August 3

### Up to 1900

- 8 – Roman general Tiberius defeats Dalmatae on the River Balthinus.
- 435 – Deposed Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Nestorius, considered the founder of Nestorianism, is exiled by Roman Emperor Theodosius II to a monastery in Egypt.
- 881 – Battle of Saucourt-en-Vimeu: King Louis III of France defeats the Vikings.
- 1031 – Olaf II of Norway is made a saint, by Grimtekel, the English bishop of Selsey.
- 1492 – Christopher Columbus sets sail for the voyage that took him to the Caribbean.
- 1492 – All Jews in Spain are expelled by the country's Catholic Monarchs.
- 1527 – The first known letter from North America is sent from St. John's, Newfoundland.
- 1601 – Long War: Austria captures Transylvania in the Battle of Gorozso.
- 1645 – Thirty Years' War: Second Battle of Nordlingen.
- 1678 – Robert LaSalle builds  the _Le Griffon_, the first known ship built on the Great Lakes.
- 1778 – The La Scala theater in Milan is opened.
- 1783 – In Japan, Mount Asama erupts, killing around 1,000 people.
- 1787 – Mesaurements by Geneva's Horace–Benedict de Saussure conclude that Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in the Alps.
- 1811 – First ascent of the Jungfrau, in the Swiss Alps by Johann Rudolf and Hieronymus Meyer.
- 1818 – The Russian Rurik expedition ends after 3 years, led by Adelbert von Chamisso.
- 1852 – The first boat race between Harvard University and Yale University is held. Harvard wins.
- 1858 – John Hanning Speke becomes the first known European to reach Lake Victoria in Africa's Great Rift Valley.
- 1860 – The Second Maori War begins in New Zealand.
- 1900 – The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is founded.

### 1901 – 2000

- 1914 – World War I: Germany declares war on France.
- 1916 – Irish Easter Rising leader Roger Casement is executed.
- 1921 – Major League Baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis confirms the ban of the eight Chicago Black Sox players, the day after they were acquitted (found innocent) by a Chicago court.
- 1923 – Calvin Coolidge is officially sworn in as President of the United States, after the death of Warren G. Harding the previous day.
- 1929 – Jiddu Krishnamurti shocks the Theosophy Movement by dissolving the Order of the Star, the organization built to support him.
- 1936 – Jesse Owens wins his first gold medal of the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.
- 1936 – Fire wipes out Kursha–2 in the Meshchera Lowlands, Ryazan Oblast, Russia, killing 1,200 people, with only 20 survivors.
- 1940 – World War II: Italy invades Somaliland.
- 1948 – Whittaker Chambers accuses Alger Hiss of being a Communist and a spy for the Soviet Union.
- 1949 – The NBA, the US governing body of basketball, is founded.
- 1958 – Nuclear submarine USS _Nautilus_ travels beneath the Arctic ice cap, crossing the North Pole underwater.
- 1959 – Portuguese state police force PIDE fires on striking workers in Bissau in present–day Guinea Bissau (then a Portuguese colony), killing over 50 people.
- 1960 – Niger becomes independent from France.
- 1961 – The New Democratic Party of Canada is founded. 50 years later, in 2011, it becomes the official opposition party in Canada for the first time, though its then–leader Jack Layton dies a short time later.
- 1972 – The United States Senate confirms Anti–Ballistic Missile Treaty.
- 1975 – A privately chartered Boeing 707 crashes into a mountainside near Agadir, Morocco, killing 188 people.
- 1975 – Less than a month after the Comoros became independent, President Ahmed Abdallah is deposed in a coup, supported by Bob Denard. A revolutionary committee under Ali Soilih takes over.
- 1979 – Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo deposes his uncle Francisco Macias Nguema in a coup in Equatorial Guinea.
- 1980 – The 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow come to an end.
- 1997 – The Oued El–Had and Mezouara massacre in Algeria kills 116 people.

