Flavour of the month: August – rich dogs, secret marriages and the shortest war in history

Our monthly trivia round-up started with July, named after Julius Caesar – now we reach the segment of the year named after the emperor Augustus. It’s the month with the shortest war in history, the theft of the Mona Lisa, and the execution of William Wallace. You won’t believe what happened to his left leg…

• 2 August 1932 – Birth of Peter O’Toole. The actor often wore two watches. Asked why, he replied that ‘life is too short to risk wasting precious seconds glancing at the wrong wrist’.
• 3 August 1919 – Birth of Helen Viola Jackson. She would live until December 2020, making her the last surviving widow of an American Civil War veteran. As a teenager in Missouri, she had helped the elderly James Bolin with household chores, and as a way of saying thank you he offered to marry her so that she would receive a widow’s pension on his death.