Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/August
Selected anniversaries / On this day archive
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2024 day arrangement | ||||||
August 1: Lughnasadh in the Northern Hemisphere; Buwan ng Wika begins in the Philippines; PLA Day in China (1927)
Joseph Priestley
- 30 BC – War of Actium: Octavian defeated the forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Alexandria, establishing Roman Egypt.
- 902 – Arab–Byzantine wars: Led by Ibrahim II of Ifriqiya, Aghlabid forces captured the Byzantine stronghold of Taormina, concluding the Muslim conquest of Sicily.
- 1774 – British scientist Joseph Priestley (pictured) liberated oxygen gas, corroborating the discovery of the element by the German-Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele.
- 1892 – Jef Denyn hosted the world's first carillon concert at St. Rumbold's Cathedral in Mechelen, Belgium.
- 1911 – Harriet Quimby became the first woman to earn an Aero Club of America aviator certificate.
- Elizabeth Randles (b. 1800)
- Maria Mitchell (b. 1818)
- Lydia Litvyak (d. 1943)
- Abdalqadir as-Sufi (d. 2021)
August 2: Roma Holocaust Memorial Day
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Krishna Lal Adhikari
- 461 – Unpopular among the Senate aristocracy for his reforming efforts, Roman emperor Majorian was deposed by Ricimer and executed five days later.
- 1100 – While on a hunting trip in the New Forest, King William II of England was killed by an arrow through the lung loosed by one of his own men.
- 1790 – The first United States census was officially completed, with the nation's residential population enumerated to be 3,929,214.
- 1920 – Nepalese author Krishna Lal Adhikari (pictured) was sentenced to nine years in prison for publishing a book about the cultivation of corn alleged to contain attacks on the ruling dynasty.
- 1973 – A flash fire killed 50 people at a leisure centre in Douglas, Isle of Man.
- Pope Severinus (d. 640)
- Harriet Arbuthnot (d. 1834)
- Bertha Lutz (b. 1894)
- Simone Manuel (b. 1996)
Jesse Owens in the long jump at the 1936 Olympics
- 1347 – Hundred Years' War: The French town of Calais capitulated to English forces after an eleven-month siege, ending the Crécy campaign.
- 1903 – Macedonian rebels in Kruševo proclaimed a republic, which existed for ten days before Ottoman forces destroyed the town.
- 1936 – African-American athlete Jesse Owens won the first of his four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics, dashing Nazi leaders' hopes of Aryan domination at the games.
- 1971 – Fighting Dinosaurs, a fossil specimen featuring a Velociraptor and a Protoceratops in combat, was unearthed in the Djadochta Formation of Mongolia.
- 1997 – The Sky Tower, then the tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere at 328 m (1,076 ft), opened in Auckland, New Zealand.
- Herbert Armitage James (b. 1844)
- Tony Bennett (b. 1926)
- Frumka Płotnicka (d. 1943)
- Alexander Mair (d. 1969)
Glassell's black marlin
- 1704 – War of the Spanish Succession: A combined Anglo-Dutch fleet under the command of George Rooke and allied with Archduke Charles captured Gibraltar from Spain.
- 1914 – World War I: Adhering to the terms of the Treaty of London, the United Kingdom declared war on Germany in response to the latter's invasion of Belgium.
- 1953 – Alfred C. Glassell Jr. caught a black marlin weighing 1,560 lb (710 kg) (pictured) off the coast of Peru, setting the record for the largest bony fish caught by hand.
- 1997 – French supercentenarian Jeanne Calment died at the age of 122 years, 164 days, with the longest confirmed human lifespan in history.
- 2014 – Julieka Ivanna Dhu, an Aboriginal Australian woman, died in police custody after her deteriorating condition was mocked and ignored.
- John Venn (b. 1834)
- Joseph Calleia (b. 1897)
- Maurice Richard (b. 1921)
- Jessica Mauboy (b. 1989)
August 5: Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day in Croatia (1995)
Henry I of England
- 1100 – Henry I (pictured) was crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey.
