Historical Events
- Aug 6 France annexes Madagascar
- Aug 7 New Jersey fishermen George Harbo and Frank Samuelson are the first to row across the Atlantic arriving in Le Havre (left Manhattan June 6) [1]
- Aug 11 Harvey Hubbell patents electric light bulb socket with a pull chain
- Aug 12 Willem II soccer team forms in Tilburg
- Aug 16 Gold first discovered in Klondike, found at Bonanza Creek in the Yukon, Canada by George Carmack
- Aug 18 Adolph Ochs (39) buys NY Times
- Aug 20 Dial telephone patented
- Aug 23 First Cry of the Philippine Revolution is made in Pugad Lawin (Quezon City), in the province of Manila.
- Aug 26 Armenian Revolutionary Federation assaults the Ottoman Bank in Constantinople to draw attention to the mass-pogroms and massacres of Armenians instigated by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Hamid II
US Men's Tennis Open
Aug 26 US National Championship Men's Tennis, Newport R.I.: Robert Wrenn beats Fred Hovey 7-5, 3-6, 6-0, 1-6, 6-1 for his third US singles title
- Aug 27 Britain defeats Zanzibar in a 38-minute war (9:02 AM-9:40 AM). Shortest recorded war in history.
- Aug 29 Chop suey invented in NYC by chef of visiting Chinese Ambassador
- Aug 30 Eight provinces in the Philippines are declared under martial law by the Spanish Governor General Ramon Blanco. Including provinces of Batangas, Rizal, Cavite and Nueva Ecija
- Aug 31 Louis Napoleon Parker's play "Rosemary" premieres in NYC
Famous Birthdays
- Aug 2 Lorenzo Herrera, Venezuelan singer and composer, born in Caracas, Venezuela (d. 1960)
- Aug 6 Cyril Mockridge, British composer for film and television (Miracle On 34th Street; The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance), born in London (d. 1979)
- Aug 8 Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, American writer (The Yearling), born in Washington, D.C. (d. 1953)
- Aug 9 Erich Hückel, German physicist and physical chemist, born in Berlin, German Empire (d. 1980)
- Aug 9 Jean Piaget, Swiss pioneer developmental psychologist and zoologist, born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland (d. 1980)
- Aug 9 Leonide Massine, Russian ballet dancer and choreographer (Diaghilev Ballets Russes, 1914-20), born in Moscow, Russian Empire (d. 1979)
- Aug 13 Leo Pappenheim, Dutch conductor, born in Amsterdam (d. 1982)
- Aug 15 Catherine Doherty, Russian-born Canadian activist, born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia (d. 1985)
- Aug 16 Tina Modotti, Italian artist and activist, born in Udine, Italy (d. 1940)
- Aug 17 Henry de Vries, Dutch painter and poet (Laws of the Americas), born in Groningen, Netherlands (d. 1989)
Leslie Groves (1896-1970)
Aug 17 American army engineer who directed the Manhattan Project and construction of the Pentagon, born in Albany, New York
- Aug 18 Alan Mowbray, British actor (Dante, Colonel Flack), born in London, England (d. 1969)
- Aug 18 Jack Pickford, Canadian-American actor (The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come), born in Toronto, Ontario (d. 1933)
- Aug 19 Eino Linnala, Finnish composer, pedagogue (University of Helsinki, 1927-66), and musicologist, born in Helsinki, Finland (d. 1973)
- Aug 19 Walter Lang, Swiss composer, born in Basel, Switzerland (d. 1966)
- Aug 21 Blossom Rock [Edith Marie Blossom MacDonald], American actress (Grandmamma-Addams Family), born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (d. 1978)
- Aug 21 Raymond Herreman, Belgian poet, journalist and writer (Jericho's Rose), born in Menen, Belgium (d. 1971)
- Aug 21 Roark Bradford, American writer and humorist (Ol' Man Adan an' His Chillun), born in Lauderdale County, Tennessee (d. 1943)
- Aug 22 Laurence McKinley Gould, American Geologist and Polar Explorer who was chief scientist and second-in-command on the first expedition to the interior of Antarctica in 1929, born in Lacota, Michigan (d. 1995)
- Aug 24 Phil Baker, American comedian (Who's Whose), born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (d. 1963)
- Aug 25 Dick Ryan, American actor (For Heaven's Sake, Born to be Bad), born in New Haven, Connecticut (d. 1969)
- Aug 26 Ivan Mihailov, Bulgarian revolutionary (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization), born in Novo Selo, Ottoman Empire (d. 1990)
- Aug 26 Richard Pindle Hammond, American composer, born in Kent, England (d. 1980)
- Aug 27 Faina Ranevskaya [Faina Georgievna Feldman], Russian actress, born in Taganrog, Don Voisko Oblast, Russian Empire (d. 1984)
- Aug 27 Leon Theremin, Russian-Soviet electronic musical instruments inventor, born in St. Petersburg, Russia (d. 1993)
- Aug 30 Raymond Massey, Canadian-American stage and screen actor (Abe Lincoln In Illinois; Dr. Kildare (TV series)), born in Toronto, Ontario (d. 1983)
- Aug 31 Félix-Antoine Savard, French Canadian priest and novelist, born in Quebec, Canada (d. 1982)
Famous Deaths
- Aug 1 William Robert Grove, Welsh physicist and inventor of the first fuel cell, dies at 85
- Aug 9 Otto Lilenthal, German aircraft pioneer, killed during a glider test at 48
- Aug 10 Otto Lilienthal, German aircraft pioneer (explored winged flight through gliders), dies falling to his death from his glider at 48
- Aug 12 Thomas Chamberlain, officer of the 20th Maine at the Battle of Gettysburg
- Aug 13 John Everett Millais, English painter (Order of Release), dies at 67
- Aug 17 Bridget Driscoll, 1st person in Great Britain to die in an auto-accident
- Aug 18 Frederick Nichols Crouch, composer, dies at 88
- Aug 18 Richard Avenarius, German philosopher (founded the epistemological theory of knowledge known as empirical criticism), dies at 52
- Aug 19 Josiah Dwight Whitney, American Geologist who led the California Geological Survey (Mount Whitney and Whitney Glacier are named for him), dies at 76
- Aug 30 Alexei Lobanov-Rostovsky, Russian statesman (b. 1824)
