Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/August
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| << | Selected anniversaries for August | >> | ||||
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2022 day arrangement | ||||||
August 1: Lughnasadh and Imbolc in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, respectively; Buwan ng Wika begins in the Philippines
Head of Lindow Man
- 527 – Upon the death of Justin I, his nephew and adopted son Justinian I became the sole ruler of the Byzantine Empire.
- 1798 – French Revolutionary Wars: The Battle of the Nile, between a British fleet commanded by Horatio Nelson and a French fleet under François-Paul Brueys d'Aigalliers, began at Aboukir Bay off the Egyptian coast.
- 1971 – The Concert for Bangladesh, a pair of benefit concerts organised by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar for refugees of the Bangladesh genocide, took place at Madison Square Garden in New York.
- 1984 – Commercial peat cutters discovered a preserved bog body, now known as Lindow Man (head pictured), at Lindow Moss in Cheshire, England.
- Maria Mitchell (b. 1818)
- Herman Melville (b. 1819)
- Kurmanbek Bakiyev (b. 1949)
August 2: Roma Holocaust Memorial Day
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Leo Szilard
- 338 BC – An allied army led by Philip II of Macedon overcame the forces of city-states led by Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea, securing Macedonian hegemony over the majority of ancient Greece.
- 1916 – An explosion, blamed on Austro-Hungarian saboteurs, sank the Italian dreadnought Leonardo da Vinci.
- 1939 – Leo Szilard (pictured) penned a letter, signed by Albert Einstein and addressed to U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, warning that Germany may develop atomic bombs, leading to the establishment of the Manhattan Project.
- 1947 – Star Dust, a British South American Airways airliner, crashed into Mount Tupungato in the Argentine Andes; its wreckage was not found until 1998.
- Jack L. Warner (b. 1892)
- Marija Bursać (b. 1920)
- Billy Cannon (b. 1937)
Auckland Sky Tower
- 1857 – Indian Rebellion: An eight-day siege of a fortified outbuilding in Arrah occupied by 68 defenders against more than 10,000 men ended when a relief party dispersed the besiegers.
- 1903 – Macedonian rebels in Kruševo proclaimed a republic, which existed for ten days before Ottoman forces destroyed the town.
- 1913 – An agricultural workers' strike in Wheatland degenerated into a riot, becoming one of the first major farm-labor confrontations in California.
- 1940 – World War II: Italian forces began a conquest of British Somaliland, capturing the region in 16 days.
- 1997 – The Sky Tower (pictured), the tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere at 328 m (1,076 ft), opened in Auckland, New Zealand.
- Hamilton Fish (b. 1808)
- Tony Bennett (b. 1926)
- Frumka Płotnicka (d. 1943)
Capture of Gibraltar
- 1265 – Second Barons' War: Royal troops led by Prince Edward defeated baronial forces under Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham in Worcestershire, England.
- 1704 – War of the Spanish Succession: A combined Anglo-Dutch fleet under the command of George Rooke and allied with Archduke Charles captured Gibraltar (pictured) from Spain.
- 1830 – American surveyor James Thompson produced the first plat of Chicago for the Illinois and Michigan Canal Commissioners.
- 2020 – A large explosion of ammonium nitrate stored at the Port of Beirut in Lebanon killed 218 people and caused US$15 billion in damage.
- Laura Knight (b. 1877)
- Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother (b. 1900)
- David Lange (b. 1942)
August 5: Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day in Croatia (1995)
Guangwu depicted in the Sancai Tuhui
- AD 25 – Guangwu (depicted) claimed the throne as the emperor of the Han dynasty after Wang Mang, who had seized the throne himself and proclaimed the Xin dynasty, died when peasant rebels besieged Chang'an.
- 1916 – First World War: The British Empire's Sinai and Palestine campaign began with a victory at the Battle of Romani.
- 1949 – An earthquake registering 6.4 Ms struck near Ambato, Ecuador, killing 5,050 people.
- 1962 – American actress and model Marilyn Monroe was found dead of a barbiturate overdose in her home in Brentwood, Los Angeles.
- 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.
- Euthymius I of Constantinople (d. 917)
- Edvard August Vainio (b. 1853)
- Ruth Asawa (d. 2013)
Crew of the Enola Gay
- 1777 – The Battle of Oriskany, one of the bloodiest battles of the American Revolutionary War, was fought about 6 mi (10 km) east of Fort Stanwix, New York.