### From 2001

- 2001 – The Real IRA detonates a bomb in Ealing, a suburb of London, injuring 7 people.
- 2004 – The pedestal of the Statue of Liberty is re–opened, after it closed following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
- 2004 – The NASA MESSENGER space probe, in the Discovery Program programme, is sent to the planet Mercury.
- 2005 – President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya of Mauritania is deposed from power, while abroad, attending the funeral of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia.
- 2005 – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad becomes President of Iran.
- 2013 – Hassan Rouhani becomes President of Iran.
- 2013 – Because of a perceived terror threat, the United States decides to close many of its embassies in North Africa and Western Asia for the day on August 4. The UK, France and Germany decide to shut their embassies in Yemen on the same date.
- 2014 – An earthquake strikes Yunnan province, China, killing over 300 people.
- 2014 – The 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland come to an end. Neighboring England tops the medal table ahead of Australia, while host nation Scotland finished with its own record totals of gold and overall medals.
- 2018 – Emmerson Mnangagwa is declared the winner of Zimbabwe's July 30 Presidential election.
- 2019 – 2019 El Paso shooting: 20 people are killed in a shooting at a supermarket in El Paso, Texas. A second, unrelated, mass shooting occurs in Dayton, Ohio less than 24 hours later.

### Up to 1900

- 1509 – Étienne Dolet, French scholar and printer (d. 1546)
- 1654 – Charles I, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (d. 1730)
- 1692 – John Henley, clergyman (d. 1759)
- 1734 – Naungdawgyi, King of Burma (d. 1763)
- 1753 – Charles Stanhope, inventor of the calculator
- 1766 – Kurt Polycarp Joachim Sprengel, German botanist and physician (d. 1833)
- 1770 – King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia (d. 1840)
- 1803 – Joseph Paxton, British landscape gardener (d. 1865)
- 1808 – Hamilton Fish, American politician (d. 1893)
- 1811 – Elisha Graves Otis, American inventor (safe elevator) (d. 1861)
- 1817 – Archduke Albert, Austrian general (d. 1895)
- 1823 – Francisco Asenjo Barbieri, Spanish composer (d. 1894)
- 1832 – Ivan Zajc, Croatian composer and conductor (d. 1914)
- 1832 – Edward Wilmots Blyden, Liberian statesman (d. 1912)
- 1833 – Auguste Schmidt, feminist and teacher (d. 1902)
- 1847 – John Hamilton-Gordon, 1st Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair, Scottish politician, 7th Governor General of Canada  (d. 1934)
- 1851 – George Francis FitzGerald, Irish physicist (d. 1901)
- 1852 – Domenico Serafini, Italian cardinal (d. 1918)
- 1856 – Alfred Deakin, second Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1919)
- 1860 – W.K. Dickson, Scottish inventor (d. 1935)
- 1863 – Geza Gardonyi, Hungarian writer and journalist (d. 1922)
- 1867 – Stanley Baldwin, British Prime Minister (d. 1947)
- 1872 – King Haakon VII of Norway (d. 1957)
- 1878 – Dick Grant, Canadian runner (d. 1958)
- 1887 – Rupert Brooke, English poet (d. 1915)
- 1890 – Konstantin Melnikov, Russian architect (d. 1974)
- 1890 – Charles Edison, Governor of New Jersey (d. 1969)
- 1894 – Harry Heilmann, American Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1951)
- 1895 – Neva Morris, American supercentenarian (d. 2010)
- 1895 – Marguerite Nichols, American actress (d. 1941)
- 1900 – Ernie Pyle, American war correspondent (d. 1945)
- 1900 – John T. Scopes, American teacher and Evolutionist, defendant in the Monkey Trial (d. 1970)

