August 10

Louvre Museum opens in Paris, France (1793); Smithsonian Institution created (1846); First electric guitar patent awarded to Electro String Corporation (1937); "Wizard of Oz" movie premieres in Green Bay, Wisconsin (1939); Ruth Bader Ginsburg sworn in as Supreme Court justice (1993)

August 11

Author and historian Alex Haley born (1921); Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak born (1950); Actress Viola Davis born (1965); Final US ground combat troops leave South Vietnam during Vietnam War (1972); Robin Williams dies by suicide (2014).

August 8

Thomas Edison patents the mimeograph (1876); Writer Shirley Jackson dies (1965); President Richard Nixon announces his resignation (1974); Roger Federer born (1981); Olivia Newton-John dies (2022). 

August 9

The US drops atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing over 40,000 (1945); Singer Whitney Houston born (1963); Actress Sharon Tate, four others murdered by Manson Family (1969); Gerald Ford becomes US president as Richard Nixon resigns (1974); Musician Jerry Garcia dies (1995).

August 7

Nobel Peace Prize winner Ralph Bunche born (1904); Operation Desert Shield preps the US to enter Gulf War (1990); US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania are bombed, killing 224 and wounding 4,500 (1998); Track and field star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone born (1999); Journalist Peter Jennings dies (2005).

August 6

Actress Lucille Ball born (1911); Pop artist Andy Warhol born (1928); "Little Boy" atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, killing more than 80,000 (1945); Actress Michelle Yeoh born (1962); Voting Rights Act signed (1965); Curiosity rover lands on Mars (2012).

August 5

Space pioneer Neil Armstrong born (1930); Marilyn Monroe found dead in her Los Angeles home (1962); The US, the UK, and the Soviet Union sign Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963); Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison dies (2019).