Historical Events
- Aug 9 Otis Tufts patents the first passenger elevator in the US
- Aug 17 1st air mail (in a balloon) took off from Lafayette, Indiana
- Aug 27 1st successful oil well drilled, near Titusville, Pennsylvania, by Edwin Drake
- Aug 28 A geomagnetic storm causes the Aurora Borealis to shine so brightly that it is seen clearly over parts of USA, Europe, and even as far afield as Japan
Famous Birthdays
- Aug 4 Knut Hamsun, Norwegian writer (Nobel Prize in Literature 1920), born in Lom, Gudbrandsdalen, Norway (d. 1952)
- Aug 6 Arthur Berson, German meteorologist (Balloon flights, Amazon), born in Nowy Sącz (d. 1942)
- Aug 12 Katharine Lee Bates, American author (America the Beautiful), born in Falmouth, Massachusetts (d. 1929)
- Aug 19 Charles Comiskey, American Baseball HOF infielder (St. Louis Brown Stockings/Browns), team owner (Chicago White Sox) and manager (St. Louis Browns), born in Chicago, Illinois (d. 1931)
- Aug 19 Hippolyte Delehaye, Flemish historian and hagiographer, born in Antwerp, Belgium (d. 1941)
Famous Deaths
Horace Mann (1796-1859)
Aug 2 American educator, author, abolitionist and politician who pioneered public schools, dies at 63