### 1901 – 1950

- 1901 – Stefan Wyszynski, primate of Poland (d. 1981)
- 1901 – John C. Stennis, United States Senator (d. 1995)
- 1902 – Regina Jonas, German rabbi (d. 1944)
- 1903 – Habib Bourguiba, 1st President of Tunisia (d. 2000)
- 1904 – Clifford D. Simak, science fiction writer (d. 1988)
- 1905 – Franz König, Roman Catholic archbishop of Vienna and last surviving cardinal of John XXIII (d. 2004).
- 1905 – Dolores del Rio, Mexican actress (d. 1983)
- 1908 – Ernesto Geisel, President of Brazil (d. 1996)
- 1912 – Fritz Hellwig, German politician (d. 2017)
- 1914 – Mark Kac, Polish–American mathematician (d. 1984)
- 1916 – José Manuel Moreno, Argentine footballer (d. 1978)
- 1918 – James MacGregor Burns, American historian and political scientist (d. 2014)
- 1918 – Larry Haines, American actor (d. 2008)
- 1918 – Sidney Gottlieb, Director of the CIA's Technical Services Staff (d. 1999)
- 1918 – Les Elgart, American musician, bandleader (d. 1995)
- 1920 – P. D. James, British novelist (d. 2014)
- 1923 – Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church (d. 2012)
- 1923 – Jean Hagen, American actress (d. 1977)
- 1924 – Leon Uris, American novelist (d. 2003)
- 1925 – Alain Touraine, French sociologist
- 1926 – Tony Bennett, American singer
- 1926 – Rona Anderson, Scottish actress (d. 2013)
- 1926 – Gordon Scott, American actor (d. 2007)
- 1928 – Cécile Aubry, French actress, director and screenwriter (d. 2010)
- 1928 – James B. Harris, American film director, screenwriter and producer
- 1932 – Fosforito, Spanish flamenco singer
- 1934 – Jonas Savimbi, Angolan politician and rebel leader (d. 2002)
- 1935 – Georgi Shonin, Soviet cosmonaut (d. 1997)
- 1935 – Omero Antonutti, Italian actor
- 1935 – Richard Lamm, American politician, 38th Governor of Colorado
- 1936 – Edward Petherbridge, actor
- 1937 – Diane Wakoski, poet
- 1937 – Andres Gimeno, Spanish tennis player
- 1937 – Steven Berkoff, British actor
- 1937 – Roland Burris, American politician
- 1938 – Terry Wogan, Irish radio and television presenter (d. 2016)
- 1939 – Jimmie Nicol, English musician
- 1940 – Martin Sheen, American actor
- 1940 – Lance Alworth, American football player
- 1941 – Hage Geingob, 3rd President of Namibia
- 1941 – Beverly Lee, American singer (Shirelles)
- 1941 – Martha Stewart, American home economist
- 1942 – Cecilia Cenci, Argentine actress (d. 2014)
- 1943 – Princess Christina, Mrs. Magnuson, Swedish royalty
- 1943 – Béla Bollobas, Hungarian mathematician
- 1944 – Nino Bravo, Spanish singer (d. 1977)
- 1946 – Jack Straw, British politician
- 1946 – Syreeta Wright, American singer and songwriter (d. 2004)
- 1947 – Francisco José Lombardi, Peruvian director, producer and screenwriter
- 1947 – John Wesley, American actor (d. 2019)
- 1947 – Tadahiko Ueda, Japanese footballer (d. 2015)
- 1948 – Jean-Pierre Raffarin, former Prime Minister of France
- 1949 – Valeri Vasiliev, Russian ice hockey player (d. 2012)
- 1950 – Waldemar Cierpynski, German marathon runner
- 1950 – John Landis, American movie director
- 1950 – Ernesto Samper, former President of Colombia

### 1951 – 1975

- 1951 – Marcel Dionne, Canadian ice hockey player
- 1951 – Jay North, actor
- 1951 – Hans Schlegel, German astronaut
- 1952 – Osvaldo Ardiles, Argentine footballer
- 1952 – Thomas Munkett, German athlete
- 1955 – Corey Burton, American actor
- 1958 – Peter Eriksson, Swedish politician
- 1958 – Lambert Wilson, French actor and baritone
- 1959 – Mike Gminski, American basketball player
- 1959 – Martin Atkins, English drummer
- 1959 – Koichi Tanaka, Japanese scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- 1959 – John C. McGinley, American actor
- 1960 – Tim Mayotte, American tennis player
- 1960 – Kim Milton Nielsen, Danish football referee
- 1960 – Anna-Maria Ravnopolska-Dean, Bulgarian harpist, composer and musicologist
- 1960 – Gopal Sharma, Indian cricketer
- 1961 – Nick Harvey, English politician
- 1962 – Doris Bures, Austrian politician
- 1962 – Maurice Malpas, Scottish footballer
- 1963 – Graham Arnold, Australian footballer
- 1963 – James Hetfield, American musician (Metallica)
- 1963 – Isaiah Washington, American actor
- 1963 – Giovanni Francini, Italian footballer
- 1963 – Lisa Ann Walter, American actress
- 1964 – Lucky Dube, South African singer (d. 2007)
- 1964 – Abhisit Vejjajiva, former Prime Minister of Thailand
- 1964 – Nate McMillan, American basketball player
- 1965 – Jordi Sans Juan, Spanish water polo player
- 1966 – Brent Butt, Canadian actor and comedian
- 1967 – Mathieu Kassovitz, French actor, director, producer and screenwriter
- 1968 – Eyjolfur Sverrisson, Icelandic footballer
- 1968 – Isao Yukisoda, Japanese film director
- 1969 – Doug Overton, American basketball player
- 1970 – Masahiro Sakurai, Japanese video game designer
- 1970 – Masaharu Suzuki, Japanese footballer
- 1970 – Gina G, Australian singer
- 1970 – Stephen Carpenter, American guitarist and songwriter
- 1971 – Kazuaki Tasaka, Japanese footballer
- 1972 – Erika Marozsan, Hungarian actress
- 1972 – Sandis Ozolins, Latvian ice hockey player
- 1975 – Felix Brych, German football referee

