertaken by the Visigoths led by their king, Alaric. At that time, Rome was no longer the administrative capital of the Western Roman Empire, having been replaced first by Mediolanum in 286 and then by Ravenna in 402. Nevertheless, the city of Rome retained a paramount position as "the eternal city" and a spiritual center of the Empire. This was the first time in almost 800 years that Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy, and the sack was a major shock to contemporaries, friends and foes of the Empire alike.

The sacking of Rome by the Visigoths ends after three days.

Henry II was King of England from 1154 until his death in 1189. During his reign he controlled England, limited parts of Wales and Ireland, and much of France, an area that was later called the Angevin Empire, and also held power over Scotland for a time and the Duchy of Brittany.

King Henry II of England crowns his heirs, Henry the Young King and Queen Margaret, but gives them no actual authority.

The Battle of Saint-Quentin of 1557 was a decisive engagement of the Italian War of 1551–1559 between the Kingdom of France and the Spanish Empire, at Saint-Quentin in Picardy. A Habsburg Spanish force under Duke Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy defeated a French army under the command of Louis de Gonzague, and Anne de Montmorency, Duke of Montmorency.

The Battle of St. Quentin comes to an end.

Pierre Barrière was a would-be assassin of King Henry IV of France.

Pierre Barrière fails in his attempt to assassinate King Henry IV of France.

The Treaty of Nerchinsk was a peace treaty signed between the Tsardom of Russia and the Qing dynasty following Russia's defeat at the Siege of Albazin. Signed on 27 August 1689 by Songgotu on behalf of the Kangxi Emperor and Fyodor Golovin for Russian Tsars Peter I and Ivan V, it was the first formal treaty China ever signed with a Western power. To bypass translation issues and avoid misinterpretation, the authoritative version was written in Latin, with secondary translations made into Russian and Manchu. While no official Chinese text existed for another two centuries, physical border markers were inscribed in Chinese, Manchu, Russian, and Latin.

The Treaty of Nerchinsk is signed by Russia and the Qing Empire (Julian calendar).

The Battle of Long Island, also known as the Battle of Brooklyn and the Battle of Brooklyn Heights, was an action of the American Revolutionary War fought on August 27, 1776, at and near the western edge of Long Island in present-day Brooklyn. The British defeated the Continental Army and gained access to the strategically important Port of New York, which they held for the rest of the war. It was the first major battle to take place after the United States declared its independence on July 4, 1776, in Philadelphia. It was the largest battle of the Revolutionary War in terms of both troop deployment and combat.

Battle of Long Island: In what is now Brooklyn, New York, British forces under General William Howe defeat Americans under General George Washington.

The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of sweeping military conflicts resulting from the French Revolution that lasted from 1792 until 1802. They pitted France against Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and several other countries. The wars are divided into two periods: the War of the First Coalition (1792–1797) and the War of the Second Coalition (1798–1802). Initially confined to Europe, the fighting gradually assumed a global dimension. After a decade of constant warfare and aggressive diplomacy, France had conquered territories in the Italian peninsula, the Low Countries, and the Rhineland with its very large and powerful military which had been totally mobilized for war against most of Europe with mass conscription of the vast French population. French success in these conflicts ensured military occupation and the spread of revolutionary principles over much of Europe.

French Revolutionary Wars: The city of Toulon revolts against the French Republic and admits the British and Spanish fleets to seize its port, leading to the Siege of Toulon by French Revolutionary forces.

Theobald Wolfe Tone, posthumously known as Wolfe Tone, was a revolutionary exponent of Irish independence and is an iconic figure for Irish republicanism. Convinced that if his fellow Protestants feared to make common cause with the Catholic majority, the British Crown would continue to govern Ireland in the English interest, he helped form the Society of United Irishmen in 1791.

Wolfe Tone's United Irish and French forces clash with the British Army in the Battle of Castlebar, part of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, resulting in the creation of the French puppet Republic of Connacht.

The Napoleonic Wars (1803–15) were a global series of conflicts fought by a fluctuating array of European coalitions against the French First Republic (1803–04) under the First Consul followed by the First French Empire (1804–1815) under the Emperor of the French, Napoleon. The wars originated in political forces arising from the French Revolution (1789–1799) and French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) and produced a period of French domination over Continental Europe. The wars are categorised as seven conflicts, five named after the coalitions that fought Napoleon, plus two named for their respective theatres: the War of the Third Coalition, War of the Fourth Coalition, War of the Fifth Coalition, War of the Sixth Coalition, War of the Seventh Coalition, the Peninsular War, and the French invasion of Russia.

