The king of rock and roll, Elvis Presley died on 16th August 1977 and he may well have been of Welsh descent.

*  The name Presley is related to Preseli - the mountain range in Pembrokeshire.

*  Members of Elvis's family had Welsh names, his mother was named Gladys and his dead twin, Jesse Garon Presley had a Welsh middle name.

*  His maternal grandmother Doll Mansell may have come from the famous family of Mansel from Oxwich on the Gower peninsula. 

  In August 1405, Owain Glyndŵr held a parliament at Harlech Castle.  Glyndwr had taken control of Harlech Castle in 1404 and made it his home and headquarters.

 At the parliament of 1405, the Tripartite Indenture would have been discussed, which was the plan among Glyndwr, Thomas Percy, earl of Northumberland and Edmund Mortimer to divide England and Wales into three parts. 

*  Glyndŵr was to have control Wales, and the English portions of the Welsh Marches. 

* Northumberland was to have received the north of England.

*  Edmund Mortimer was to have received southern England.  

The former Welsh Rugby Union President, Sir Tasker Watkins, was awarded the Victoria Cross for action on 16th August 1944, which saw him mount an assault on a German machine-gun post in northern France.  After the war ended he took up law as a career and rose through the legal system to become deputy lord chief justice, acting as deputy to the attorney-general in the tribunal into the 1966 Aberfan disaster.  Sir Tasker became president of the WRU in 1993, overseeing the switch from the amateur era to professionalism and the move from club to regional rugby in Wales. He stepped down on 26 September 2004. 

Former Wales rugby coach Graham Henry had Watkins' citation pinned up on the wall of the Welsh changing room before international matches.  

Today is the feast day of Saint Armel.

The period following the collapse of Roman rule , which left the Celtic Britons to fend for themselves, saw the emerging Welsh kingdoms, continually wrestling with the Anglo Saxon kingdoms of Mercia, Northumbria and Wessex to define their frontiers as well as having to deal with opportunist Irish raiders   It was against this backdrop that many Celtic Britons left Britain and settled in the "Armorican" peninsula, later to be called Brittany. It was also at this time that many holy men, later commerated as saints, jorneyed between the Celtic countries, spreading the word of Christianity.  Armel is said to have been a Breton prince, born to the wife of King Hoel of Brittany while they were living in Glamorgan in the late 5th century.  He travelled from Wales to Brittany and founded several monasteries.

Legend has it that one day, a dangerous dragon appeared and began to prowl the district where the Welshman lived, attacking the inhabitants.  Armel could no longer bear to witness the ravages of the monster, so he decided to meet the beast in its cave.  Using sacred water, he lured the dragon out, whereupon it became as meek as a lamb.  Tying a scarf  around the neck of the monster, Armel led the dragon to the top of a mountain, from where he ordered it to jump to its death. To commemorate this event, the mountain was dubbed Mont-Saint-Armel.

The memory of Saint Armel  as well as many other saints was kept alive by the pilgrimage cult that produced pilgrim badges in his honor.  The use of pilgrim badges flourished in Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries.  

Born on this day 1888 in Tremadog, Caernarfonshire

Thomas Edward Lawrence, who later became known as "Lawrence of Arabia"

Lawrence gained fame as a leader of an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire during World War One.  He had thrown himself into Arabic culture to befriend and sympathise with his Arab partners and it was this ability to identify with the Arab peoples which made him a successful military leader.