Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August
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These are the selected anniversaries for August that appear on the United States portal.
- The "edit" links edit the portal subpages that are displayed as sections here.
- The layout design for these subpages is at Portal:United States/Anniversaries/Layout.
- See also
- Yearly "...in the United States" articles, such as 2024 in the United States.
- United States history categories (Select [+] to view subcategories)
August 1
Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August 1
- 1779 – Francis Scott Key, author of the lyrics to the United States' national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner", is born.
- 1842 – The Lombard Street Riot erupts when white Irish Catholics attack 1,000 African-American members of the Young Men's Vigilant Association who were parading in celebration of the end of slavery in the British West Indies.
- 1876 – Colorado is admitted as the 38th U.S. state.
- 1957 – The United States and Canada announce their decision to integrate their aerospace defenses. This would lead to the formation of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in May of the following year.
- 2007 – The I-35W Mississippi River bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, collapses (aftermath pictured) during the evening rush hour.
Edit August 1 anniversaries • August 1 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 2
Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August 2
- 1776 – While the date of the signing the Declaration of Independence is disputed, some modern historians believe that at least some of the signatories to Declaration of Independence sign the document on this day.
- 1790 – The first United States Census is conducted.
- 1892 – Jack L. Warner, the president and driving force behind Warner Bros. Studios in Hollywood, is born.
- 1939 – Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd write a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt urging him to begin the Manhattan project to develop a nuclear weapon.
- 1943 – The Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 is rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri and sinks. Lt. John F. Kennedy, who would go on to become the President of the United States, saves all but two of his crew.
- 1964 – Three North Vietnamese gunboats engage the destroyer USS Maddox (pictured) and several United States Navy aircraft. This is the first of two incidents involving the Maddox that are collectively referred to as the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
Edit August 2 anniversaries • August 2 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 3
Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August 3
- 1923 – Following the death of Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge (pictured) is sworn in as the 30th President of the United States.
- 1948 – In testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, former Communist Party member Whittaker Chambers accuses government official Alger Hiss of being a communist and a spy for the Soviet Union. Historians are still divided on whether or not Hiss was in fact a Soviet agent.
- 1949 – The National Basketball Association is formed from the merger of the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League.
- 1958 – The nuclear powered submarine USS Nautilus travels beneath the Arctic ice cap, becoming the first submarine to do so.
- 1981 – Air traffic controllers affiliated with the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization walk off the job. President Ronald Reagan ultimately responds by firing those who ignore his order to return to work.
Edit August 3 anniversaries • August 3 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 4
Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August 4
- 1790 – At the behest of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, Congress creates the Revenue Cutter Service, a forerunner of the United States Coast Guard, to combat smuggling in American waters.
- 1901 – Louis Armstrong (pictured), an influential pioneer of both jazz and scat singing, is born.
- 1964 – The United States Navy destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy report coming under attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. The so-called Gulf of Tonkin Incident would lead to an escalation of the Vietnam War.
- 1969 – At the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris, American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese negotiator Xuan Thuy begin secret peace negotiations in an attempt to end the Vietnam War. The negotiations will eventually fail.
- 1977 – President Jimmy Carter signs legislation establishing the United States Department of Energy.
- 2010 – California's Proposition 8, a ballot initiative prohibiting same-sex marriage that was passed by the state's voters in 2008, is overturned by Judge Vaughn Walker in the case Perry v. Schwarzenegger.
Edit August 4 anniversaries • August 4 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 5
Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August 5
- 1861 – In order to help pay for the war effort during the American Civil War, the United States government issues the first income tax as part of the Revenue Act of 1861. The tax took 3% of the incomes of those that earned over $800 a year.
- 1884 – The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty is laid on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor.
- 1914 – In Cleveland, Ohio, the first electric traffic light is installed.
- 1930 – Neil Armstrong (pictured), best known for being the first person to set foot on the Moon, is born.
- 1957 – American Bandstand, a musical variety show aimed at teenagers, makes its national debut on ABC television network. The show would run for over 30 years.
- 1963 – The United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union sign a treaty banning the testing of nuclear weapons underwater, in the atmosphere, and in space.
Edit August 5 anniversaries • August 5 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 6
Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August 6
- 1926 – In New York, the Vitaphone system for adding audio to movies is heard in theaters for the first time with the premiere of the movie Don Juan.
- 1945 – The United States B-29 Enola Gay drops the atomic bomb "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima, killing 70,000 people instantly and afflicting tens of thousands of others with burns and radiation poisoning.
- 1965 – President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965, designed to end discriminatory practices that led to the disenfranchisement of African-Americans, into law.
- 1988 - The Tompkins Square Park Riot breaks out between NYPD officers and people protesting the imposition of a 1AM curfew of Tompkins Square Park. An investigation into the riot placed the bulk of the blame on the NYPD.
- 1996 – NASA announces that the ALH 84001 meteorite (pictured), thought to originate from Mars, likely contained evidence that microbial life existed on Mars at one time.
Edit August 6 anniversaries • August 6 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 7
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- 1782 – General George Washington orders the creation of the Badge of Military Merit (pictured) to honor soldiers wounded in battle. It is later renamed the Purple Heart, after its appearance.
- 1927 – The Peace Bridge, a bridge between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York, opens.
- 1944 – IBM officially presents the electro-mechanical computer Harvard Mark I, (originally named the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator), to Harvard University. While not the first computer, the Mark I was comparatively fast and reliable among early computers, and has been called "the beginning of the era of the modern computer".
- 1964 – Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Lyndon B. Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnamese attacks on American forces.
- 1978 – President Jimmy Carter declares that the situation at Love Canal, a residential community built on what had at one time been a toxic waste dump, is a federal emergency. The declaration would allow for federal emergency funds to be used in the cleanup of the site, marking the first time that federal emergency funds were used other than for the handling of natural disasters.
Edit August 7 anniversaries • August 7 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 8
Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August 8
- 1863 – Following his defeat in the Battle of Gettysburg, General Robert E. Lee sends a letter of resignation to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The offer of resignation is refused.
- 1911 – Public Law 62-5 sets the number of representatives in the House of Representatives at 435. The law would come into effect in 1913 with the beginning of the 63rd Congress.
- 1946 – The Convair B-36 (pictured), the largest mass-produced piston engine aircraft ever made, takes flight for the first time. The B-36 also has the longest wingspan any combat aircraft ever built.
- 1973 – Vice President Spiro Agnew goes on television to denounce accusations he had taken kickbacks while governor of Maryland. He would later be forced to resign from office.
- 1974 – President Richard Nixon announces his resignation, effective the next day, as a result of the Watergate scandal.
- 2000 – Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley is raised to the surface after 136 years on the ocean floor.
Edit August 8 anniversaries • August 8 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 9
Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August 9
- 1842 – Webster-Ashburton Treaty is signed, resolving a dispute regarding the location of the border between Maine and New Brunswick, and reaffirmed a previously agreed upon border between the United States and Canada west of the Rocky Mountains.
- 1892 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for the full duplex two-way telegraph.
- 1944 – The United States Forest Service and the Wartime Advertising Council release posters which feature for the first time the character Smokey Bear (pictured).
- 1945 – The American B-29 Superfortress Bockscar drops the atomic bomb "Fat Man" on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, killing between 60,000 and 80,000 people.
- 1969 – Members of a cult led by Charles Manson brutally murder pregnant actress Sharon Tate, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Polish actor Wojciech Frykowski, hairstylist Jay Sebring, and recent high-school graduate Steven Parent at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles, California.
Edit August 9 anniversaries • August 9 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 10
Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August 10
- 1821 – Missouri is admitted as the 24th U.S. state.
- 1933 – Doyle Brunson (pictured), considered one of the most influential forces in poker and the author of the seminal guides to the sport Super/System, is born.