Napoleonic Wars: The French Navy defeats the British Royal Navy, preventing them from taking the harbour of Grand Port on Île de France.

Napoleon Bonaparte, later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was Emperor of the French from 18 May 1804 until his first abdication in 1814, with a brief restoration during the Hundred Days in 1815. He rose to prominence as a general during the French Revolution and led a series of military campaigns across Europe and the Middle East during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. As a statesman, he implemented numerous legal and administrative reforms in France and Europe.

French Emperor Napoleon I defeats a larger force of Austrians, Russians, and Prussians at the Battle of Dresden.

Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in the Southern Cone of southeastern South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast. Uruguay covers an area of approximately 176,215 square kilometers (68,037 sq mi). It has a population of almost 3.5 million people, of whom nearly 2 million live in the metropolitan area of its capital and largest city, Montevideo.

Uruguay is formally proclaimed independent at preliminary peace talks brokered by the United Kingdom between Brazil and Argentina during the Cisplatine War.

Mahkatêwe-meshi-kêhkêhkwa, known in English as Black Hawk, was a Sauk leader and warrior who lived in what is now the Midwestern United States. Although he had inherited an important historic sacred bundle from his father, he was not a hereditary civil chief. Black Hawk earned his status as a war chief or captain by his actions: leading raiding and war parties as a young man and then a band of Sauk warriors during the Black Hawk War of 1832.

Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk tribe of Native Americans, surrenders to U.S. authorities, ending the Black Hawk War.

Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a natural resource that appears as a yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting primarily of hydrocarbons. The term petroleum refers to both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil, as well as to petroleum products that consist of refined crude oil.

Petroleum is discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania leading to the world's first commercially successful oil well.

The 1881 Atlantic hurricane season featured a tropical cyclone that remains one of the deadliest in the history of the United States. Seven tropical storms are known to have developed, four of which strengthened into hurricanes, though none of those intensified into a major hurricane. However, in the absence of modern satellite and other remote-sensing technologies, only storms that affected populated land areas or encountered ships at sea were recorded, so the actual total could be higher. In 2004, meteorologist Christopher Landsea concluded that the official hurricane database (HURDAT) excludes zero to six tropical cyclones per year between 1851 and 1885 and zero to four per year between 1886 and 1910.

The Georgia hurricane makes landfall near Savannah, Georgia, resulting in an estimated 700 deaths.

Between 19 May and 21 October 1883, the volcanic island of Krakatoa began erupting, lasting more than five months. On 27 August, the island had its most significant eruption, which destroyed over 70% of the island and its surrounding archipelago, the island collapsing into a caldera. The eruption of 27 August had an estimated volcanic explosivity index of 6, and is one of the deadliest and most destructive volcanic events in recorded history; the third explosion of that day, that occurred at 10:02 a.m., remains the loudest-known sound in history.

Eruption of Krakatoa: Four enormous explosions destroy the island of Krakatoa and cause years of climate change.

The 1893 Sea Islands hurricane was a catastrophic and deadly Category 3 major hurricane that struck the Sea Islands near Savannah, Georgia on August 27, 1893. It was the 7th deadliest hurricane in United States history, and was one of three deadly hurricanes during the 1893 Atlantic hurricane season; the storm killed an estimated 1,000–2,000 people, mostly from storm surge that inundated the low-lying areas across the Southeastern United States in Georgia and South Carolina. One long-term consequence of the hurricane was the strengthening of Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation in the southern United States.

The Sea Islands hurricane strikes the United States near Savannah, Georgia, killing between 1,000-2,000 people.

The Anglo-Zanzibar War was a military conflict fought between the United Kingdom and the Sultanate of Zanzibar on 27 August 1896. The conflict lasted between 38 and 45 minutes, marking it as the shortest recorded war in history. The immediate cause of the war was the suspicious death of the pro-British Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini on 25 August 1896 and the subsequent succession of Sultan Khalid bin Barghash. The British authorities preferred Hamoud bin Mohammed, who was more favourable to British interests, as sultan. The agreement of 14 June 1890, instituting a British protectorate over Zanzibar, specified that a candidate for accession to the sultanate should obtain the permission of the British consul; Khalid had not fulfilled this requirement. The British considered this a casus belli and sent an ultimatum to Khalid demanding that he order his forces to stand down and leave the palace. In response, Khalid called up his palace guard and barricaded himself inside the palace.

Anglo-Zanzibar War: The shortest war in world history (09:00 to 09:45), between the United Kingdom and Zanzibar.

