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August 1
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- In 1958, Jean Berko Gleason published the Wug Test
- The beloved Tombili, a street cat from Istanbul, died in 2016.
- Pep (dog)
- In Athens, Tennessee in 1946, battle-hardened WWII veterans and local officials became so divided over the deputies altering ballots and holding people in jail inappropriately that the veterans held a shootout, the "Battle of Athens" (NBC article)
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August 2
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August 3
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- Happy birthday Creme Puff, the world's oldest cat on record! She was born in 1967 and lived to 2005.
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August 4
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- A fish called Benson, who was known for having been caught 63 times, died in 2009. She was known as "Britain's biggest and best-loved" carp and "the people's fish."
- In 1997, Jeanne Calment died at age 122. She had signed a life estate contract on her apartment at age 90, and her landlord lost thousands of dollars. Calment commented on the situation by saying, "in life, one sometimes makes bad deals".
- In 1922, Alexander Graham Bell's funeral was held and the entire United States and Canada suspended phone service for a minute to honor him (imagine how much chaos this would cause today!)
- In 1962, researchers injected a massive dose of LSD (nearly 300mg, 1000x a human recreational dose) into an elephant at the Oklahoma City Zoo named Tusko. He died about two hours later.
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August 5
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- A $999.99 app called I Am Rich was released in 2008.
- Engineers programmed the Curiosity rover to sing "Happy Birthday" to itself on Mars every year.
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August 6
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- In 1863, Abraham Lincoln held the United States's first official Thanksgiving (festivities had been intermittent since Washington and Jefferson did not celebrate). The date was changed to the last Thursday in November for future occurrences. In 1939 FDR moved it a week earlier to extend Christmas shopping but then moved it back in 1942 after controversy.
- Yoshinori Sakai was born in Hiroshima August 6, 1945, the day the United States dropped the atomic bomb. When he was 19, he was selected as the torch bearer at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics to symbolize Japan's postwar reconstruction and peace.
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August 7
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August 8
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August 9
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August 10
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- Sky King incident of 2018, in which a ground service agent with no piloting experience stole a plane from the Sea-Tac airport and flew it for more than an hour.
- Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko became the first person to get married in space in 2003
- Amou Haji, Iranian man known for refusing to bathe for more than 60 years, was born in 1928.
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August 11
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August 12
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August 13
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August 14
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- The Beaver drop program began in 1948. Dozens of beavers parachuted out of airplanes and landed in Idaho.
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August 15
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- penguin Nils Olav was knighted in 2008
- Wow! signal, which bore the expected hallmarks of extraterrestrial origin, was spotted by a radio telescope in 1977.
- In a August 15, 1877 letter, Thomas Edison proposed "hello" as the word to say when answering the telephone.
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August 16
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August 17
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- When a tree fell on her house in 1960, an Arizona woman named Betty Pemrose brought about a lawsuit against God.
- Toyohiro Akiyama was selected for spaceflight in 1989. "Akiyama was not a trained astronaut, scientist nor engineer. He was described as the first antihero in space as a result. During training, he quit smoking cigarettes, having previously smoked four packs a day. Before liftoff, when asked what he looked forward to most upon his return to Earth, he said "I can't wait to have a smoke"."
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August 18
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- In 2020, Ben Shapiro reacted to WAP.
- Korean Axe Murder incident of 1976. Soldiers from the US and South Korea chopped down a tree and North Korea retaliated by chopping up the soldiers.
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August 19
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August 20
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August 21
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August 22
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- Bubba the fish, a Chicago grouper who was the first fish to undergo chemotherapy, died in 2006.
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August 23
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August 24
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- In the Egyptian Graffito of Esmet-Akhom from the year 394, a man expressed home that his inscription will last "for all time and eternity"
- In 1919, Cleveland Indians pitcher Ray Caldwell was struck by lightning during his ninth inning in the game. He finished the inning and the team beat the Athletics.
- On August 24, 2001, Air Transat Flight 236 lost all of its fuel in mid flight with more than 300 passengers. The pilot was a glider pilot and he glided for 19 minutes without any power to an air base, where the plane safely landed.
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August 25
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- Great Moon Hoax. In 1835, a New York newspaper launched a series of made-up articles about the supposed discovery of civilization on the Moon
- Reddit exposé on Scots Wikipedia in 2020.
- In 2010 Filair Let L-410 crash, a passenger smuggled a crocodile aboard and it escaped mid-flight causing panicked passengers to unbalance the plane.
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August 26
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August 27
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- Pascal-B nuclear test of 1956, the one that was 50,000 times more powerful than expected and shot the manhole cover in the air.
- In 1896, the Anglo-Zanzibar war started and ended on this day. It was the shortest war ever.
- Mars hoax, an email chain lie that spread in 2003 and said that Mars would look as large as the full Moon to the naked eye on August 27, 2003
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August 28
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August 29
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- Following the hurricane on this day in 2005, Katrina refrigerators were turned into public art.
- Tom Scott's emoji-only social media "Emojli" launched in 2014.
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August 30
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August 31
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- In 2009, a guy got a DUI from drunk-driving a motorized recliner.
- In 1924, the Pennsylvania governor's dog Pep had his mugshot and pawprints taken at the Eastern State Penitentiary after he was falsely accused of murdering a cat.
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