- 1945 – World War II: The U.S. Army Air Force bomber Enola Gay (pictured with crew) dropped the Little Boy atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, killing about 70,000 people instantly.
- 1965 – U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, outlawing literacy tests and other discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disfranchisement of African Americans.
- 2008 – Mauritanian President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was ousted from power by a group of high-ranking generals that he had dismissed from office several hours earlier.
- Stephen V of Hungary (d. 1272)
- George Kenney (b. 1889)
- Vera Farmiga (b. 1973)
August 7: Day of Tasu'a (Shia Islam, 2022); Tisha B'Av (Judaism, 2022); Assyrian Martyrs Day (1933)
U.S. Marines wading ashore on Tulagi Island
- 768 – The papacy of Stephen III, who convened the Lateran Council of 769, began.
- 1461 – Ming Chinese general Cao Qin staged a failed coup against the Tianshun Emperor.
- 1914 – The Battle of Mulhouse began with France's first attack of World War I in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to recover the region of Alsace from Germany.
- 1942 – World War II: U.S. Marines initiated the first American offensive of the Guadalcanal campaign, with landings on Tulagi (pictured), Gavutu–Tanambogo and Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
- 1985 – Five members of the Bamber family were found murdered at a farmhouse in Tolleshunt D'Arcy, England.
- Jin Shengtan (d. 1661)
- Art Houtteman (b. 1927)
- Frances Oldham Kelsey (d. 2015)
August 8: Day of Ashura (Shia Islam, 2022)
LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin
- 1264 – Reconquista: In the early stages of the Mudéjar revolt, Muslim rebels captured the alcázar of the city of Jerez 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 virus epidemic, which began in December 2013, to be a public health emergency of international concern.
- Earle Page (b. 1880)
- Ernest Lawrence (b. 1901)
- Sheila Varian (b. 1937)
August 9: International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples; National Women's Day in South Africa (1956)
- 1902 – In a ceremony at Westminster Abbey, Edward VII and Alexandra were crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor and Empress of India.
- 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 as its mascot to replace Bambi.
- 1960 – Led by Albert Kalonji, South Kasai, a state of the Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville), declared its unrecognised secession.
- 1965 – The state of Singapore (flag pictured) was expelled from the Malaysian federation due to a heated ideological conflict between their respective ruling parties.
- Stephen of Anjou (d. 1354)
- Evelina Haverfield (b. 1867)
- Albert Ketèlbey (b. 1875)
Sirius A (centre) and Sirius B (bottom left)
- 1628 – The Swedish warship Vasa sank shortly after departing Stockholm on her maiden voyage to take part in the Thirty Years' War.
- 1844 – From measurements of its motion, German astronomer Friedrich Bessel deduced that Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, had an unseen companion (both pictured).
- 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.
- 1897 – German chemist Felix Hoffmann discovered an improved method of synthesizing aspirin.
- 2007 – Amid large protests against the impending demolition of the Queen's Pier, in Hong Kong, the High Court dismissed legal attempts to preserve the landmark.
- Al-Wathiq (d. 847)
- William Lowndes Yancey (b. 1814)
- Angus Lewis Macdonald (b. 1890)
August 11: Raksha Bandhan (Hinduism, 2022); Independence Day in Chad (1960)
Hussein of Jordan
- 106 – The region of Dacia, comprising parts of modern Romania, became a province of the Roman Empire.
- 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, the first British settlement in Southeast Asia and the present-day capital of the Malaysian state of Penang.
- 1952 – King Talal of Jordan was forced to abdicate due to mental illness and was succeeded by his eldest son Hussein (pictured).
- 2012 – At least 306 people were killed and 3,000 others injured in a pair of earthquakes near Tabriz, Iran.
- John Hunyadi (d. 1456)
- Enid Blyton (b. 1897)
- Jacqueline Fernandez (b. 1985)
August 12: Tu B'Av (Judaism, 2022)
Quagga mare at London Zoo
- 1099 – Crusades: Fatimid forces under al-Afdal Shahanshah began retreating to Egypt after the Battle of Ascalon, concluding the First Crusade.
