- Aug 1 Buttevant Rail Disaster kills 18 and injures dozens of train passengers in Ireland.
- Aug 1 East German runner Waldemar Cierpinski wins his second consecutive Olympic Games marathon in 12:11:03 in Moscow
- Aug 1 Gerd Wessig of East Germany becomes the first male to set a high jump world record at the Olympics (2.36m [7' 9"] Moscow)
- Aug 2 Cuban super-heavyweight Teofilo Stevenson becomes the 1st fighter to win 3 Olympic gold medals in the same division, scores 4-1 points decision over Pyotr Zayev (Soviet Union) in Moscow
- Aug 2 Fascist bomb attack on Bologna Italy train station, 86 killed
Baseball Hall of Fame
Aug 3 Al Kaline, Duke Snider, Chuck Klein and Tom Yawkey are inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame
- Aug 3 XXII Summer Olympic Games close in Moscow, Russia
- Aug 4 -11] Hurricane Aline, kills 272 in Texas & Caribbean
- Aug 4 7-time All Star Maury Wills becomes only the 3rd black manager in MLB history when Darrell Johnson is fired by Seattle Mariners after a 9 game losing streak
- Aug 5 Montreal Expos Dick Williams wins his 1,000th career game as a manager in 11-5 win v Mets, for whom Doug Flynn hits MLB record tying 3 triples
- Aug 6 University adm declares 5 Pac-10 schools ineligible for conference titles and post-season play due to transcript and curriculum abuses
Double Fantasy
Aug 7 John Lennon and Yoko Ono begin recording sessions for their "Double Fantasy" album at the Hit Factory, NYC
Canadian Women's Open
Aug 10 Canadian Open Women's Golf (Peter Jackson Classic), Richelieu Valley GC: Pat Bradley wins by 1 from JoAnn Carner for her first of 6 major titles
PGA Championship
Aug 10 PGA Championship Men's Golf, Oak Hill CC: Jack Nicklaus wins 5th and final PGA C'ship by a convincing 7 strokes from Andy Bean
- Aug 11 Angola revises its constitution
- Aug 11 Mohammed Ali Radjai appointed premier of Iran
Sports History
Aug 11 Yanks Reggie Jackson hits his 400th HR off Chicago's Britt Burns
- Aug 12 Nicaragua celebrates the end of their National Literary Crusade - a massive effort over five months that reduced illiteracy from 50% to 12%
- Aug 12 Signature of the Montevideo Treaty establishing the Latin American Integration Association.
One-Trick Pony
Aug 12 Warner Bros, Records releases "One-Trick Pony", the fifth solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Paul Simon; it features the song "Late in the Evening" and was accompanied by a dramatic film of the same name, written by and starring Simon
Presidential Convention
Aug 14 Democratic Convention in NYC nominates Jimmy Carter for president and Walter Mondale for vice president
- Aug 16 British rock keyboardist Jools Holland quits band Squeeze to pursue a solo career
- Aug 16 Cozy Powell quits Rainbow
- Aug 17 "Blackstone" closes at Majestic Theater NYC after 104 performances
- Aug 17 Azaria Chamberlain disappears, likely taken by a dingo, leading to what was then the most publicised trial in Australian history
Sports History
Aug 17 George Brett goes 4-for-4, raising his batting average to .401
- Aug 18 KC Royals' George Brett, batting avg reach .400
- Aug 19 Kansas City Royals' George Brett hitting streak ends at 30 games
- Aug 19 Saudi Arabian Lockhead Tristar crashes on landing at Riyadh, 301 die
- Aug 19 Willy Russell's play "Educating Rita" premieres in London starring Julie Walters
- Aug 20 Cleveland Indians pitcher Dan Spillner, 5.45 ERA, is 2 outs from a no-hitter when Chicago White Sox rookie Leo Sutherland singles
- Aug 20 NY Yankee Bob Watson hits Seattle Kingdome speaker, 2nd straight day
- Aug 20 Pittsburgh Pirate Omar Moreno pillages record 70 bases for 3rd consecutive season
- Aug 20 Reinhold Messner of Italy is 1st to complete solo ascent of Mt Everest
- Aug 20 UN Security Council condemns (14-0, US abstains) Israeli declaration that all of Jerusalem is its capital
- Aug 21 British drummer and band co-sounder Bill Ward quits Black Sabbath for the first time
- Aug 21 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) founded in a basement office in Takoma Park, Maryland
Agreement of Interest
Aug 22 Bill Veeck agrees to sell MLB Chicago White Sox to Eddie DeBartolo Sr for $20,000,000, AL owners block the sale
- Aug 22 Leaders of Port Elizabeth's Black secondary school children in South Africa decided to end a four month boycott of classes
- Aug 23 Charles O. Finley sells Oakland A's MLB franchise for $12.7m to Walter Haas Jr. (owner and CEO of Levi Strauss)
- Aug 24 Jozef Pinkovski replaces Poland premier Babiuch
- Aug 24 Revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical "Oklahoma!" closes at Palace Theater, NYC, after 293 performances
Sports History
Aug 25 MLB Texas Rangers pitcher Ferguson Jenkins arrested for possession of drugs
42nd Street
Aug 25 Stage adaptation of Harry Warren and Al Dubin's film musical "42nd Street", directed and choreographed by Gower Champion, with additional songs by Warren and Johnny Mercer, opens at Winter Garden Theater, NYC; runs for 3486 performances and 2 Tony Award wins
- Aug 26 John Birges plants a bomb at Harvey's Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada
- Aug 26 Pete Comita replaces Tom Peterson as bassist of American rock band Cheap Trick
- Aug 27 Chon Doo Hwan elected president of South Korea
- Aug 28 37th Venice Film Festival: "Atlantic City" directed by Louis Malle and "Gloria" directed by John Cassavetes jointly awarded Golden Lion (first since 1968)
- Aug 28 First use of a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine to scan the human body at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Scotland
- Aug 31 80th US Golf Amateur Championship won by Hal Sutton
- Aug 31 Poland's Solidarity trade union federations forms and is officially recognised by the Polish government
- Aug 31 The Gdańsk Agreement is signed, allowing Polish citizens to bring democratic changes within the communist political structure
Admirals
Aviators
Gangsters
Generals
Industrialists
Suffragists