The Rearguard Affair of Étreux was fought at Étreux by the British Expeditionary Force during the Great Retreat on the Western Front in 1914.

Battle of Étreux: A British rearguard action by the Royal Munster Fusiliers during the Great Retreat.

The Kingdom of Romania was a constitutional monarchy that existed from 25 March [O.S. 13 March] 1881 with the crowning of prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as King Carol I, until 30 December 1947 with the abdication of King Michael I and the Romanian Parliament proclamation of the Romanian People's Republic.

The Kingdom of Romania declares war on Austria-Hungary, entering World War I as one of the Allied nations.

The Mexican Revolution was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from 20 November 1910 to 1 December 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It saw the destruction of the Federal Army, its replacement by a revolutionary army, and the transformation of Mexican culture and government. The northern Constitutionalist faction prevailed on the battlefield and drafted the present-day Constitution of Mexico, which aimed to create a strong central government. Revolutionary generals held power from 1920 to 1940. The revolutionary conflict was primarily a civil war, but foreign powers, having important economic and strategic interests in Mexico, figured in the outcome of Mexico's power struggles; the U.S. involvement was particularly high. The conflict led to the deaths of around one million people, mostly non-combatants.

Mexican Revolution: Battle of Ambos Nogales: U.S. Army forces skirmish against Mexican Carrancistas in the only battle of World War I fought on American soil.

The Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922 was fought between Greece and the Turkish National Movement during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I, between 15 May 1919 and 14 October 1922. This conflict was a part of the Turkish War of Independence.

Greco-Turkish War: The Turkish army takes the Aegean city of Afyonkarahisar from the Kingdom of Greece.

The Famous Five, also known as The Valiant Five, and initially as The Alberta Five, were five prominent Canadian suffragists who advocated for women and children: Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, Emily Murphy, and Irene Parlby. On August 27, 1927, they petitioned the federal government to refer the issue of the eligibility of women to be senator to the Supreme Court of Canada. This petition was the foundation of the Persons Case, a leading constitutional decision. Although most Canadian women had the vote in federal elections and all provinces but Quebec by 1927, the case was part of a larger drive for political equality. This was the first step towards equality for women in Canada and was the start to the first wave of feminism.

Five Canadian women file a petition to the Supreme Court of Canada, asking, "Does the word 'Persons' in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?"

The Kellogg–Briand Pact or Pact of Paris is a 1928 international agreement on peace in which signatory states promised not to use war to resolve "disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them". The pact was signed by Germany, France, and the United States on 27 August 1928, and by most other states soon after. Sponsored by France and the US, the Pact is named after its authors, United States Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and French foreign minister Aristide Briand. The pact was concluded outside the League of Nations and remains in effect.

The Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war is signed by fifteen nations. Ultimately sixty-one nations will sign it.

There have been several Bible translations into Afrikaans, a language primarily spoken in South Africa and Namibia. The South African Bible Society released full Afrikaans Bibles in 1933, 1953, 1983, and 2020. Other full translations include Die Lewende Bybel (1982), the Nuwe Wêreld-vertaling van die Heilige Skrif (2001), Die Boodskap (2002), the Nuwe Lewende Vertaling (2006), Pad van Waarheid tot die Lewe (2016), and Contemporary Afrikaans Bible (2023). In addition, several individual books were translated into Afrikaans between the 1880s and the 1920s. This was as opinion had started to change that Afrikaans had become a language in its own right separate from Dutch; prior to that, the Dutch Statenbijbel had been used instead.

The first Afrikaans Bible is introduced during a Bible Festival in Bloemfontein.

The turbojet is an airbreathing jet engine which is typically used in aircraft. It consists of a gas turbine with a propelling nozzle. The gas turbine has an air inlet which includes inlet guide vanes, a compressor, a combustion chamber, and a turbine. The compressed air from the compressor is heated by burning fuel in the combustion chamber and then allowed to expand through the turbine. The turbine exhaust is then expanded in the propelling nozzle where it is accelerated to high speed to provide thrust. Two engineers, Frank Whittle in the United Kingdom and Hans von Ohain in Germany, developed the concept independently into practical engines during the late 1930s.

First flight of the turbojet-powered Heinkel He 178, the world's first jet aircraft.

The Sarny massacre was the execution of an estimated 14,000-18,000 people, mostly Jews, in the Nazi-occupied Polish city of Sarny on August 27-28, 1942.

