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Last of the Summer Wine is a British sitcom written by Roy Clarke and broadcast since 1973 on BBC One. The longest-running sitcom in the world, it premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse and having run for 31 series, the last episode is airing on 29 August 2010. Set and filmed in and around Holmfirth, West Yorkshire (pictured), the series centres on a trio of old men whose line-up has changed over the years, although most notably comprised Bill Owen as the scruffy and child-like Compo, Peter Sallis as deep-thinking, meek Norman Clegg and Brian Wilde as quirky war veteran Foggy. Other "third men" in the trio include Michael Bates as authoritarian snob Blamire, Michael Aldridge as eccentric inventor Seymour and Frank Thornton as former police officer Truly. Gradually, the cast has grown to include a variety of supporting characters, each contributing their own subplots to the show and often becoming unwillingly involved in the schemes of the trio. Although critics have noted a decline in the show's quality since Owen's death in 1999, Last of the Summer Wine has been shown in 25 countries, garnered large audiences for the BBC and has been praised for its positive portrayal of older people and family-friendly humour. (more...)

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August 29: Feast day for the Beheading of St. John the Baptist (Christianity)

• 1526 – Ottoman forces led by Suleiman the Magnificent (pictured) defeated and killed Louis II, the last Jagiellonian king of Hungary and Bohemia, at the Battle of Mohács.
• 1756 – As neighboring countries began conspiring against him, Frederick II of Prussia launched a preemptive invasion of Saxony, starting the Seven Years' War.
• 1842 – The Treaty of Nanking, an Unequal Treaty ending the First Opium War, was signed, forcing the Chinese Qing Dynasty to give foreign trading privileges, war reparations, control of Hong Kong Island, and other concessions to the British.
• 2003 – Two car bombs exploded outside of the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf, killing Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the spiritual leader of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, and over eighty others.
• 2005 – Storm surges of Hurricane Katrina caused multiple breaches in levees around New Orleans, flooding about 80 percent of the city and many neighboring areas for weeks.

More anniversaries: August 28 – August 29 – August 30