August: see month.

Wilson, August, 1945-2005, American playwright and poet, b. Pittsburgh as Frederick August Kittel. Largely self-educated, Wilson first attracted wide critical attention with his Broadway debut, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984), a play set in 1927 that dramatizes the clash between the blues diva and a member of her band and the larger conflicts brought about by racist American society. Wilson's plays center on the struggles and identity of African Americans and the deleterious effect of white American institutions on black American life. His works draw heavily on Wilson's own experience growing up in the Hill district of Pittsburgh, a black ghetto where nearly all of his plays are set. His characters are ordinary people whose histories, frustrations, and aspirations Wilson astutely portrays. His cycle of ten dramas written over a period of more than 20 years include various overlapping characters and themes. In addition to Ma Rainey, it includes Jitney (1982), Fences (1987; Pulitzer Prize, Tony Award), Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1988), The Piano Lesson (1990; Pulitzer Prize), Two Trains Running (1992), Seven Guitars (1995), King Hedley II (2001), Gem of the Ocean (2003), and Radio Golf (2005). Acclaimed as landmarks in the history of black American culture, these works focus on the major issues confronting African Americans during each of the decades of the 20th cent. In 2003, Wilson starred in a production of his autobiographical one-man play How I Learned What I Learned.

Sander, August, 1876-1964, Austrian photographer. During his long life Sander made a remarkable composite portrait of the German people. He began his immense work in the early 1890s, making pictures of young men who wanted mementos to give to their families before they emigrated to the United States. He opened a portrait studio in Linz (1904), but a great percentage of his precise, direct, and perceptive portraits were made in the homes and working environments of his sitters. Using large glass plates, he produced a realistic picture of the daily life and look of a vast cross-section of German society that, as a whole, is considered both a sociological and a photographic masterpiece. His subjects included country people, artisans, laborers, technicians, artists, professionals, politicians, aristocrats, and family groups of every sort, the total work comprising an extraordinary human document in which the photographer himself is particularly unobtrusive. Sander also wrote a treatise on the function of photography, Confession of Faith in Photography (1927).

Bebel, August, 1840-1913, German Socialist leader. A wood turner by trade, he became a Marxian Socialist under the influence of Wilhelm Liebknecht. At a congress at Eisenach (1869) he was instrumental in founding the German Social Democratic party, which he later represented in the Reichstag and which he led for many years. His antimilitarism and his social program earned him the hatred of Bismarck. In 1872, Bebel and Liebknecht, tried on charges of treason, were sentenced to two years' imprisonment, but this only solidified Bebel's control over the Social Democrats, and he was reelected to the Reichstag. In 1875 he helped to unite the Lassalle group with the Social Democrats. A moderate Marxist, he opposed either violent retaliation against repression or the gradualist, evolutionary socialism of Eduard Bernstein, condemning all deviation (right and left) at the Dresden Congress of 1903. By 1912 the Social Democrats, embodied by Bebel, were the largest German political party. Among his writings are Women and Socialism (1883, tr. 1910), which was highly influential among German workers, and his autobiography (1910-14, abr. tr. 1912, repr. 1973).

Schleicher, August, 1821-68, German philologist. A professor at the universities of Prague and Jena, Schleicher wrote studies of the Lithuanian language (1856-57), the German language (1860), and the language of the Polabian Slavs (1871). His most important work on comparative philology, published in German (1861-62), was translated as A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European, Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin Languages (2 vol., 1874-77).

Gneisenau, August, Graf Neithardt von, 1760-1831, Prussian field marshal. In the Napoleonic Wars he fought at Jena (1806) and, as a major, won fame for his valiant defense of Kolberg. After Prussia's capitulation to Napoleon I (1807), he served with General von Scharnhorst on the military reorganization commission and helped reform the defeated Prussian army. The army's leading strategist during Prussia's War of Liberation against the French (1813-15), he was chief of staff to the commander of the army, Blücher. He retired from active service in 1816, when the need for military reform had passed, but returned to lead an expedition against the Polish insurrection, in which he was killed.