- 1846 – The Smithsonian Institution is chartered by the Congress after $500,000 is donated by scientist James Smithson for such a purpose.
- 1944 – The Second Battle of Guam ends as American forces defeat the last Imperial Japanese troops on the island of Guam.
- 1949 – President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act Amendment, streamlining the defense agencies of the United States government and replacing the National Military Establishment with the United States Department of Defense.
- 1988 – President Ronald Reagan signs the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, providing payments of $20,000 to Japanese-Americans who were either interned or relocated by the United States during World War II.
Edit August 10 anniversaries • August 10 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 11
Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August 11
- 1807 – David Rice Atchison (pictured), who some claim served as Acting President of the United States for one day, 4 March 1849, is born. Atchison was President pro tempore of the Senate, which at the time was third in the line of Presidential succession behind the President and the Vice President.
- 1898 – American troops under General Theodore Schwan enter the city of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico without a battle, as part of the Spanish–American War.
- 1929 – Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to 500 home runs over the course of his career, with a home run at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio.
- 1965 – The racially charged Watts riots break out in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. They would last 6 days, claim 34 lives, and cause over a thousand injuries.
- 1999 – The Salt Lake City tornado hits Downtown Salt Lake City, killing one. It is only the second tornado in recorded history to cause a fatality in the State of Utah.
Edit August 11 anniversaries • August 11 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 12
Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August 12
- 1833 – The town of Chicago is founded, with a population of about 200.
- 1876 – Mary Roberts Rinehart, an influential author who is credited for the "Had I but known" style of mystery novels, and whose novel The Door inspired the phrase "The butler did it", is born. Rinehart's novel The Bat, which featured a costumed supervillain, was credited by Bob Kane as one of the inspirations for the character "Batman".
- 1898 – A "Protocol of Peace" is signed, ending combat in the Spanish–American War. A formal peace treaty would not be signed, however, until 1899.
- 1908 – The first production model of the Ford Model T (pictured) is built at the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit, Michigan.
- 1981 – The IBM Personal Computer is released.
- 1990 – Sue, the most complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex, is discovered near Faith, South Dakota.
Edit August 12 anniversaries • August 12 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 13
Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August 13
- 1818 – Lucy Stone (pictured), a prominent abolitionist and suffragist who has been called "the morning star of the woman's rights movement", is born. Stone, along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (who took up the cause of women's suffrage after listening to a speech by Stone), are considered the three most important figures in the women's rights movement in America during the 19th century.
- 1918 – Women are allowed to join the Marine Corps Reserve for the first time. Opha May Johnson becomes the first of 305 women to join the United States Marine Corps Women's Reserve during this first day.
- 1969 – The Apollo 11 astronauts are released from a three-week quarantine following their return from the Moon to enjoy a ticker-tape parade in New York City. That evening, at a state dinner in Los Angeles, they are awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon.
- 2008 – Michael Phelps sets the Olympic record for the most gold medals (8 in Beijing and 6 in Athens) won by an individual in Olympic history with his win in the men's 200m butterfly event.
Edit August 13 anniversaries • August 13 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 14
Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August 14
- 1848 – The Oregon Territory (seal pictured) is organized by an Act of Congress.
- 1900 – The Eight-Nation Alliance, a multinational military force with troops from Western Europe, Japan, and the United States, occupies the city of Beijing as part of a campaign to end the bloody Boxer Rebellion in China.
- 1935 – President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act into law, creating a government pension system for the elderly.
- 1936 – Rainey Bethea is hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky in the last public execution in the United States.
- 1941 – World War II – Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt make a joint declaration putting forth the Atlantic Charter, which defined the Allies' goals for the post-war world.
- 2003 – A widescale power blackout occurs in the northeast United States and in Canada. At the time of the event, the blackout was the second largest blackout in terms of people effected in history.