- 1716 – Austro-Turkish War: The Ottoman army were defeated in their attempt to capture the Habsburgs-controlled Petrovaradin Fortress despite having double the number of soldiers.
- 1816 – Sir John Barrow, secretary at the Admiralty, rejected a proposal to use Francis Ronalds's electrical telegraph, deeming it "wholly unnecessary".
- 1888 – Bertha Benz made the first long-distance automobile trip, driving 106 km (66 mi) from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany, in a Benz Patent-Motorwagen.
- 1949 – An earthquake registering 6.4 Ms struck near Ambato, Ecuador, killing 5,050 people.
- 1984 – A Biman Bangladesh Airlines aircraft crashed while attempting to land in Dhaka, killing 49 people in the deadliest aviation accident in Bangladeshi history.
- 2012 – An American white supremacist carried out a mass shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, killing six people and wounding four others.
- Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe (d. 1799)
- Tom Thomson (b. 1877)
- Pete Burns (b. 1959)
- Eddie Nolan (b. 1988)
Street fighting during the Battle of Saint-Malo
- 686 – Second Fitna: Pro-Alid forces defeated the Umayyad Caliphate in the Battle of Khazir, allowing them to take control of Mosul in present-day Iraq.
- 1623 – After the death of Gregory XV, a papal conclave in Rome elected Maffeo Barberini as Pope Urban VIII.
- 1944 – World War II: Allied forces attacked German fortifications at Saint-Malo, France, beginning the Battle of Saint-Malo (pictured).
- 1979 – An earthquake struck along the Calaveras Fault near Coyote Lake, California, injuring sixteen people.
- 1997 – Korean Air Flight 801 crashed into a hill on approach to Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport in Guam, killing 228 of the 254 people aboard.
- 2011 – A series of riots broke out in several London boroughs and in cities and towns across England in response to the shooting of Mark Duggan by Metropolitan Police officers.
- Ludwig Ross (d. 1859)
- George Kenney (b. 1889)
- Lucille Ball (b. 1911)
- Edsger W. Dijkstra (d. 2002)
August 7: Assyrian Martyrs Day (1933)
Harvard Mark I input/output and control
- 1744 – Prussia declared its intervention in the War of the Austrian Succession on behalf of Charles VII, beginning the Second Silesian War.
- 1909 – Fifty-nine days after leaving New York City with three passengers, Alice Huyler Ramsey arrived in San Francisco to become the first woman to drive an automobile across the contiguous United States.
- 1944 – IBM presented the first program-controlled calculator to Harvard University, after which it became known as the Mark I (pictured).
- 1998 – Car bombs exploded simultaneously at the American embassies in the East African capital cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, killing more than 200 people and injuring more than 4,000 others.
- Hugh Foliot (d. 1234)
- Joseph Marie Jacquard (d. 1834)
- Sidney Crosby (b. 1987)
- Jane Withers (d. 2021)
LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin
- 1264 – Reconquista: In the early stages of the Mudéjar revolt, Muslim rebels captured the Alcázar of Jerez de la Frontera in present-day Spain, holding it for about two months.
- 1919 – The Third Anglo-Afghan War ended with the United Kingdom signing a treaty to recognise the independence of the Emirate of Afghanistan.
- 1929 – The German airship Graf Zeppelin (pictured) departed Lakehurst, New Jersey, on a flight to circumnavigate the world.
- 2009 – Nine people died when a tour helicopter and a small private airplane collided over the Hudson River in Hoboken, New Jersey.
- 2014 – The World Health Organization declared the Western African Ebola epidemic, which began in December 2013, to be a public health emergency of international concern.
- Christoph Ludwig Agricola (d. 1724)
- Esther Hobart Morris (b. 1814)
- Ernest Lawrence (b. 1901)
- Elisabeth Abegg (d. 1974)
August 9: International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples; National Women's Day in South Africa (1956)
First Smokey Bear poster
- 1821 – The statue of A'a from Rurutu was presented to members of the London Missionary Society on the south Pacific island of Ra'iatea.
- 1934 – The Blue Lotus, the fifth volume of The Adventures of Tintin by the Belgian cartoonist Hergé and noted for its emphasis on countering negative misconceptions of Chinese people, began serialisation.
