Today in History - August 19: The fashion icon with sinister connections
August 19
Legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel, the creator of the little black dress, was born in western France on August 19, 1883.
Raised in a humble household, she was sent to a Catholic orphanage at the age of 11 where she learnt to sew.
An ambitious social climber with a taste for fine fashion, Chanel exploited her romantic relationship with a French army officer and his friends to promote her fashion work.
By the 1920s she had built a fashion empire around three stores, all bearing her name.
But the most controversial part of Coco Chanel's life occurred after German troops occupied France during World War II.
Instead of fleeing the country, like many business figures did, she remained in Paris, and lived in the Ritz Hotel alongside top German officers.
Documents declassified in 2024 showed Chanel was also linked to Nazi intelligence operations.
Following the end of World War II, Chanel reestablished her fashion empire without scrutiny into her wartime life.
She died in 1971 at the age of 87.
Former American heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, right, newly released from prison, began his comeback in the ring on August 19, 1995.
Tyson, who served three years behind bars for rape, defeated Peter McNeeley by disqualification in 89 seconds at MGM Grand Gardens in Las Vegas.
The following year Tyson regained his world heavyweight title.
On August 19, 1665, a codex known as the Voynich Manuscript, written in an unknown script during the Italian Renassiance, was sent to a Jesuit scholar.
Written in a unique text that doesn't match any known language or code, for centuries it has defied all attempts of decipherment by scholars.
This figure from the manuscript shows shows two women dealing with five children in a bath.
The pioneering photographic work of French scientist and inventor Louis Daguerre on August 19, 1839, was gifted to the world by the French government.
Known as a daguerreotype, the process used an iodine-sensitised silvered plate and mercury vapour.
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