Events in History
- Aug 2 George A. Wheeler is granted a US patent for a prototype of the escalator
Event of Interest
Aug 4 Queen Wilhelmina and Emma open Merwede Canal between Amsterdam and the Rhine
Murder of Interest
Aug 4 Sunday school teacher Lizzie Borden's father and stepmother are murdered with an axe in Fall River, Massachusetts; Borden is later arrested, tried and acquitted
- Aug 13 US black newspaper "Afro-American" begins publishing from Baltimore
Fourth Gladstone Ministry
Aug 15 4th & last British government of William Gladstone forms
David Beatty Promoted
Aug 25 British naval officer David Beatty is promoted to lieutenant
Birthdays in History
- Aug 1 Constant Burniaux, Belgian writer (The Abandoned) and art historian (Temps Inquiets), born in Brussels, Belgium (d. 1975)
- Aug 2 Jack L. Warner [Jacob Warner], Canadian-American film executive and president of the Warner Bros. Studios, born in London, Ontario, Canada (d. 1978)
- Aug 2 John Kieran, American columnist and author (Natural History of NYC), born in NYC, New York (d. 1981)
- Aug 11 Eiji Yoshikawa, Japanese novelist (d. 1962)
- Aug 11 Hugh MacDiarmid (pen name for Christopher Murray Grieve), Scottish poet (leader of the Scottish literary renaissance), born in Langholm, Scotland (d. 1978)
- Aug 11 Wladyslaw Anders, Polish army general (WWI and WWII), and politician (Parliament-in exile), born in Krośniewice–Błonie, Russian Empire (now Poland) (d. 1970)
- Aug 15 Louis Victor de Broglie, French quantum physicist (studied electrons, Nobel Prize for Physics, 1929), born in Dieppe, France (d. 1987)
- Aug 16 Harold Foster, Canadian-American cartoonist (Prince Valian), born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (d. 1982)
- Aug 16 Otto Messmer, American cartoonist (Felix the Cat), born in Union City, New Jersey (d. 1983)
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists