August Calendar of Famous Inventions and Birthdays

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Although the United States doesn't celebrate any official holidays during the month of August, the eighth month of the Gregorian calendar does celebrate the birthdays of many famous inventors, writers, scientists, and creators—find out who shares your August birthday.

August is also the month when many great inventions, works of art, and scientific discoveries were first patented, trademarked, or copyrighted, so if you're looking for what happened on "this day in history" during the month of August, there's plenty to discover.

Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights

From the copyright registration of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" to Thomas Edison's invention of the kinetographic camera, August has celebrated a number of patents, trademarks, and copyrights throughout the years.

August 1

  • 1900: "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum was copyright registered.
  • 1941: The first Jeep rolled off the assembly line, and Willy’s Truck Company was the first company to create a jeep.

August 2

  • 1904: A patent for a "glass shaping machine" was granted to Michael Owen. The immense production of glass bottles and jars today owes its inception to this invention.

August 3

  • 1897: The Street Car Controller was patented by Walter Knight and William Potter.

August 4

  • 1970: "Poppin Fresh" was trademark registered by the Pillsbury Company.

August 5

  • 1997: Patent Number 5,652,975 was issued for an automatic talking potty apparatus to Glory Hoskin.

August 6

August 7

  • 1906: The Flexible Flyer was trademark registered.
  • 1944: The world's first program-controlled calculator, popularly called the Harvard Mark I, was inaugurated. The machine was built by Harvard researcher Howard Aiken and supported by IBM.

August 8

  • 1911: Patent Number 1,000,000 was issued to Francis Holton for a vehicle tire.

August 9

  • 1898: Rudolf Diesel of France was granted patent Number 608,845 for an "internal combustion engine" known as the Diesel engine.

August 10

  • 1909: The Ford trademark was registered by the Ford Motor Corporation.

August 11

  • 1942: Hedy Markey received a patent for a secret communication system.
  • 1950: Steve Wozniak was born, the co-founder of Apple Computers.

August 12

  • 1930: Clarence Birdseye patented a method for packaging frozen foods.

August 13

  • 1890: A publisher copyright registered an edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter."

August 14

  • 1889: "The Washington Post March" by John Phillip Sousa was copyright registered.
  • 1984: IBM released MS-DOS version 3.0. IBM first approached Bill Gates and Microsoft to discuss the state of home computers in 1980.

August 15

  • 1989: President George Bush issued a proclamation commemorating the bicentennial anniversary of the first patent and copyright laws.

August 16

  • 1949: Patent Number 2,478,967 was granted to Leonard Greene of Mineola, NY for an "airplane stall warning device."

August 17

  • 1993: Patent Number 5,236,208 was issued to Thomas Welsh for a platform steerable skateboard.

August 18

  • 1949: Plant Patent Number 1 was issued to Henry Bosenberg of New Brunswick, NJ, for a climbing rose.

August 19

  • 1919: Hostess was trademark registered by William B. Ward.
  • 1888: The first world beauty contest was held in Belgium, an 18-year-old West Indian woman won.

August 20

  • 1930: Philo Farnsworth patented a television.

August 21

  • 1888: The first practical adding & listing machine (calculator) was patented by William Burroughs.

August 22

  • 1952: The Television Show "Adventures of Superman" was copyright registered.
  • 1932: The BBS began experimental regular television broadcasts.

August 23

  • 1977: The name Cincinnati Bengals was trademark registered.
  • 1904: The automobile tire chain was patented.

August 24

  • 1993: Patent Number 5,238,437 for a Bubble Dispensing Doll was issued to Vowles, Barad, Smith, and Stern.

August 25

  • 1814: The British burnt Washington, D.C., however, the Patent Office was saved by the British Superintendent of Patents, Dr. William Thornton.

August 26

  • 1902: Arthur McCurdy obtained a patent for a daylight developing tank for roll film.

August 27

  • 1855: Clara Barton became the first female federal employee to achieve equal status when she was hired by the Patent Office as a clerk

August 28

  • 1951: Oral B (the famous line of dental products) was trademark registered.

August 29

  • 1893: Whitcomb Judson received a patent for the zipper.

August 30

  • 1968: The song "Hey Jude" by John Lennon and Paul McCartney was copyright registered.
  • 1994: IBM announced it would not oppose Microsoft's attempt to trademark the name "Windows."

August 31

August Birthdays

From the birth of the famed French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent to that of German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz, there are many famous August birthdays.

August 1

  • 1849: George Mercer Dawson was a famous Canadian scientist.
  • 1889: John F Mahoney developed a penicillin treatment for syphilis.
  • 1936: Yves Saint Laurent is considered the greatest French fashion designer of the 20th century.

August 2

  • 1834: Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was the French sculptor who patented the Statue of Liberty.
  • 1835: Elisha Grey was an inventor who invented the early telephone.
  • 1926: Betsy Bloomingdale founded the famous department store.