- 1883 – The last known quagga (colourised example pictured), a subspecies of the plains zebra, died at Natura Artis Magistra, a zoo in Amsterdam.
- 1945 – An official administrative history of the Manhattan Project, written by American physicist Henry DeWolf Smyth, was released to the public days after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- 2000 – Kursk, an Oscar-class submarine of the Russian Navy, suffered an on-board explosion and sank in the Barents Sea during a military exercise with 118 lives lost.
- 2016 – The state-owned Taedonggang Brewing Company inaugurated the first beer festival in North Korea.
- Guy de Beauchamp, 10th Earl of Warwick (d. 1315)
- Archduchess Isabella Clara of Austria (b. 1629)
- Maurice Fernandes (b. 1897)
August 13: Independence Day in the Central African Republic (1960)
Construction sheet of the flag of Japan
- 582 – Maurice was crowned Byzantine emperor to succeed Tiberius II Constantine.
- 1762 – Anglo-Spanish War: The United Kingdom captured Havana after a five-week siege, holding it until the Treaty of Paris the following year.
- 1876 – The Bayreuth Festival, now known for showcasing the stage works of Richard Wagner, was inaugurated under the direction of Wagner and his wife Cosima.
- 1999 – The Act on National Flag and Anthem was adopted, formally establishing the Hinomaru (design illustrated) and "Kimigayo" as the Japanese national flag and anthem, respectively.
- 2004 – Hurricane Charley struck the U.S. state of Florida, just 22 hours after Tropical Storm Bonnie inflicted its own damage to the region.
- Jules Massenet (d. 1912)
- Frederick Sanger (b. 1918)
- Tigran Petrosian (d. 1984)
August 14: Independence Day in Pakistan (1947)
Phonograph recording of
"The Lost Chord"
"The Lost Chord"
- 1264 – War of Saint Sabas: A Genoese fleet captured or sank most of the ships of a Venetian trade convoy off the Albanian coast.
- 1842 – American Indian Wars: General William J. Worth declared an end to the Second Seminole War, fought between U.S. forces and the Seminole people of Florida.
- 1888 – One of the first recordings of music, of Arthur Sullivan's "The Lost Chord" (audio featured), was played at a press conference in London to introduce Thomas Edison's phonograph.
- 2010 – The inaugural edition of the Youth Olympic Games opened in Singapore for athletes aged between 14 and 18.
- Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (b. 1892)
- Hugh Trumble (d. 1938)
- Mila Kunis (b. 1983)
August 15: Independence Day in India (1947); National Liberation Day of Korea (1945)
Jawaharlal Nehru
- 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 became the second king of Hungary.
- 1942 – World War II: The tanker SS Ohio reached Malta as part of an operation to deliver much-needed supplies during the siege of Malta.
- 1947 – Jawaharlal Nehru (pictured) took office as the first prime minister of India, a post he held for 16 years.
- 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.
- Gerty Cori (b. 1896)
- Bernard Fanning (b. 1969)
- Ben Affleck (b. 1972)
Ringo Starr
- 1819 – Around 15 people were killed and 400 to 700 others injured when cavalry charged into a crowd demanding the reform of parliamentary representation in Manchester, England.
- 1942 – The Holocaust: During the deportation of Jews from Slovakia, President Jozef Tiso gave a speech describing Jews as "parasites" and "the eternal enemy".
- 1945 – The Stanley Internment Camp in Hong Kong was liberated following the announcement of the surrender of Japan in World War II.
- 1962 – The English rock band the Beatles fired their drummer Pete Best, replacing him with Ringo Starr (pictured).
- 1986 – Typhoon Wayne formed over the South China Sea, going on to become one of the longest-lived tropical cyclones in the north-western Pacific, lasting 21 days.
- Ranavalona I (d. 1861)
- Georgette Heyer (b. 1902)
- Marian Rejewski (b. 1905)
August 17: Independence Day in Indonesia (1945)
Sukarno proclaiming Indonesia's independence, with Hatta on the right
- 986 – Byzantine–Bulgarian wars: The Bulgarians defeated Byzantine forces at the Gate of Trajan near present-day Ihtiman, with Emperor Basil II barely escaping.
- 1560 – The Reformation Parliament of Scotland approved a Protestant confession of faith, initiating the Scottish Reformation and disestablishing Catholicism as the national religion.
- 1945 – The independence of Indonesia was proclaimed by Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta (pictured), igniting the Indonesian National Revolution against the Dutch Empire.
- 1950 – Korean War: A North Korean Army unit massacred 42 American prisoners of war so that they would not slow the North Koreans down.
- 1959 – Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, one of the best selling and most critically acclaimed jazz recordings of all time, was released.
- Matthew Boulton (d. 1809)
- Leslie Groves (b. 1896)
- Maureen O'Hara (b. 1920)
August 18: Krishna Janmashtami (Hinduism, 2022)
Alice Nutter
- 684 – Second Fitna: Umayyad partisans defeated the supporters of Ibn al-Zubayr and cemented Umayyad control of Syria.
- 1612 – The trial of the Pendle and Samlesbury witches (accused Alice Nutter pictured), among the most famous of England's witch trials, began at the assizes in Lancaster.
- 1945 – Amid a Soviet invasion of Japanese-held Sakhalin, Japanese police massacred 18 Koreans.
- 1948 – Australia won the fifth Test of the 1948 Ashes series, becoming the first Test cricket team to go undefeated in England, earning them the nickname "The Invincibles".
- 1983 – Hurricane Alicia made landfall near Galveston, Texas, U.S., causing $2.6 billion in damages and 21 deaths.
- Ruth Norman (b. 1900)
- Maria Ulfah Santoso (b. 1911)
- Edward Norton (b. 1969)
Bonnie Prince Charlie
- 1274 – Shortly after his return from the Ninth Crusade, Edward I was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey, nearly two years after his father's death.
- 1745 – Bonnie Prince Charlie (pictured) raised the Jacobite standard at Glenfinnan, Scotland, in an attempt to regain the British throne for his father, beginning the Jacobite rising of 1745.
- 1759 – Seven Years' War: At the Battle of Lagos, British ships, having damaged several French vessels the previous day, pursued the remainder of the fleet to Lagos, Portugal, and continued the battle there in violation of Portuguese neutrality.
- 2002 – Chechen separatists brought down a Russian Mil Mi-26 with a man-portable air-defense system, killing 127 people in the single deadliest helicopter crash in history.
- 2017 – Around 250,000 farmed non-native Atlantic salmon were accidentally released into the wild near Cypress Island, Washington.
- Abu Yazid (d. 947)
- Bernard Levin (b. 1928)
- Linus Pauling (d. 1994)
Pluto
- 917 – Byzantine–Bulgarian wars: Bulgarian forces led by Tsar Simeon I drove the Byzantines out of Thrace with a decisive victory at the Battle of Achelous.
- 1909 – Pluto (pictured) was photographed for the first time at the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, U.S., 21 years before it was officially discovered by Clyde Tombaugh.
- 1950 – Korean War: United Nations forces repelled an attempt by North Korea to capture the city of Taegu.
- 1988 – Fires in the United States' Yellowstone National Park ravaged more than 150,000 acres (610 km2), the single-worst day of the conflagration.
- 1989 – The final stage of the O-Bahn Busway in Adelaide, South Australia, was completed, at the time the world's longest and fastest guided busway with buses travelling a total of 12 km (7.5 mi) at maximum speeds of up to 100 km/h (62 mph).
- Bolesław Prus (b. 1847)
- H. P. Lovecraft (b. 1890)
- Amy Adams (b. 1974)
Mona Lisa
- 1716 – Seventh Ottoman–Venetian War: The Ottoman Empire suddenly abandoned its siege of the city of Corfu, allowing the Republic of Venice to preserve its rule over the Ionian Islands.
- 1808 – Peninsular War: British–Portuguese forces put an end to the first French invasion of Portugal at the Battle of Vimeiro.
- 1911 – Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa (pictured) was stolen from the Louvre by museum employee Vincenzo Peruggia and was not recovered until two years later.
- 1971 – Six people were killed during an escape attempt and riot at California's San Quentin State Prison; 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.
- Juan de Tassis, 2nd Count of Villamediana (d. 1622)
- Jules Michelet (b. 1798)
- Stephen Hillenburg (b. 1961)
August 22: Madras Day in Chennai, India
Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field by James William Edmund Doyle
- 1485 – Lancastrian forces under Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, defeated Yorkist forces under Richard III of England at the Battle of Bosworth Field (depicted), decisively ending the Wars of the Roses.