### From 1976

- 1977 – Tom Brady, American football player
- 1977 – Angela Beesley, British Internet entrepreneur
- 1977 – Oscar Pereiro, Spanish cyclist
- 1977 – Tómas Lemarquis, Icelandic actor
- 1978 – Mariusz Jop, Polish footballer
- 1978 – Collin Benjamin, Namibian footballer
- 1979 – Maria Haukans Mittet, Norwegian singer and actress
- 1979 – Evangeline Lilly, Canadian actress and model
- 1980 – Hannah Simone, Canadian actress, model and television presenter
- 1982 – Kaspar Kokk, Estonian skier
- 1983 – Mamie Gummer, American actress
- 1984 – Mile Jedinak, Australian footballer
- 1984 – Ryan Lochte, American swimmer
- 1984 – Sunil Chhetri, Indian footballer
- 1984 – Chris Maurer, American singer and musician (Suburban Legends)
- 1985 – Sonny Bill Williams, New Zealand rugby player
- 1985 – Brent Kuzle, American bass player and producer
- 1986 – Prince Louis Xavier Marie Guillaume, Prince of Luxembourg and of Nassau
- 1986 – Charlotte Casiraghi, Monegasque royalty
- 1987 – Gary Medel, Chilean footballer
- 1988 – Sven Ulreich, German footballer
- 1989 – Jules Bianchi, French racing driver (d. 2015)
- 1992 – Lum Rexhepi, Finnish footballer
- 1992 – Karlie Kloss, American model
- 1993 – Yurina Kumai, Japanese singer
- 1993 – Ola Abidogun, English sprinter
- 1994 – Corentin Tolisso, French footballer
- 2000 – Landry Bender, American actress

### Up to 1900

- 1181 – Pope Alexander III
- 1460 – King James II of Scotland (b. 1430)
- 1527 – Scaramuccia Trivulzio, Italian cardinal
- 1546 – Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Italian architect (b. 1484)
- 1546 – Étienne Dolet, French scholar and printer (b. 1509)
- 1604 – Bernardino de Mendoza, Spanish military commander (b. circa 1540)
- 1667 – Francesco Borromini, Swiss architect (b. 1599)
- 1712 – Joshua Barnes, English scholar (b. 1654)
- 1720 – Anthonie Heinsius, Dutch statesman (b. 1641)
- 1721 – Grinling Gibbons, Dutch–born woodcarver (b. 1648)
- 1761 – Johann Matthias Gesner, German classical scholar (b. 1691)
- 1780 – Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, philosopher (b. 1715)
- 1784 – Giovanni Battista Martini, Italian composer (b. 1706)
- 1792 – Richard Arkwright, industrialist, and inventor of the Water Frame (b. 1732)
- 1797 – Jeffrey Amherst, British military commander (b. 1717)
- 1800 – Friedrich Gilly, German writer (b. 1772)
- 1839 – Dorothea Schlegel, German novelist (b. 1763)
- 1857 – Eugène Sue, French novelist (b. 1804)
- 1867 – Philipp August Böckh, scholar and antiquarian (b. 1785)
- 1877 – William B. Ogden, first Mayor of Chicago (b.1805)
- 1879 – Joseph Severn, English painter (b. 1793)
- 1881 – William Fargo, American expressman (b. 1818)

