Historical Events
- Aug 8 Beta Theta Pi is founded in Oxford, Ohio.
First Photograph of a Person
Aug 19 Louis Daguerre's daguerreotype photographic process with complete working instructions is published "free to the world" in Paris as a gift to the world from the French government
- Aug 23 British capture Hong Kong from China
Famous Birthdays
- Aug 4 Walter Pater, English aesthete and writer (Plato & Platonism), born in London (d. 1894)
- Aug 8 Nelson Appleton Miles, American Major General (Union Army), born in Westminster, Massachusetts (d. 1925)
- Aug 10 Aleksandr Grigorievich Stoletov, Russian physicist (d. 1896)
- Aug 15 Hugh Archibald Clarke, Canadian organist, composer, and educator (The Music of The Spheres), born in Toronto, Ontario (d. 1927)
- Aug 17 Hubert Platt Main, American hymn composer, and music publisher, born in Ridgefield, Connecticut (d. 1925)
- Aug 17 Matthijs Maris [Thijs], Dutch painter and etcher influenced by Pre-Raphaelites, born in The Hague, Netherlands (d. 1917)
- Aug 19 Oskar Brefeld, German botanist and founder of modern mycology, born in Telgte, Germany (d. 1925)
- Aug 24 Eduard Napravnik, Czech conductor and composer, born in Býšť, Czech Republic (d. 1916)
- Aug 27 Emory Upton, Bvt Major General (Union Army), born in Batavia, New York (d. 1881)
- Aug 30 Gulstan Ropert, French Roman Catholic prelate, born in Kerfago, Brittany, France (d. 1903)
Famous Deaths
- Aug 3 Dorothea von Schlegel, German novelist (Florentin), dies at 74
- Aug 10 John St Aubyn, British fossil collector, dies at 81
- Aug 22 Benjamin Lundy, American Quaker abolitionist and philanthropist, dies at 50
- Aug 23 Charles Philippe Lafont, French violinist and composer, dies at 57
- Aug 28 William Smith, British geologist who is credited with creating the first nationwide geological map (Strata Identified by Organized Fossils), dies at 70