- 1711 – Queen Anne's War: A British attempt to attack Quebec failed when eight ships wrecked on the St. Lawrence River.
- 1851 – The yacht America won the Cup of One Hundred Sovereigns race, later renamed the America's Cup, near the Isle of Wight, England.
- 1961 – Ida Siekmann jumped from a window in her tenement building trying to flee to West Berlin, becoming the first person to die at the Berlin Wall.
- 1985 – A fire broke out on British Airtours Flight 28M, causing 55 deaths mostly due to smoke inhalation and bringing about changes to make aircraft evacuation more effective.
- Maria Cunitz (d. 1664)
- George Herriman (b. 1880)
- Madame Nhu (b. 1924)
Dogs of the Southern Cross Expedition
- 1514 – Ottoman forces defeated the Safavids at the Battle of Chaldiran, gaining control of eastern Anatolia and northern Iraq.
- 1898 – The Southern Cross Expedition (dogsled team pictured), the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, departed London.
- 1914 – In their first major action of the First World War, the British Expeditionary Force engaged German troops in Mons, Belgium.
- 1944 – King Michael dismissed the pro-Axis government of General Ion Antonescu, placing Romania on the side of the Allies for the remainder of World War II.
- 2011 – A 5.8 MW earthquake struck the Piedmont region of Virginia, and was felt by more people than any other quake in U.S. history.
- Ebussuud Efendi (d. 1574)
- Minna Craucher (b. 1891)
- Keith Moon (b. 1946)
August 24: Feast day of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle (Western Christianity); Independence Day in Ukraine (1991)
Pluto
- 1781 – American Revolutionary War: Near present-day Aurora, Indiana, American Indians led by Joseph Brant killed or captured all members of a Pennsylvania militia.
- 1821 – The Treaty of Córdoba was signed, ratifying the Plan of Iguala and concluding the Mexican War of Independence with Spain.
- 1921 – The Royal Navy's R.38, the world's largest airship at the time, was destroyed by a structural failure over Hull, killing 44 of the 49 crew aboard.
- 1941 – Adolf Hitler ordered the suspension of the T4 euthanasia program of the mentally ill and disabled, although killings continued in secret for the remainder of World War II.
- 2006 – The International Astronomical Union redefined the term planet, thus reclassifying Pluto (pictured) as a dwarf planet due to not having "cleared the neighbourhood" around its orbit.
- Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1313)
- Zonia Baber (b. 1862)
- Rupert Grint (b. 1988)
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Aaliyah
- 1258 – George Mouzalon, the regent of the Empire of Nicaea, was assassinated as part of a conspiracy led by nobles under the future emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos.
- 1609 – Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei demonstrated his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers.
- 1758 – Seven Years' War: Prussian forces engaged the Russians at the Battle of Zorndorf in present-day Sarbinowo, Poland.
- 1941 – Second World War: Soviet, British and Commonwealth armed forces invaded Iran to secure oil fields and Allied supply lines for the Soviet Union.
- 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.
- Gennadius of Constantinople (d. 471)
- Charles Richet (b. 1850)
- Velma Caldwell Melville (d. 1924)
August 26: Heroes' Day and Herero Day in Namibia; Women's Equality Day in the United States
Sigmund Jähn
- 1071 – Byzantine–Seljuk wars: Seljuk Turks led by Alp Arslan captured Byzantine emperor Romanos IV at the Battle of Manzikert.
- 1748 – The first Lutheran denomination in North America, the Pennsylvania Ministerium, was founded in Philadelphia.
- 1968 – The Beatles released "Hey Jude", which became the then-longest single to top the UK charts.
- 1978 – Aboard the Soviet Soyuz 31 spacecraft, Sigmund Jähn (pictured) became the first German in space.
- 2008 – After a ceasefire was reached in the Russo-Georgian War, Russia recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
- Humilis of Bisignano (b. 1582)
- Arnold Fothergill (b. 1854)
- Mildred Albert (d. 1991)
August 27: Independence Day in Moldova (1991)
Nguyễn Khánh
- 1776 – British forces led by William Howe defeated the Continental Army under George Washington at the Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the American Revolutionary War.
