The month of August has been home to many historical events over the years. Here’s a look at some that helped to shape the world in August 1923:

• United States President Warren G. Harding died suddenly in San Francisco on August 2. President Harding was conversing with relatives when he passed away from what was then suspected to be a stroke but is now believed to have been heart failure. President Harding was 57 years old.

• Henry Sullivan became the first American to swim the English Channel when he completed the feat on August 6. Sullivan needed a little more than a full day to make his mark on history, swimming the channel in 27 hours and 25 minutes.

• Many businesses closed and owners went on strike in Berlin on August 9. The protest was an attempt to force German Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno from office. Opposition to Cuno hardened over the next several days, ultimately prompting him and his cabinet to resign on August 12.

• An expedition by the American Museum of Natural History to the Flaming Cliffs in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert led to the discovery of the first velociraptor fossil on August 11.

• A series of tidal waves struck the western coast of Korea on August 15. At least 346 people were killed and an additional 1,000 were considered missing after 25,000 homes were submerged in waves and flooding.

• Ada Delutuk Blackjack was rescued on August 19 after being marooned on Wrangel Island above the Arctic Circle. Blackjack, an Alaskan native hired as a cook for a Canadian expedition to claim the island for Canada, had been marooned since September 15, 1921. Blackjack was the last survivor among the five-person expedition team.

• On August 20, a train was robbed near Okemah, Oklahoma, and bandits took off with $20,000 in cash and bonds. The incident marked one of the last train robberies in the United States.

• Four-year-old child actress Peggy-Jean Montgomery signed a three-year, $1 million contract on August 26. Known as “Baby Peggy,” Montgomery would make more than 150 short films and receive millions of fan letters in the 1920s. Montgomery’s parents mismanaged her earnings and she was forced to work as an extra by the 1930s.

• “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” starring Lon Chaney premiered at New York City’s Carnegie Hall on August 30. The silent film was the most expensive Universal Pictures production up to that time.