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◆ On this day

August 15

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4 sourced moments from August 15 in history: The Panama Canal opened to traffic (1914); India awoke to independence at the stroke of midnight (1947); The Woodstock festival opened (1969), plus 1 more.

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4 things happened on August 15

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1971 Society & Economy · Economics

In 1971, the US dollar stopped being convertible to gold

For decades the dollar was redeemable for gold at a fixed price. One August evening, President Nixon ended that - and the modern money system was born.

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1969 Culture & Arts · Music

The Woodstock festival opened

On a muddy dairy farm in upstate New York, half a million people turned three days of music into a generation's defining gathering.

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1947 History · Modern

India awoke to independence at the stroke of midnight

At midnight on 15 August 1947 India woke to freedom, ending nearly two centuries of British rule and splitting the subcontinent in two.

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1914 Technology · Engineering

The Panama Canal opened to traffic

A 48-mile cut through the isthmus joined two oceans, and the world's shipping routes were never the same.

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