Events in History
- Aug 2 1st parachute jump in US by Frenchman Louis-Charles Guille over Jersey City
- Aug 6 Norwich University is founded in Vermont as the first private military school in the United States
- Aug 7 Battle of Boyacá; Bolívar defeats Spanish in Colombia
- Aug 16 Peterloo Massacre, Manchester, England: cavalry charges demonstrators, 15 people killed and 400–700 injured
- Aug 17 The Church Missionary Society establishes New Zealand's second mission station at Kerikeri
- Aug 25 Paris Salon opens with Théodore Géricault’s painting "Raft of the Medusa" causing a sensation
Birthdays in History
Herman Melville
Aug 1 Herman Melville, American author (Moby-Dick, Billy Budd), born in NYC, New York (d. 1891)
- Aug 6 Samuel Powhatan Carter, American Brevet Major General (Union Army), born in Elizabethton, Tennessee (d. 1891)
- Aug 8 Charles Anderson Dana, Asst Secy War, (Union) (d. 1897)
- Aug 9 William T. G. Morton, American dentist who first used ether as a surgical anaesthetic (HOF 1920), born in Charlton, Massachusetts (d. 1868)
- Aug 9 Jonathan Homer Lane, American astrophysicist who mathematically analyzed the Sun as a gaseous body, born in Geneseo, New York (d. 1880)
- Aug 12 Daniel Davidson Bidwell, American Brigadier General (Union Army), born in Buffalo, New York (d. 1864)
- Aug 13 George Gabriel Stokes, Irish physicist and mathematician (spectroscope), born in Skreen, County Sligo, Ireland (d. 1903)
- Aug 17 James Henry Van Alen, American Brigadier General (Union Army), born in Kinderhook, New York (d. 1886)
- Aug 18 Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, Duchess of Leuchtenberg, born in Peterhof Palace, Russia (d. 1876)
- Aug 25 Allan Pinkerton, American private detective and founder of Chicago detective agency, born in Glasgow (d. 1894)
- Aug 26 Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Consort of British queen Victoria, born at Schloss Rosenau, nr Coburg, Germany (d. 1861)
Deaths in History
- Aug 23 Oliver Hazard Perry, American naval hero (Battle of Lake Erie),, dies on 34th birthday
James Watt
Aug 25 James Watt, Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer and chemist (steam engine), dies at 83
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists