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 1926.

• The first traffic lights in London come into operation at Piccadilly Circus on August 3.

• Magician and escape artist Harry Houdini survives being sealed in a coffin and lowered into a swimming pool at a New York City hotel on August 5. Houdini, who would die from peritonitis less than three months after the stunt, used controlled breathing to remain conscious within the coffin for 91 minutes.

• The first British Grand Prix is held at the Brooklands motor racing circuit near Surrey, England, on August 7. Frenchman Louis Wagner wins the inaugural race.

• Popular Italian film actor Rudolph Valentino dies in New York on August 23. Valentino, just 31 at the time of his death, underwent emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix eight days prior to his death but was stricken with a case of then-untreatable pleuritis while convalescing on August 21.

• Forty-four coal miners are killed after an explosion at a Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corporation mine in Clymer, Pennsylvania, on August 26.

• Dutch Levsen of the Cleveland Indians starts and wins both games of a doubleheader against the Boston Red Sox on August 28. Levsen is the last pitcher in Major League Baseball to start and win each game of a twin bill. Levsen, who won just 21 games over the course of his six-year career, also is the last pitcher to throw two nine-inning complete games on the same day.