- 1944 – The United States Forest Service authorized the use of Smokey Bear (pictured) as its mascot to replace Bambi.
- 1974 – On the verge of an impeachment and removal from office amid the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon became the first president of the United States to resign.
- 2014 – Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African-American man, was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, resulting in widespread protests and unrest.
- Stephen of Anjou (d. 1354)
- Ernst Haeckel (d. 1919)
- Brett Hull (b. 1964)
- Gay van der Meer (d. 2014)
August 10: Qixi Festival in China (2024)
Painting of the insurrection of 10 August 1792
- 1792 – French Revolution: Insurrectionists in Paris stormed the Tuileries Palace (depicted), effectively ending the French monarchy until it was restored in 1814.
- 1864 – José Antônio Saraiva announced that the Brazilian military would exact reprisals after Uruguay's governing Blanco Party refused Brazil's demands, beginning the Uruguayan War.
- 1953 – First Indochina War: The French Union withdrew its forces from Operation Camargue against the Việt Minh in central modern-day Vietnam.
- 2019 – Having already caused severe flooding in the Philippines, Typhoon Lekima made landfall in Zhejiang, China, killing 45 people in the province.
- William Lowndes Yancey (b. 1814)
- Adah Isaacs Menken (d. 1868)
- Marie-Claire Alain (b. 1926)
- Jennifer Paterson (d. 1999)
- 1309 – Reconquista: Aragonese forces led by King James II landed on the coast of Almería, beginning an ultimately unsuccessful siege of the city, then held by the Emirate of Granada.
- 1786 – Francis Light founded George Town (city hall pictured), the first British settlement in Southeast Asia and the present-day capital of the Malaysian state of Penang.
- 1979 – Two Aeroflot passenger jets collided in mid-air near Dniprodzerzhynsk in the Ukrainian SSR, killing all 178 people on both aircraft.
- 1999 – Ken Levine's System Shock 2 was released to mediocre sales, but later received critical acclaim and influenced subsequent first-person shooter game design.
- 2012 – At least 306 people were killed and 3,000 others injured in a pair of earthquakes near Tabriz, Iran.
- John Hunyadi (d. 1456)
- William W. Chapman (b. 1808)
- Kaname Harada (b. 1916)
- Clare Nott (b. 1986)
Quagga mare at London Zoo
- 1834 – A race riot in Philadelphia destroyed African-American businesses and killed two people.
- 1883 – The last known quagga (example pictured), a subspecies of the plains zebra, died at Natura Artis Magistra, a zoo in Amsterdam.
- 1914 – World War I: Belgian troops won a victory at the Battle of Halen, but were ultimately unable to stop the German invasion of Belgium.
- 1944 – World War II: In Sant'Anna di Stazzema, Italy, the Waffen-SS and the Brigate Nere murdered about 560 local villagers and refugees and burned their bodies.
- Archduchess Isabella Clara of Austria (b. 1629)
- John C. Young (b. 1803)
- Carlos Mesa (b. 1953)
- Ladi Kwali (d. 1984)
Damage caused by Hurricane Charley
- 1704 – War of the Spanish Succession: The Duke of Marlborough led Allied forces to a crucial victory at the Battle of Blenheim.
- 1724 – Bach led the Thomanerchor in Leipzig in the first performance of the chorale cantata, Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott, BWV 101.
- 1999 – The Act on National Flag and Anthem was adopted, formally establishing the Hinomaru and "Kimigayo" as the Japanese national flag and anthem, respectively.
- 2004 – Merely 22 hours after Tropical Storm Bonnie struck the U.S. state of Florida, Hurricane Charley inflicted further damage to the region (example pictured).
- Jules Massenet (d. 1912)
- Bobby Clarke (b. 1949)
- Ida McNeil (d. 1974)
- Tigran Petrosian (d. 1984)
August 14: Independence Day in Pakistan (1947)
Roosevelt and Churchill
- 1264 – War of Saint Sabas: A Genoese fleet captured or sank most of the ships of a Venetian trade convoy off the Albanian coast.