First day of the Sarny Massacre.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

World War II: Japanese forces evacuate New Georgia Island in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

World War II: Aerial bombardment by the Luftwaffe razes to the ground the village of Vorizia in Crete.

Calder Hall Nuclear Power Station is a former Magnox nuclear power station on the Sellafield site in Cumbria in North West England. Calder Hall was the first full-scale nuclear power station to enter operation in the World, and was the sister plant to the Chapelcross plant in Scotland. Both were commissioned and originally operated by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. The primary purpose of both plants was to produce weapons-grade plutonium for the UK's nuclear weapons programme, but they also generated electrical power for the National Grid.

The nuclear power station at Calder Hall in the United Kingdom was connected to the national power grid becoming the world's first commercial nuclear power station to generate electricity on an industrial scale.

Mariner 2, an American space probe to Venus, was the first robotic space probe to report successfully from a planetary encounter. The first successful spacecraft in the NASA Mariner program, it was a simplified version of the Block I spacecraft of the Ranger program and an exact copy of Mariner 1. The missions of the Mariner 1 and 2 spacecraft are sometimes known as the Mariner R missions. Original plans called for the probes to be launched on the Atlas-Centaur, but serious developmental problems with that vehicle forced a switch to the much smaller Agena B second stage. As such, the design of the Mariner R vehicles was greatly simplified. Far less instrumentation was carried than on the Soviet Venera probes of this period—for example, forgoing a TV camera—as the Atlas-Agena B had only half as much lift capacity as the Soviet 8K78 booster. The Mariner 2 spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral on August 27, 1962, and passed as close as 34,773 km (21,607 mi) to Venus on December 14, 1962.

The Mariner 2 unmanned space mission is launched to Venus by NASA.

The Army of the Republic of Vietnam composed the ground forces of the South Vietnamese military from its inception in 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. Its predecessor was the ground forces of the Vietnamese National Army, established on 8 December 1950, representing Vietnam to fight in the First Indochina War against the communist Viet Minh rebels. At the ARVN's peak, an estimated 1 in 9 citizens of South Vietnam were enlisted, composed of Regular Forces and the more voluntary Regional Forces and the Popular Force militias. It is estimated to have suffered 1,394,000 casualties during the Vietnam War.

South Vietnamese junta leader Nguyễn Khánh enters into a triumvirate power-sharing arrangement with rival generals Trần Thiện Khiêm and Dương Văn Minh, who had both been involved in plots to unseat Khánh.

A coup d'état, or simply a coup, is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent person or leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to power through legal means, tries to stay in power through illegal means.

An attempted coup d'état fails in the African nation of Chad. The Government of Chad accuses Egypt of playing a role in the attempt and breaks off diplomatic relations.

Portuguese Timor was a Portuguese colony on the territory of present-day Timor-Leste from 1702 until 1975. During most of this period, Portugal shared the island of Timor with the Dutch East Indies.

The Governor of Portuguese Timor abandons its capital, Dili, and flees to Atauro Island, leaving control to a rebel group.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army, officially known as the Irish Republican Army and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary force that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reunification and bring about an independent socialist republic, which would encompass all of Ireland. It was the most active republican paramilitary group during the Troubles. It argued that the all-island Irish Republic continued to exist, and it saw itself as that state's army, the sole legitimate successor to the original IRA from the Irish War of Independence. It was designated a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom and an unlawful organisation in the Republic of Ireland, both of whose authority it rejected.

A Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb kills British retired admiral Lord Mountbatten and three others while they are boating on holiday in Sligo, Republic of Ireland. Shortly after, 18 British Army soldiers are killed in an ambush near Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland.

On August 26–27, 1980, several men masquerading as photocopier deliverers planted an elaborately booby trapped bomb containing 1,200 pounds (540 kg) of dynamite at Harvey's Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada, United States. During an attempt to disarm the bomb, it exploded, causing extensive damage to the hotel but no injuries or deaths. The total cost of the damage was estimated to be around $18 million. John Birges Sr. was convicted of having made the bomb with a goal of extorting money from the casino after having lost $750,000 there. He died in prison in 1996 at age 74.

A massive bomb planted by extortionist John Birges explodes at Harvey's Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada after a failed disarming attempt by the FBI. Although the hotel is damaged, no one is injured.

A military attaché or defence attaché (DA), sometimes known as a "military diplomat", is an official responsible for military matters within a diplomatic mission, typically an embassy. They are usually high-ranking members of the armed forces who retain their commission while being accorded full diplomatic status and immunity.