- 1896 – In the shortest recorded war in history, the Sultanate of Zanzibar surrendered to the United Kingdom after less than an hour of conflict.
- 1964 – South Vietnamese junta leader Nguyễn Khánh (pictured) entered into a triumvirate power-sharing arrangement with rival generals Trần Thiện Khiêm and Dương Văn Minh, who had both been involved in plots to unseat Khánh.
- 2003 – Mars made its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, passing within approximately 55,758,000 kilometres (34,650,000 mi).
- Josquin des Prez (d. 1521)
- Samuel C. Pomeroy (d. 1891)
- Ieva Simonaitytė (d. 1978)
Martin Luther King Jr. giving his "I Have a Dream" speech
- 1789 – With the first use of his new 1.2-metre (3.9 ft) telescope, then the largest in the world, William Herschel discovered a new moon of Saturn, later named Enceladus.
- 1833 – The Slavery Abolition Act 1833, officially abolishing slavery in most of the British Empire, received royal assent.
- 1901 – Silliman University in Dumaguete, Philippines, was founded as the first American educational institution in Asia.
- 1963 – American civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (pictured) delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, envisioning a future in which blacks and whites coexisted harmoniously as equals.
- 1973 – Swedish police used gas bombs to end a seven-day hostage situation in Stockholm; during the incident the hostages had bonded with their captors, leading to the term Stockholm syndrome.
- Johannes Banfi Hunyades (d. 1646)
- Vittorio Sella (b. 1859)
- Béla Guttmann (d. 1981)
August 29 Feast day for the Beheading of John the Baptist (Gregorian calendar)
Illustration of Shays' Rebellion
- 1786 – Led by Daniel Shays, farmers in western Massachusetts angered by high tax burdens and disfranchisement began an armed uprising (depicted) against the U.S. federal government.
- 1885 – Gottlieb Daimler patented the world's first internal-combustion motorcycle, the Reitwagen.
- 1949 – The Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear weapons test, detonating the 22-kiloton RDS-1.
- 1991 – Italian businessman Libero Grassi was killed by the Sicilian Mafia in Palermo after taking a public stand against their extortion demands.
- 1996 – Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801 crashed on approach to Svalbard Airport, Norway, killing all 141 on board.
- Charles of Taranto (d. 1315)
- Edmond Hoyle (d. 1769)
- Vivien Thomas (b. 1910)
August 30: Victory Day in Turkey (1922)
Amalasuintha
- AD 70 – First Jewish–Roman War: The Siege of Jerusalem ended with Roman forces entering and sacking the Lower City, destroying the Second Temple.
- 526 – Upon the death of her father Theodoric the Great, Amalasuintha (pictured) of the Ostrogoths became the regent for her ten-year-old son Athalaric.
- 1914 – World War I: The Battle of Tannenberg resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russian 2nd Army by the German 8th Army.
- 1974 – An express train carrying foreign workers from Yugoslavia to West Germany derailed in Zagreb, killing 153 people.
- 2014 – Prime minister of Lesotho Tom Thabane fled to South Africa, claiming that the army had launched a coup d'état.
- Hervey le Breton (d. 1131)
- Theodor Svedberg (b. 1884)
- Oliver Sacks (d. 2015)
August 31: Ganesh Chaturthi begins (Hinduism, 2022); Independence Day in Malaysia (1957); Romanian Language Day in Romania
Interior view of a Kinetoscope with peephole viewer
- 1876 – Sultan Murad V of the Ottoman Empire was deposed after a reign of 93 days on grounds of mental illness.
- 1897 – Thomas Edison was granted a patent for the Kinetoscope (pictured), a precursor to the modern movie projector.
- 1907 – Russia and the United Kingdom signed the Anglo-Russian Convention, defining their respective spheres of interest in Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet.
- 1941 – World War II: A detachment of Chetniks captured the town of Loznica in German-occupied Serbia.
- 1969 – On the final day of the Isle of Wight Festival, an event attended by approximately 150,000 people over three days, Bob Dylan appeared in his first gig since 1966.
- Aidan of Lindisfarne (d. 651)
- Alma Mahler (b. 1879)
- Norman Kirk (d. 1974)
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