- 1816 – The United Kingdom formally annexes the Tristan da Cunha archipelago, administering the islands from the Cape Colony in South Africa.
- 1941 – After a secret meeting in Newfoundland, British prime minister Winston Churchill and U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt (both pictured) issued the Atlantic Charter, establishing a vision for a post–World War II world.
- 2007 – Four coordinated suicide bomb attacks detonated in the Yazidi communities of Qahtaniya and Jazeera, Iraq, killing a 796 people and wounding 1,562 others.
- 2021 – A magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck in Haiti , killing at least 2,248 people and $1.5 billion in damages and economic loss.
- Qian Hongzuo (b. 928)
- Anders Bure (b. 1571)
- Bobby Eaton (b. 1958)
- Magic Johnson (b. 1959)
August 15: Independence Day in India (1947); National Liberation Day of Korea (1945)
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Depiction of Peter, King of Hungary
- 718 – Forces of the Umayyad Caliphate abandoned their year-long siege of Constantinople, ending the Umayyad goal of conquering the Byzantine Empire.
- 1038 – Upon the death of his uncle Stephen I, Peter (depicted) became the second king of Hungary.
- 1909 – A military coup against the government of Dimitrios Rallis began in the neighbourhood of Goudi in Athens, Greece.
- 1944 – World War II: Allied forces began their invasion of southern France.
- 1998 – The Troubles: A car bomb attack carried out by the Real Irish Republican Army killed 29 people and injured approximately 220 others in Omagh, Northern Ireland.
- Nikephoros Phokas Barytrachelos (d. 1022)
- Charles Comiskey (b. 1859)
- Bernard Fanning (b. 1969)
- Hanna Greally (d. 1987)
Skookum Jim Mason
- 1513 – War of the League of Cambrai: English and Imperial forces defeated French cavalry, forcing them to retreat.
- 1896 – A group including George Carmack and Skookum Jim Mason (pictured) discovered gold near Dawson City, Canada, setting off the Klondike Gold Rush.
- 1906 – An earthquake registering approximately 8.2 Mw struck Valparaíso, Chile, killing 3,882 people.
- 1946 – Widespread riots between Hindus and Muslims took place in Calcutta following the All-India Muslim League's call for an independent Pakistan.
- 2009 – At the World Championships in Athletics in Berlin, Usain Bolt ran the 100 metres in 9.58 seconds, breaking his own record set a year earlier.
- Marianos Argyros (d. 963)
- Elsie Inglis (b. 1864)
- Madonna (b. 1958)
- Abu Nidal (d. 2002)
Roosevelt and Churchill in Quebec, with Canadian prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King
- 1676 – Scanian War: Swedish forces defeated Danish troops at the Battle of Halmstad.
- 1915 – A category 4 hurricane made landfall in Galveston, Texas, leaving at least 275 people dead and causing $50 million in damage.
- 1943 – Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt met in a highly secret military conference (pictured) held in Quebec City.
- 1945 – Animal Farm, George Orwell's satirical allegory of Soviet totalitarianism, was first published.
- 1959 – American musician Miles Davis released Kind of Blue, which became one of the best-selling and most critically acclaimed jazz recordings of all time.
- Li Shouzhen (d. 949)
- Katharina von Zimmern (d. 1547)
- Korrie Layun Rampan (b. 1953)
- Saraya Bevis (b. 1992)
August 18: Ghost Festival in China (2024)
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White's discovery of the abandoned Roanoke Colony
- 1590 – John White, governor of the Roanoke Colony, the first English settlement in North America (located in present-day North Carolina), returned after a three-year absence to find it deserted (depicted).
- 1877 – American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered Phobos, the larger of Mars's two moons, six days after discovering Deimos, the smaller one.
- 1919 – Russian Civil War: British motor torpedo boats raided the Bolshevik Baltic Fleet's home base of Kronstadt, sinking a depot ship and damaging a battleship.
- 1920 – The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage in the country.
- 1964 – East German Communist Party member Hildegard Trabant was killed while attempting to cross the Berlin Wall.