August 3

  • 1959: Koichi Tanaka is a famous Japanese scientist who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2002 for work with mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules.

August 4

  • 1755: Nicolas-Jacque Conte invented the modern pencil.
  • 1859: Knut Hamsun was a Norwegian writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920 and wrote many Neo-Romantic novels like "Hunger," "Mysteries," "Pan," and "Victoria."

August 5

  • 1540: Joseph Justice Scaliger invented Julian dating.
  • 1802: Niels H. Abel was a Norwegian mathematician who invented Abel's Comparisons.
  • 1904: Kenneth Thimann was a famous botanist.
  • 1906: Wassily Leontief was a Russian-American economist who won the Nobel Prize in 1973.

August 6

  • 1859: J. Arthur S. Berson was a famous Austrian meteorologist who made famous hot air balloon flights over the Amazon.
  • 1867: James Loeb was a famous American businessman who financially helped to found the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry.
  • 1908: Sol Adler was a famous economist who invented Sinophile.

August 7

  • 1779: Carl Ritter was the co-founder of the modern science of geography.
  • 1783: John Heathcoat invented lace-making machinery.
  • 1870: Gustav Krupp was a famous German businessman.
  • 1880: Ernst Laqueur was a famous microbiologist who discovered sexual hormones.
  • 1886: Louis Hazeltine was the inventor of the neutrodyne circuit that made the radio possible. 
  • 1903: Louis Leakey was a famous anthropologist who won the 1964 Richard Hooper Medal.

August 8

  • 1861: William Bateson was a famous English biologist who invented the term "genetics."
  • 1901: Ernest Lawrence was a famous scientist and inventor who invented the Cyclotron and won the Nobel Prize in 1939.
  • 1902: Paul Dirac was a famous English physicist who invented quantum mechanics and won the Nobel Prize in 1933.
  • 1922: Rudi Gernreich was a famous designer who invented the first women's topless swimsuit and the miniskirt.
  • 1931: Roger Penrose was a famous English physicist.

August 9

  • 1819: William Thomas Green Morton was a dentist that invented the use of ether in dentistry.
  • 1896: Jean Piaget was a famous Swiss developmental psychologist and zoologist.
  • 1897: Ralph Wyckoff was a pioneer of x-ray crystallography.
  • 1911: William A. Fowler was a famous astrophysicist who won the Nobel Prize in 1983.
  • 1927: Marvin Minsky was a famous computer scientist at MIT who made inventions related to artificial intelligence.

August 10

  • 1861: Almroth Wright was a famous English bacteriologist.

August 11

  • 1858: Christian Eijkman was a famous bacteriologist who won the Nobel Prize in 1929.
  • 1926: Bernard Ashley was a famous English fashion designer who founded Laura Ashley.
  • 1950: Steve Wozniak was a computer inventor and the co-founder of Apple Computers.

August 12

  • 1930: George Soros is a famous Hungarian businessman and funder for political movements who was worth $8 billion in 2017.

August 13

  • 1655: Johann Christoph Denner was the inventor of the clarinet.
  • 1814: Anders Jonas Engstrom was a Swedish physicist who co-invented the spectroscope.
  • 1819: George Gabriel Stokes was a famous physicist and mathematician who co-invented the spectroscope.
  • 1888: John Logie Baird was a Scottish inventor of a television system.
  • 1902: Felix Wankel was a German inventor who invented the Wankel rotary-piston engine.
  • 1912: Salvador Luria was an Italian-American biologist who won the Nobel Prize in 1969.
  • 1918: Frederick Sanger was an English biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1958 and 1980.

August 14

  • 1777: Hans Christian Oersted was a famous Dutch physicist and chemist who wrote "View of Chemical Law" and was an early experimenter in the field of electromagnetism.
  • 1861: Bion Joseph Arnold was a famous electrical engineer and inventor.
  • 1883: Ernest Just was a famous biologist who pioneered cell division.
  • 1903: John Ringling North was a famous circus director who co-founded the Ringling Brothers Circus.

August 15

  • 1794: Elias Fries was a famous Swedish botanist who invented the system a mycologicium.
  • 1892: Louis-Victor, Prince of Broglie was a French physicist who won the Nobel Prize in 1929.
  • 1896: Leon Theremin was an electronic musical instrument inventor who invented the Theremin.

August 16

  • 1845: Gabriel Lippmann was a famous French physicist who invented the first color photographic plate and was awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physics for this process.
  • 1848: Francis Darwin was a famous English scientist and the son of Charles Darwin who carried on his work.
  • 1862: Amos Alonzo Stagg was a football pioneer and the inventor of the tackling dummy.
  • 1892: Harold Foster was a famous cartoonist who invented "Prince Valiant."
  • 1897: Robert Ringling was a circus master who co-founded the Ringling Brothers Circus.
  • 1904: Wendell Stanley was a famous biochemist and the first to crystallize a virus, for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1946.