Edit August 14 anniversaries • August 14 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 15
Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August 15
- 1843 – The Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace (pictured) in Honolulu, Hawaii is completed. Now the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu, it is the oldest Roman Catholic cathedral in continuous use in the United States.
- 1912 – Julia Child, credited for introducing French cuisine to the American public with her cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her television programs, including The French Chef, is born.
- 1965 – The Beatles play to nearly 60,000 fans at Shea Stadium in New York City, marking the birth of stadium rock.
- 1969 – The Woodstock Music and Art Festival opens. 500,000 people attended the three day long outdoor concert, which is widely regarded as one of the most pivotal moments in popular music history.
- 1977 – The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by The Ohio State University as part of the SETI project, receives a radio signal from deep space; the event is named the "Wow! signal" for notation made by a volunteer on the project.
Edit August 15 anniversaries • August 15 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 16
Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August 16
- 1841 – President John Tyler (pictured) vetoes a bill which called for the re-establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Enraged Whig Party members riot outside the White House in the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history.
- 1884 – Hugo Gernsback, considered one of three fathers of science fiction for his work as the publisher of the magazine Amazing Stories, was born.
- 1858 – U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new transatlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. However, a weak signal forces a shutdown of the service in a few weeks.
- 1954 – The first edition of Sports Illustrated is published.
- 1777 – American troops led by General John Stark rout British and Brunswick troops under Friedrich Baum at the Battle of Bennington in Walloomsac, New York.
Edit August 16 anniversaries • August 16 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 17
Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August 17
- 1786 – Folk icon and frontiersman Davy Crockett is born.
- 1862 – The Dakota War of 1862 begins in Minnesota as Lakota warriors attack white settlements along the Minnesota River.
- 1907 – Pike Place Market, the longest continuously-running public farmers market in the US, opens in Seattle.
- 1942 – United States Marines raid the island of Makin, then under control of the Empire of Japan.
- 1969 – Category 5 strength Hurricane Camille (pictured) hits the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and causing $1.5 billion in damage.
- 1978 – Double Eagle II becomes first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean when it lands in Miserey near Paris, 137 hours after leaving Presque Isle, Maine.
Edit August 17 anniversaries • August 17 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 18
Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August 18
- 1877 – Astronomer Asaph Hall discovers the Martian moon Phobos, a week after he discovered another Martian moon, Deimos.
- 1902 – Margaret Murie (pictured), considered the "Grandmother of the Conservation Movement", and an instrumental force behind the passage of the Wilderness Act and the creation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, is born.
- 1920 – The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage.
- 1983 – Hurricane Alicia hits the Texas coast, killing 22 people and causing over USD $1 billion in damage.
- 2000 – A Federal jury finds the Environmental Protection Agency guilty of discrimination against Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This would later inspire passage of the No FEAR Act.
- 2005 – Dennis Rader is sentenced to 175 years in prison for the BTK serial killings.
Edit August 18 anniversaries • August 18 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 19
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August 20
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August 21
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August 22
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August 23
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August 24
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August 25
[[Portal:United States/Anniversaries/August/August ]25]
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August 26
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August 27
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August 28
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- 1830 – The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's new Tom Thumb steam locomotive races a horse-drawn car, presaging steam's role in US railroading.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Bull Run, also known as the Battle of Second Manassas.
- 1867 – The United States takes possession of the, at this point unoccupied, Midway Atoll.
- 1955 – Black teenager Emmett Till is murdered in Mississippi, galvanizing the nascent American Civil Rights Movement.
- 1957 – U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond begins a filibuster to prevent the Senate from voting on Civil Rights Act of 1957; he stopped speaking 24 hours and 18 minutes later, the longest filibuster ever conducted by a single Senator.
- 1963 – Martin Luther King, Jr. (pictured) delivers his I Have A Dream speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to an audience of at least 250,000, during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Edit August 28 anniversaries • August 28 anniversaries on English Wikipedia
August 29
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August 30
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August 31
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Edit August 31 anniversaries • August 31 anniversaries on English Wikipedia