- Olaf I of Denmark (d. 1095)
- Maria Ulfah Santoso (b. 1911)
- Learned Hand (d. 1961)
- Jack Hobbs (b. 1988)
Painting of the Battle of Lagos
- 1759 – Seven Years' War: Having damaged several French vessels, British ships pursued the remainder of the fleet to Lagos, Portugal, and continued the battle there (depicted) in violation of Portuguese neutrality.
- 1897 – The Bersey Electric Cab entered service as the first electric taxi in London.
- 1950 – The 766th Independent Infantry Regiment of North Korea was disbanded after fighting for less than two months in the Korean War.
- 2003 – A Hamas suicide bomber killed 23 people and wounded more than 130 others, including many Orthodox Jewish children, on a crowded public bus in Shmuel HaNavi, Jerusalem.
- Abu Yazid (d. 947)
- Gene Roddenberry (b. 1921)
- Henry Wood (d. 1944)
- Missy Higgins (b. 1983)
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Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory
- 1707 – The first Siege of Pensacola came to an end with the British and Creek abandoning their attempt to capture Pensacola in Spanish Florida.
- 1910 – Hurricane-force winds combined hundreds of small fires in the U.S. states of Washington and Idaho into the Devil's Broom fire, which burned about 4,700 square miles (12,100 km²), the largest fire in recorded U.S. history.
- 1920 – The American Professional Football Association, a predecessor of the National Football League, was founded.
- 1998 – The Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory (pictured) in Sudan was destroyed by a missile attack launched by the United States in retaliation for the August 7 U.S. embassy bombings.
- 2008 – Spanair Flight 5022 crashed just after take-off from Madrid's Barajas Airport, killing 154 people.
- Jeremi Wiśniowiecki (d. 1651)
- Phil Lynott (b. 1949)
- Andrew Garfield (b. 1983)
- Narendra Dabholkar (d. 2013)
Rocket launcher from the Ghouta chemical attack
- 1716 – Seventh Ottoman–Venetian War: Ottoman forces suddenly abandoned their siege of Corfu, allowing the Republic of Venice to preserve its rule over the Ionian Islands.
- 1945 – American physicist Harry Daghlian accidentally dropped a tungsten carbide brick onto a plutonium bomb core, exposing himself to neutron radiation and later becoming the first Manhattan Project fatality due to a criticality accident.
- 1971 – Six people were killed during an escape attempt and riot at San Quentin State Prison in California; the subsequent trial of six inmates was the longest in state history at the time.
- 1986 – A limnic eruption of Lake Nyos in Cameroon released a cloud of carbon dioxide, suffocating 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock.
- 2013 – Syrian civil war: Areas controlled by the Syrian opposition in Ghouta, Damascus, were attacked by rockets (launcher pictured) containing sarin, killing at least 281 people.
- Juan de Tassis, 2nd Count of Villamediana (d. 1622)
- Emily Tinne (b. 1886)
- Emma Mashinini (b. 1929)
- Frederick Seguier Drake (d. 1974)
August 22: Madras Day in Chennai, India (1639)
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Photograph of famine in Calcutta published in The Statesman
- 1639 – The Vijayanagara Empire leased a small strip of land in present-day Chennai, the capital of the present-day Indian state of Tamil Nadu, to the East India Company.
- 1642 – King Charles I raised the royal standard at Nottingham, marking the beginning of the First English Civil War.
- 1914 – First World War: A squadron of the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards attacked a German scout party, the first engagement of British forces on the Western Front.
- 1943 – Ian Stephens, editor of The Statesman, defied British censorship to publish pictures of death and misery (example pictured) on Calcutta's streets, informing the world of the Bengal famine of 1943.
- 1984 – The constitution of Singapore was amended to apportion seats to defeated opposition candidates in Parliament, which had hitherto entirely comprised members of the People's Action Party.
- Claude Debussy (b. 1862)
- George Herriman (b. 1880)
- Alexandros Kontoulis (d. 1933)
- Birger Nerman (d. 1971)
Proclamation of Rebellion
- 1775 – King George III issued a proclamation (copy pictured) that declared elements of the American colonies of Great Britain to be in a state of "open and avowed rebellion".
- 1873 – The Albert Bridge, spanning the River Thames in London, opened to traffic.
- 1933 – The Chesapeake–Potomac hurricane made landfall in the Outer Banks of North Carolina and went on to cause at least 47 deaths in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region.
- 1943 – Second World War: A decisive Soviet victory against German forces at the Battle of Kursk gave the Red Army the strategic initiative for the rest of the war.
- 1954 – The Cruise of the Kings, a royal cruise organised by the Queen Consort of Greece, Frederica of Hanover, departs from Marseille, France.
- Radagaisus (d. 406)
- Evangelos Zappas (b. 1800)
- Denny Bautista (b. 1980)
- James White (d. 1999)
August 24: Feast day of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle (Western Christianity); Independence Day in Ukraine (1991)
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Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.
- 49 BC – Caesar's Civil War: Forces loyal to Julius Caesar led by Gaius Scribonius Curio were defeated by Pompeian Republicans under Publius Attius Varus and King Juba I of Numidia.
- 1643 – A Dutch expedition arrived at the mouth of the Valdivia River, in present-day Chile, to establish a new colony in the ruins of the abandoned Spanish settlement of Valdivia.
- 1662 – The 1662 Book of Common Prayer was legally enforced as the liturgy of the Church of England, precipitating the Great Ejection of Dissenter ministers from their benefices.
- 1963 – Buddhist crisis: The U.S. State Department ordered Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (pictured) to encourage South Vietnamese Army officers to oust Ngo Dinh Diem if he did not willingly remove Ngo Dinh Nhu from his unofficial position of power.
- 2006 – The International Astronomical Union passed a resolution redefining the term planet and classifying Pluto as a dwarf planet.
- Zhang Ye (d. 948)
- Magnus Barefoot (d. 1103)
- Lavinia Fontana (bapt. 1552)
- Anna Lee Fisher (b. 1949)
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Aaliyah
- 1270 – Philip III became King of France following the death of his father Louis IX during the Eighth Crusade.
- 1537 – The Honourable Artillery Company, now the oldest surviving regiment in the British Army, was granted a royal charter by Henry VIII.
- 1875 – Matthew Webb became the first person to swim across the English Channel, doing so in approximately 21 hours 40 minutes.
- 2001 – American singer Aaliyah (pictured) and several members of her record company were killed when their overloaded aircraft crashed shortly after taking off from Marsh Harbour Airport in the Bahamas.
- 2012 – The NASA space probe Voyager 1 became the first man-made object to enter interstellar space.
- Gratian (d. 383)
- John Neal (b. 1793)
- Zsuzsa Körmöczy (b. 1924)
- Samantha Smith (d. 1985)
August 26: Heroes' Day in Namibia; Women's Equality Day in the United States
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
- 1071 – Byzantine–Seljuk wars: Seljuk Turks led by Alp Arslan captured Byzantine emperor Romanos IV at the Battle of Manzikert.
- 1789 – French Revolution: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (pictured), defining a set of individual and collective rights of the people, was approved by the National Constituent Assembly.
- 1940 – The 1940 New England hurricane formed over the Atlantic Ocean; it would go on to cause widespread damage despite never making landfall in the United States.
- 1968 – The Beatles released "Hey Jude", which became the then-longest single to top the UK charts.
- 1980 – A bomb was planted at Harvey's Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada, which the FBI later described as the most complex improvised explosive device ever created.
- Arnold Fothergill (b. 1854)
- Zona Gale (b. 1874)
- Sophia Parnok (d. 1933)
- Reginald Judson (d. 1972)
August 27: Independence Day in Moldova (1991)
Destroyed buildings after the attack in the Anglo-Zanzibar War
- 410 – The sacking of Rome by the Visigoths ended after three days.
- 1896 – In the shortest recorded war in history (pictured), the Sultanate of Zanzibar surrendered to the United Kingdom after less than an hour of conflict.
- 1955 – The first edition of the Guinness Book of Records was published.
- 1964 – South Vietnamese junta leader Nguyễn Khánh entered into a triumvirate power-sharing arrangement with rival generals Trần Thiện Khiêm and Dương Văn Minh, both of whom had been involved in plots to unseat Khánh.
- 2003 – The planet Mars made its closest approach to Earth in almost 60,000 years.
- Henry Edwards (b. 1827)
- Rufus Wilmot Griswold (d. 1857)
- Don Bradman (b. 1908)
- Ieva Simonaitytė (d. 1978)
Ryugyong Hotel
- 1619 – Ferdinand II, King of Bohemia and Hungary, was unanimously elected Holy Roman Emperor.
- 1789 – William Herschel discovered Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, during the first use of his new telescope which was then the largest in the world.
- 1909 – The 1909 Monterrey hurricane dissipated; one of the deadliest Atlantic tropical cyclones on record, it killed an estimated 4,000 people throughout Mexico.
- 1963 – American civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the speech "I Have a Dream" during the March on Washington, calling for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States.
- 1987 – Construction began on the Ryugyong Hotel (pictured) in Pyongyang, the tallest building in North Korea.
- Emperor Go-Reizei (b. 1025)
- Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine (d. 1793)
- C. Doris Hellman (b. 1910)
- Sora Amamiya (b. 1993)
August 29: Feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist (Catholicism, Anglicanism)
Michael Faraday
- 1350 – Hundred Years' War: Led by King Edward III, a fleet of 50 English ships captured at least 14 Castilian vessels and sank several more at the Battle of Winchelsea.
- 1786 – Farmers in western Massachusetts angered by high tax burdens and disfranchisement began an armed uprising led by Daniel Shays against the U.S. federal government.
- 1831 – Michael Faraday (pictured) first experimentally demonstrated electromagnetic induction, leading to the formulation of the law of induction named after him.
- 1960 – Air France Flight 343 crashed while attempting to land at Yoff Airport, Dakar, killing all 63 occupants.
- 2016 – Chen Quanguo became the Chinese Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang, later overseeing the creation of the Xinjiang internment camps.
- Abu Taghlib (d. 979)
- Harriet Leveson-Gower, Countess Granville (b. 1785)
- Orval Grove (b. 1919)
- Kazi Nazrul Islam (d. 1976)
August 30: Victory Day in Turkey (1922)
Guru Ram Das
- AD 70 – First Jewish–Roman War: Roman forces led by Titus set fire to the Second Temple during the Siege of Jerusalem.
- 1574 – Guru Ram Das (pictured) became the fourth of the Sikh gurus, the spiritual masters of Sikhism.
- 1594 – James VI of Scotland held a masque at the baptism of Prince Henry, his first child.
- 1959 – South Vietnamese opposition figure Phan Quang Đán was elected to the National Assembly, despite soldiers being bussed in to vote multiple times for President Ngô Đình Diệm's candidate.
- 2007 – A heavy bomber plane that had been unintentionally loaded with nuclear missiles transported them from North Dakota to Louisiana before they were recognized.
- Abishabis (d. 1843)
- Frieda Fraser (b. 1899)
- Seamus Heaney (d. 2013)
August 31: Independence Day in Malaysia (1957); Romanian Language Day in Moldova and Romania
Cartoon depicting Jack the Ripper as a phantom stalking Whitechapel
- 1218 – Al-Kamil became the fourth sultan of the Ayyubid dynasty of Egypt.
- 1888 – The body of Mary Ann Nichols, the alleged first victim of an unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper (depicted), was found in Buck's Row, London.
- 1942 – The Matagorda hurricane, the most intense and costliest tropical cyclone of the 1942 Atlantic hurricane season, dissipated after causing $26.5 million in damages and eight deaths.
- 1969 – On the final day of the Isle of Wight Festival 1969, an event attended by approximately 150,000 people over three days, Bob Dylan appeared in his first gig in three years.
- 2019 – A sightseeing helicopter crashed in the mountains of Skoddevarre in Alta, Norway, killing all six people on board.
- Aidan of Lindisfarne (d. 651)
- Alma Mahler (b. 1879)
- Feng Tianwei (b. 1986)
- William McAloney (d. 1995)
More anniversaries:
Selected anniversaries / On this day archive
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