Events in History
Event of Interest
Aug 7 Jacqueline Kennedy becomes 1st US First Lady to give birth (Patrick Kennedy) since Mrs Cleveland
- Aug 8 Great Train Robbery in England, £2.6 million ($7.3 million)
- Aug 8 Verne Gagne beats Fritz Von Erich in Amarillo, to become NWA champ
- Aug 11 Four ANC political detainees escape from Pretoria Central prison in South Africa
- Aug 11 Kingston Trio are mystery guest on "What's My Line?"
- Aug 12 Portuguese dictator Salazar firm on African colonization
- Aug 13 US Customs agents confiscate 21 gold coins from Witte Museum, San Antonio, Texas
- Aug 15 Fulbert Youlou resigns as President of Congo-Brazzaville
- Aug 16 Independence is restored to Dominican Republic
- Aug 17 Oriole's Dick Hall retires his 28th consecutive player in relief
1st Black Graduate of Ole Miss
Aug 18 James Meredith becomes the 1st black graduate from University of Mississippi
- Aug 19 NAACP Youth Council begins sit-ins at lunch counters, Oklahoma City, OKlahoma
- Aug 21 Jerry Lynch's record 15th pinch-hit HR gives Pirates a 7-6 win
- Aug 21 Martial law declared in South Vietnam, following raids on Buddhist pagodas
- Aug 22 NASA civilian test pilot Joe Walker in the X-15 rocket plane achieves a world record altitude of 354,200 feet (107,960 m, 67 miles)
- Aug 23 Ringo admits he wrote a song "Don't Pass Me By"
- Aug 23 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- Aug 24 1st 200 meter freestyle swum under 2 minutes (Don Schollander 1:58)
- Aug 28 Evergreen Point Floating Bridge connecting Seattle & Bellevue opens
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
Aug 28 Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I have a dream" speech addressing the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom civil rights march at Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.
- Aug 30 Compact audio cassette first introduced by Philips at the Radio Exhibition in Berlin, Germany [1]
- Aug 30 Hotline communication link between the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and the Kremlin in Moscow installed. Often known as the "red telephone" no phones were ever used, relying instead on Teletype equipment, fax machines and most recently secure email.
Birthdays in History
- Aug 1 Amber Rudd, British politician, Home Secretary (2016-18), born in London, England
- Aug 1 Koichi Wakata, Japanese astronaut (STS 72, sk: 92), born in Ōmiya, Saitama, Japan
- Aug 2 Daniel Pelosi, American convicted murderer, born in Center Moriches, New York
- Aug 4 Andrew Bartlett, Australian politician
- Aug 6 Charles Ingram, English former British Army major known for cheating on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, born in Derbyshire, England
- Aug 7 Patrick Kennedy, son of US President JFK (lives only 3 days)
- Aug 8 Jon Turteltaub, American director (While You Were Sleeping), born in New York City
- Aug 8 Kyoko Chan Cox, American daughter of Yoko Ono and Anthony Cox, born in Tokyo, Japan
- Aug 10 Andrew Sullivan, English-born journalist
- Aug 10 Phoolan Devi, Indian bandit and revolutionary (d. 2001)
- Aug 17 Jackie Walorski, American politician (Rep-R-Indiana 2013-22), born in South Bend, Indiana (d. 2022)
- Aug 21 Mohammed VI of Morocco, King of Morocco (1999-present), born in Rabat, Morocco
- Aug 25 James Backhouse, British artist
Deaths in History
- Aug 1 Theodore Roethke, American poet (Praise to the end!), dies at 55
- Aug 2 Oliver [Hazard Perry] La Farge, American anthropologist and novelist, dies at 61
- Aug 10 Ernst Wetter, Member of the Swiss Federal Council, dies at 85
- Aug 10 Estes Kefauver, American politician (Sen-D-Tn), dies at 60
- Aug 10 Patrick Kennedy, son of US President JFK, dies at only 3 days
- Aug 14 Clifford Odets, American playwright (1961 Award of Merit-Golden Boy), dies at 57
- Aug 20 Joan Voûte, Dutch astronomer, dies at 84
- Aug 22 William Richard Morris, 1st viscount Nuffield motor manufacturer, dies
- Aug 27 Allama Mashriqi, Pakistani scholar and politician (b. 1888)
W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963)
Aug 27 American civil rights activist, writer (Souls of Black Folk) and co-founder of the NAACP, dies in Accra, Ghana, at 95
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists