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Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1819–1861) was the husband of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. He was born in the Saxon duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld to a family connected to many of Europe's ruling monarchs. At the age of 20 he married his first cousin, Queen Victoria, with whom he had nine children. At first, Albert felt constrained by his position as consort, which did not confer any power or duties upon him. Over time he adopted many public causes, such as educational reform and the abolition of slavery, and took on the responsibilities of running the Queen's household, estates and office. He was heavily involved with the organisation of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Albert aided in the development of Britain's constitutional monarchy by persuading his wife to show less partisanship in her dealings with Parliament—although he actively disagreed with the interventionist foreign policy pursued during Lord Palmerston's tenure as Foreign Secretary. He died at the early age of 42, plunging the Queen into a deep mourning which lasted for the rest of her life. Upon Queen Victoria's death in 1901, their son, Edward VII, succeeded as the first monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, named after the ducal house to which Albert belonged. (more...)

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• Hurricane Irene causes damage to several Caribbean islands.
• Steve Jobs (pictured) steps down as chief executive officer of Apple and is succeeded by Tim Cook.
• Hundreds of thousands of people take part in protests across Chile.
• The unmanned Progress M-12M spacecraft fails to achieve orbit on a mission to resupply the International Space Station, after a malfunction of its Soyuz-U carrier rocket.
• The charges of sexual assault against former International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn are dismissed.
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August 26

• 1071 – Byzantine–Seljuk wars: Seljuk Turks led by Alp Arslan captured Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV at the Battle of Manzikert.
• 1768 – HMS Endeavour departed Plymouth, England, marking the start of the first voyage of explorer James Cook.
• 1966 – The South African Defence Force launched an attack against SWAPO guerrilla fighters at Omugulugwombashe, starting the Namibian War of Independence.
• 1970 – Betty Friedan (pictured) and the National Organization for Women organized the Women's Strike for Equality in New York City, in which 20,000 women protested the continuing lack of gender equality.
• 1977 – The National Assembly of Quebec declared French to be the only official language of Quebec.

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