- August 2, 1939 Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt concerning the possibility of atomic weapons. Six years later, on August 6, 1945, the first Atomic Bomb was dropped on the Japanese port of Hiroshima.
- August 2, 1876 “Wild Bill” Hickok was shot and killed while playing poker at a saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota.
- August 5, 2011 Standard & Poor’s cited America’s $14 trillion in outstanding debt and downgraded the United States from its highest rating of AAA to a lesser AA+ rating, marking the first-ever decline of credit worthiness for the U.S.
- August 14, 1945 Delegates of Emperor Hirohito accepted Allied surrender terms. Emperor Hirohito then recorded an announcement admitting Japan’s surrender, without actually using the word. The formal surrender was on September 2, 1945, on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
- August 15, 1969 Woodstock began in a field near Yasgur’s Farm at Bethel, New York. The three-day concert featured 24 bands and a crowd of more than 300,000 people.
- August 21, 1959 Hawaii is admitted to the Union as the 50th state.
- August 31, 1877 Thomas A. Edison received a patent for his Kinetoscope.
