Momentous dates in August

Yesterday was commemorated all around the world as the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the Great War of 1914-1918; tomorrow, August 6, is remembered as the anniversary of the day in 1945 that the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Both dates have ominous portents. August 4 1914 was the day on which events set in motion 37 days earlier, when Gavril Princip shot the arch-duke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, came to a catastrophic climax with declarations of the war that killed maybe 20 million young men, brought down empires and may yet prove to have been the beginning of the death knell of European civilization. August 6 1945 introduced the ultimate transformation of war from industrial scale annihilation of armies on battlefields to annihilation of entire bustling cities and all who live in them. It was a very small bomb, just a few kilotons; now the weapons makers have multi-megaton bombs that can annihilate entire countries, could probably destroy everything living on earth if nuclear weapon-dropping were to become epidemic. 

There have been other momentous events in other Augusts, the dog days of summer. But nothing matches Aug 4 1914 and Aug 6 1945 for sheer horror. The saving grace of both dates is that we don't celebrate either, just remember them, shudder, and go on with our lives.