August 17

  • 1870: Frederick Russell invented the first successful typhoid fever vaccine.
  • 1906: Hazel Bishop was a famous chemist and cosmetics manufacturer who invented the first indelible or smear-proof lipstick.

August 18

  • 1834: Marshall Field founded the Marshall Field Department Store.
  • 1883: Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel was a famous French fashion designer who invented the house of Chanel.
  • 1904: Max Factor, Jr. was the CEO of Max Factor Cosmetics and son of the founder and inventor Max Factor.
  • 1927: Marvin Harris was a famous American scientist.

August 19

  • 1785: Seth Thomas invented the mass production of clocks.
  • 1906: Philo T Farnsworth was the inventor of electronic TV.
  • 1919: Malcolm Forbes was a famous publisher who founded Forbes Magazine.

August 20

  • 1908: Kingsley Davis was a sociologist who invented the term "population explosion."

August 21

  • 1660: Hubert Gautier was an engineer who wrote the first book on bridge-building.
  • 1907: Roy Marshall was a well-known scientist who narrated "The Nature of Things."

August 22

  • 1860: Paul Nipkow was a German TV pioneer and inventor.
  • 1920: Denton Cooley was a heart surgeon who performed the first artificial heart transplant.

August 23

  • 1926: Clifford Geertz was a famous cultural anthropologist and ethnographer who described culture as a system of symbols and actions which convey meaning.
  • 1928: Vera Rubin was a famous American scientist who discovered dark matter.
  • 1933: Manfred Donike was a famous chemist who invented drug testing.

August 24

  • 1880: Joshua Cowen was a scientist who helped invent the flashlight and invented the electric toy train.
  • 1898: Albert Claude was a Belgian cytologist who won the Nobel Prize in 1974 for discoveries of cell structure and function.
  • 1918: Ray McIntire was the chemical engineer who invented styrofoam.

August 25

  • 1841: Theodor Kocher was a Swiss surgeon and thyroid specialist who won the Nobel Prize in 1909.
  • 1916: Frederick Robbin was an American bacteriologist who won the Nobel Prize in 1954.

August 26

  • 1740: Joseph Montgolfier was a French aeronaut who invented successful hot air ballooning.
  • 1743: Antoine Lavoisier was a famous French scientist who invented the term oxygen.
  • 1850: Charles Richet was a French physiologist who won the Nobel Prize in 1913.
  • 1906: Albert Sabin was a Russian-American microbiologist who invented the oral polio vaccine.
  • 1951: Edward Witten is a famous American mathematician and theoretical physicist who won the 2008 Crafoord Prize in Mathematics. He helped develop string theory and developed mathematical processes to solve the multi-dimensional equations of string theory.

August 27

  • 1770: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher and inventor who furthered the field of idealism.
  • 1874: Karl Bosch was a German chemist and the founder of BASF who won the Nobel Prize in 1931.
  • 1877: Charles Stewart Rolls was a British auto manufacturer and founder of Rolls-Royce Ltd who invented the Rolls-Royce.
  • 1890: Man Ray was an American artist and photographer who invented the Dada movement.

August 28

  • 865: Rhazes was a famous ground-blazing Persian physician.
  • 1878: George Hoyt Whipple was an American astrophysicist who won the Nobel Prize in 1934.
  • 1917: Jack Kirby was a famous cartoonist who co-invented the X-Men, Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Fantastic Four, and Thor.

August 29

  • 1561: Bartholomeus Pitiscus was a German mathematician who invented trigonometry.
  • 1876: Charles Kettering was an American inventor who invented the auto self-starter ignition.
  • 1904: Werner Forssman was a German urologist who won the Nobel Prize in 1956.
  • 1959: Stephen Wolfram was an English computer scientist who invented the computational software Mathematica.

August 30

  • 1852: Jacobus Henricus was a Dutch physical chemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1901.
  • 1884: Theodor Svedberg was a Swedish chemist who worked with colloids and won the Nobel Prize in 1926.
  • 1912: Edward Purcell was an American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in 1952.
  • 1927: Geoffrey Beene was an American dress designer who won eight Coty Awards. 

August 31

  • 1663: Guillaume Amontons was a famous French physicist.
  • 1821: Hermann von Helmholtz was a famous German physicist.
  • 1870: Maria Montessori was a famous Italian educator who invented the term "spontaneous response."
  • 1889: A. Provost Idell invented modern volleyball.
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Your Citation
Bellis, Mary. "August Calendar of Famous Inventions and Birthdays." ThoughtCo, Jul. 31, 2021, thoughtco.com/today-in-history-august-calendar-1992501. Bellis, Mary. (2021, July 31). August Calendar of Famous Inventions and Birthdays. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/today-in-history-august-calendar-1992501 Bellis, Mary. "August Calendar of Famous Inventions and Birthdays." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/today-in-history-august-calendar-1992501 (accessed March 28, 2024).