August 8, 1585 – John Davis enters Cumberland Sound in search of the Northwest Passage.
August 8, 1991 – The Warsaw radio mast, at one time the tallest construction ever built, collapses.
August 9, 1892 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph.
August 9, 1974 – As a direct result of the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon becomes the first President of the United States to resign from office. His Vice President, Gerald Ford, becomes president.
August 10, 1821 – Missouri is admitted as the 24th U.S. state.
August 10, 1988 – Japanese American internment: U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, providing $20,000 payments to Japanese Americans who were either interned in or relocated to the United States during World War II.
August 11 106 – The south-western part of Dacia (modern Romania) becomes a Roman province: Roman Dacia.
August 11, 1919 – The constitution of the Weimar Republic is adopted. Formally known as the German Reich, the constitution was upheld until Hitler’s ascension to total power in Germany in 1933.
August 12, 1883 – The last quagga dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands. A quagga is the subspecies of plains zebra that lived in South Africa. At the shoulder, an adult quagga stood at around 4 feet.
August 13, 1918 – Women enlist in the United States Marine Corps for the first time. Opha May Johnson is the first woman to enlist.
August 14, 1945 – Japan accepts the Allied terms of surrender in World War II and the Emperor records the Imperial Rescript on Surrender
August 15, 1914 – The Panama Canal opens to traffic with the transit of the cargo ship SS Ancon.
Births
August 11, 1858 – Christiaan Eijkman, Dutch physician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1930)
August 12, 1865 – William Jackson Hooker, English botanist and academic (b. 1785)
August 12, 1885 – Jean Cabannes, French physicist and academic (d. 1959)
August 12, 1904 – Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia (d. 1918)
August 14, 1912 – Frank Oppenheimer, American physicist and academic
August 15, 1769 – Napoleon, French general and emperor (d. 1821)
Deaths
August 11, 1259 – Möngke Khan, Mongolian emperor (b. 1208)
August 12 30 BC- Cleopatra, Egyptian queen (b. 69 BC)
August 13, 1382 – Eleanor of Aragon, Queen of Castile (b. 1358)
August 13, 1744 – John Cruger, Danish-American businessman and politician, 39th Mayor of New York City (b. 1678)
August 15, 1388 – Adalbertus Ranconis de Ericinio, Bohemian theologian, and rector of the University of Paris (b. circa 1320)