### 1901 – 2000

- 1916 – Sir Roger Casement, Irish activist (hanged) (b. 1864)
- 1917 – Ferdinand Georg Frobenius, German mathematician (b. 1849)
- 1924 – Joseph Conrad, Polish–born writer (b. 1857)
- 1929 – Emil Berliner, telephone and recording pioneer (b. 1851)
- 1929 – Thorstein Veblen, American economist (b. 1857)
- 1942 – Richard Willstätter, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1872)
- 1947 – José Pardo y Barreda, President of Peru (b. 1864)
- 1954 – Colette, French writer (b. 1873)
- 1964 – Flannery O'Connor, American writer (b. 1925)
- 1966 – Lenny Bruce, American comedian (b. 1925)
- 1973 – Richard Marshall, general (b. 1895)
- 1977 – Alfred Lunt, actor (b. 1892)
- 1977 – Archbishop Makarios III of Cyprus (b. 1913)
- 1979 – Bertil Ohlin, Swedish economist (b. 1899)
- 1979 – Alfredo Ottaviani, Italian cardinal (b. 1890)
- 1983 – Carolyn Jones, American actress (b. 1929)
- 1995 – Ida Lupino, actress, director (b. 1914)
- 1995 – Edward Whittemore, writer (b. 1933)
- 1998 – Alfred Schnittke, Russian composer (b. 1934)

### From 2001

- 2002 – Carmen Silvera, Canadian–English actress (b. 1922)
- 2003 – Joseph Saidu Momoh, President of Sierra Leone (b. 1937)
- 2003 – Roger Voudouris, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1954)
- 2004 – Henri Cartier-Bresson, French photographer (b. 1908)
- 2005 – Steven Vincent, journalist (b. unknown)
- 2006 – Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, German singer (b. 1915)
- 2008 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer (b. 1918)
- 2011 – Bubba Smith, American football player and actor (b. 1945)
- 2011 – Nikolay Petrov, Russian pianist (b. 1943)
- 2014 – Edward Clancy, Australian cardinal (b. 1923)
- 2014 – Lydia Yu-Jose, Filipino political scientist (b. 1944)
- 2014 – Miangul Aurangzeb, Pakistani politician (b. 1928)
- 2014 – Christian Frémont, French politician (b. 1942)
- 2015 – Margot Loyola, Chilean musician and folk singer (b. 1918)
- 2015 – Coleen Gray, American actress (b. 1922)
- 2015 – Mel Farr, American football player (b. 1944)
- 2015 – Robert Conquest, English–American historian (b. 1917)
- 2015 – Johanna Quandt, German businesswoman (b. 1926)
- 2016 – Chris Amon, New Zealand racing driver (b. 1943)
- 2017 – Angel Nieto, Spanish motorcycle racer (b. 1947)
- 2017 – Bonaventura Duda, Croatian friar and theologian (b. 1924)
- 2017 – Richard Dudman, American reporter and journalist (b. 1918)
- 2017 – Ty Hardin, American actor (b. 1930)
- 2017 – Robert Hardy, English actor (b. 1925)
- 2017 – Dickie Hemric, American basketball player (b. 1933)
- 2017 – Eberhard von Koerber, German manager (b. 1938)
- 2018 – Matija Barl, Slovenian actor (b. 1940)
- 2018 – Carlos Buttice, Argentine footballer (b. 1942)
- 2018 – Ingrid Espelid Hovig, Norwegian television chef and cookbook author (b. 1924)
- 2018 – Moshé Mizrahi, Israeli film director (b. 1931)
- 2018 – Tommy Peoples, Irish fiddler (b. 1948)
- 2018 – John Schella, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1947)
- 2019 – Miklós Ambrus, Hungarian water polo player (b. 1933)
- 2019 – Jean-Claude Bouttier, French boxer and actor (b. 1944)
- 2019 – Cliff Branch, American football player (b. 1948)
- 2019 – Brian Lochore, New Zealand rugby union player (b. 1940)
- 2019 – Thomas Remengesau Sr., 2nd President of Palau (b. 1929)
- 2019 – John Philip Saklil, Indonesian Roman Catholic prelate (b. 1960)
- 2019 – Mike Troy, American swimmer (b. 1940)

## Observances

- Independence Day (Niger)
- Emancipation Day (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines)
- Day of the National Flag (Venezuela)