- Aug 1 1st microgravity research begins
- Aug 1 Tengku Abdul Rahman forms Malacca government
- Aug 1 WILL TV channel 12 in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois (PBS) begins broadcasting
- Aug 2 USSR performs nuclear test
- Aug 3 Automobile Association of America ends support of auto racing, Le Mans disaster and Bill Vukovich death at Indianapolis contributing factors
- Aug 3 Belgian middle distance runner Roger Moens breaks Rudolph Harbig's long standing 800m world record (1:45.7) in Oslo, Norway
- Aug 3 Hurricane Connie begins pounding US for 11 days, making landfall in North Carolina, and travelling to the Great Lakes
Event of Interest
Aug 4 Eisenhower authorizes $46 million for construction of CIA headquarters
- Aug 7 Bar-Ilan University founded in Israel
- Aug 7 KSTF TV channel 10 in Scottsbluff-Gering, NB (CBS/NBC) begins
- Aug 7 Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, the precursor to Sony, begins selling its first transistor radios in Japan
26th of July Movement
Aug 8 Fidel Castro forms the "26th of July Movement", a Cuban vanguard revolutionary organization
- Aug 8 Geneva conference held to discuss peaceful uses of atomic energy
- Aug 11 Indonesia government of Harahap forms
- Aug 12 22nd NFL Chicago All-Star Game: All-Stars 30, Cleveland 27 (75,000)
- Aug 12 Hurricane Connie makes landfall near Fort Macon, North Carolina as a Category 3 storm
- Aug 12 US President Eisenhower raises minimum wage from 75 cents to $1 an hour
- Aug 12 WPBT TV channel 2 in Miami, FL (PBS) begins broadcasting
Baseball Record
Aug 13 Larry Doby's ends AL record of 167 errorless games in outfield
- Aug 15 Hurricane Connie dissipates after killing 77 in the US eastern seaboard and mid-atlantic states
- Aug 15 WXEX TV channel 8 in Richmond-Petersburg, VA (ABC) begins
- Aug 16 Fiat Motors orders 1st private atomic reactor
- Aug 17 Hurricane Diane, following hurricane Connie floods Connecticut River killing 190 & doing $1.8 billion damage
- Aug 18 -19] Hurricane Diane, kills 400 in US
- Aug 18 46.1 cm rainfall at Westfield, Massachusetts (state record)
- Aug 18 Sjukri al-Quwatli re-elected president of Syria
- Aug 19 32.4 cm precipitation at Burlington, Connecticut (state record)
- Aug 19 Hurricane Diane kills 200 people, becomes 1st billion $ damage storm (N.E. US)
- Aug 19 US raises import duty on bicycles 50%
Radio History
Aug 19 WINS radio (New York City), announces it will not play "copy" white cover versions of R&B records (DJ's play Fats Domino's "Ain't That A Shame," not Pat Boone's)
- Aug 20 Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus petitions UN for Cypriot right to self-determination
- Aug 20 Hundreds killed in anti-French rioting in Morocco & Algeria
Emmett Till's Fateful Trip
Aug 21 Chicago teenager Emmett Till arrives in Money, Mississippi, to visit relatives, a week before he is murdered
- Aug 25 16th Venice Film Festival: "Ordet" directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer wins Golden Lion
- Aug 25 Last Soviet forces leave Austria
- Aug 26 "Pather Panchali", Indian film directed by Satyajit Ray, starring Subir Banerjee, Kanu Banerjee and Karuna Banerjee, is released
- Aug 26 1st color telecast (NBC) of a tennis match (Davis Cup)
- Aug 27 "Guinness Book of World Records" 1st published
Record 23 Strike Outs
Aug 27 Sandy Koufax fans 14 Reds, both teams combine for record 23 strikeouts
- Aug 28 1st NFL preseason sudden death football, Rams beats Giants 23-17
- Aug 28 Chicago black teenager Emmett Till is kidnapped, beaten and shot dead by white men in Money, Mississippi; his killers are eventually acquitted, but the case helps ignite the US civil rights movement.
- Aug 31 1st sun-powered automobile demonstrated (Chicago, Illinois)
- Aug 31 KTRE TV channel 9 begins broadcasting in Lufkin, Texas (ABC/NBC affiliate)
Admirals
Aviators
Gangsters
Generals
Industrialists
Suffragists