August 3

Events
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.
Births
Up to 1900
1509 - Etienne 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 Konig, 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 - Jose 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 - Cecile 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 - Bela 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 Jose 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 - Tomas 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
Deaths
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 - Etienne 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 - Etienne 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 - Eugene Sue, French novelist (b. 1804)
1867 - Philipp August Bockh, 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 Willstatter, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1872)
1947 - Jose 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 Fremont, 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 - Moshe Mizrahi, Israeli film director (b. 1931)
2018 - Tommy Peoples, Irish fiddler (b. 1948)
2018 - John Schella, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1947)
2019 - Miklos 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)
August 03