- Aug 2 Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier, French inventor (1st hot air balloon), dies at 54
- Aug 5 Richard Howe, British admiral, dies at 73
- Aug 6 Joseph Friebert, Austrian composer, dies at 74
- Aug 7 John Bacon, English sculptor, dies at 58
- Aug 15 Giuseppe Parini, Italian prose writer and poet (Il Giorno), dies at 70
- Aug 16 Vincenzo Manfredini, Italian harpsichordist, composer, and music theorist, dies at 61
- Aug 20 Johann Christian Gottlob Eidenbenz, German composer, dies at 37
- Aug 31 Nicolas-Henri Jardin, French architect (b. 1720)