- Aug 1 William Robert Grove, Welsh physicist and inventor of the first fuel cell, dies at 85
- Aug 9 Otto Lilenthal, German aircraft pioneer, killed during a glider test at 48
- Aug 10 Otto Lilienthal, German aircraft pioneer (explored winged flight through gliders), dies falling to his death from his glider at 48
- Aug 12 Thomas Chamberlain, officer of the 20th Maine at the Battle of Gettysburg
- Aug 13 John Everett Millais, English painter (Order of Release), dies at 67
- Aug 17 Bridget Driscoll, 1st person in Great Britain to die in an auto-accident
- Aug 18 Frederick Crouch, British-American cellist, composer ("Kathleen Mavourneen"), Confederate soldier, and music teacher, dies at 88
- Aug 18 Richard Avenarius, German philosopher (founded the epistemological theory of knowledge known as empirical criticism), dies at 52
- Aug 19 Josiah Dwight Whitney, American Geologist who led the California Geological Survey (Mount Whitney and Whitney Glacier are named for him), dies at 76
- Aug 30 Alexei Lobanov-Rostovsky, Russian statesman (b. 1824)
Assassination
Drug Overdose
Gunshot Wound
Murder
Plane Crash
Suicide