Turkish military diplomat Colonel Atilla Altıkat is shot and killed in Ottawa. Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide claim to be avenging the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians in the 1915 Armenian Genocide.

Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of 923,769 square kilometres (356,669 mi2). With a population of more than 242 million, it is the most populous country in Africa, and the world's sixth-most populous country. Nigeria borders Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where its capital, Abuja, is located. The largest city in Nigeria by population is Lagos, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world and the second largest in Africa.

The Nigerian government is peacefully overthrown by Army Chief of Staff Major General Ibrahim Babangida.

The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957, aiming to foster economic integration among its member states. It was subsequently renamed the European Community (EC) upon becoming integrated into the first pillar of the newly formed European Union (EU) in 1993. In the popular language, the singular European Community was sometimes inaccurately used in the wider sense of the plural European Communities, in spite of the latter designation covering all the three constituent entities of the first pillar. The EEC was also known as the European Common Market (ECM) in the English-speaking countries, and sometimes referred to as the European Community even before it was officially renamed as such in 1993. In 2009, the EC formally ceased to exist and its institutions were directly absorbed by the EU. This made the Union the formal successor institution of the Community.

The European Community recognizes the independence of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, with an area of 33,843 km2 (13,067 sq mi) and a population of 2.38 million. Moldova is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised breakaway state of Transnistria lies across the Dniester river on the country's eastern border with Ukraine. Moldova is a parliamentary democratic republic with its capital in Chișinău, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre.

Moldova declares independence from the USSR.

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", for its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous atmosphere that is primarily carbon dioxide. At the average surface level the atmospheric pressure is a few thousandths of Earth's, atmospheric temperature ranges from −153 to 20 °C, and cosmic radiation is high. Mars retains some water, in the ground as well as thinly in the atmosphere, forming cirrus clouds, fog, frost, larger polar regions of permafrost and ice caps, but no bodies of liquid surface water. Its surface gravity is roughly a third of Earth's or double that of the Moon. Its mean diameter, 6,779 km (4,212 mi), is about half the Earth's, or twice the Moon's, and its surface area is the size of all the dry land of Earth.

Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, passing 34,646,418 miles (55,758,005 km) distant.

The six-party talks were a series of multilateral discussions between 2003 and 2007, held between six states and hosted in Beijing, aimed at finding a peaceful resolution to the security concerns as a result of the North Korean nuclear weapons program. The states involved were: China Japan North Korea South Korea Russia United States

The first six-party talks, involving South and North Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, convene to find a peaceful resolution to the security concerns of the North Korean nuclear weapons program.

Comair Flight 5191 was a scheduled United States domestic passenger flight from Lexington, Kentucky, to Atlanta, Georgia. On the morning of August 27, 2006, at around 06:07 EDT, the Bombardier CRJ100 crashed while attempting to take off from Blue Grass Airport in Fayette County, Kentucky, 4 miles west of the central business district of the city of Lexington.

Comair Flight 5191 crashes on takeoff from Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky bound for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta. Of the passengers and crew, 49 of 50 are confirmed dead in the hours following the crash.

Myanmar has been in armed conflict since 1948, when the country, then known as Burma, gained independence from the United Kingdom. The conflict has largely been ethnic-based, with ethnic armed organisations fighting Myanmar's armed forces, the Tatmadaw, for self-determination. Despite numerous ceasefires and the creation of autonomous self-administered zones in 2008, armed groups continue to call for independence, increased autonomy, democracy, or the federalisation of Myanmar. It is the world's longest ongoing civil war, spanning almost eight decades.

Internal conflict in Burma: The Burmese military junta and ethnic armies begin three days of violent clashes in the Kokang Special Region.

Hurricane Irene was a large and destructive tropical cyclone which affected much of the Caribbean and East Coast of the United States during late August 2011. The ninth named storm, first hurricane, and first major hurricane of the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season, Irene originated from a well-defined Atlantic tropical wave that began showing signs of organization east of the Lesser Antilles. Due to development of atmospheric convection and a closed center of circulation, the system was designated as Tropical Storm Irene on August 20, 2011. After intensifying, Irene made landfall in St. Croix as a strong tropical storm later that day. Early on August 21, the storm made a second landfall in Puerto Rico. While crossing the island, Irene strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane. The storm paralleled offshore of Hispaniola, continuing to slowly intensify in the process. Shortly before making four landfalls in The Bahamas, Irene peaked as a 120 mph (190 km/h) Category 3 hurricane.

Hurricane Irene strikes the United States east coast, killing 47 and causing an estimated $15.6 billion in damage.