Vermeylen, August, 1872-1945, Flemish writer and critic. Active in the Flemish literary revival, he was the chief founder (1893) of the journal Van Nu en Straks [today and tomorrow]. He was professor of literature and of art history at the Univ. of Brussels (1901-23), and in 1930 he was named rector of the Flemish Univ. of Ghent. In addition to many works of literary and art criticism, he wrote poetry and a novel, De wandelende Jood [the wandering Jew] (1906).

Fick, August, 1833-1916, German philologist. Fick compiled the first comparative etymological dictionary of the Indo-European languages (1868).

Macke, August, 1887-1914, German painter. Trained in Germany, he made several trips to Paris, where he came in contact with impressionism and the fauvist and cubist painters. A brilliant colorist, he joined the artists Franz Marc and Kandinsky and exhibited with the Blaue Reiter group. In 1914 he traveled with Paul Klee to Tunisia. There he created watercolors of a fine transparency with subtle prismatic patterns. Macke had barely finished Farewell (Cologne) when he was conscripted. He was killed in World War I.

Weismann, August, 1834-1914, German biologist. He taught zoology at the Univ. of Freiburg from 1866 to 1912. He is known as the originator of the germ-plasm theory of heredity. His doctrine, formerly called Weismannism, stresses the unbroken continuity of the germ plasm and the nonheritability of acquired characteristics. His works include The Germ-Plasm (1892, tr. 1893) and a series of essays translated into English as Essays upon Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems (2d ed., 2 vol., 1891-92).

(born April 27, 1945, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.—died Oct. 2, 2005, Seattle, Wash.) U.S. playwright. He was largely self-educated. A participant in the black aesthetic movement, he cofounded and directed Pittsburgh's Black Horizons Theatre (1968), published poetry in African American journals, and produced several plays, including Jitney (1982), before his Ma Rainey's Black Bottom opened on Broadway in 1984. Inspired by the colloquial language, music, folklore, and storytelling tradition of African Americans, he continued his cycle of plays, each set in a different decade of the 20th century, with Fences (1986, Pulitzer Prize), Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1988), The Piano Lesson (1990, Pulitzer Prize), Two Trains Running (1992), Seven Guitars (1996), Gem of the Ocean (first produced 2003), King Hedley II (2005), and Radio Golf (first produced 2005).

Learn more about Wilson, August with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Feb. 21, 1866, Bamberg, Bavaria—died March 16, 1925, Berlin, Ger.) German bacteriologist. With Albert Neisser (1855–1916) he developed a test for the antibody to the spirochete that causes syphilis in 1906. That test, along with other procedures, is still used to diagnose syphilis. He is also noted for developing tests for tuberculosis. With Wilhelm Kolle he wrote Handbook of Pathogenic Microorganisms (6 vol., 1903–09).

Learn more about Wassermann, August von with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Feb. 1, 1859, Dublin, Ire.—died May 26, 1924, New York, N.Y., U.S.) Irish-born U.S. composer. After his widowed mother married a German doctor, he was raised in Stuttgart, and he studied at its conservatory. He married the soprano Therese Forrester in 1886, and they moved to the U.S., she to sing and he to play in the orchestra at the new Metropolitan Opera. He was soon active as a conductor, cellist, composer, and teacher. His solid training, orchestrating skill, and melodic gift found natural expression in more than 40 operettas, including Babes in Toyland (1903), Mlle Modiste (1905), The Red Mill (1906), and Naughty Marietta (1910).

Learn more about Herbert, Victor (August) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Feb. 19, 1859, Vik, Swed.—died Oct. 2, 1927, Stockholm) Swedish physical chemist. His theories on dissociation of substances in solution into electrolytes or ions, first published in 1884 as his Ph.D. thesis, were initially met with skepticism, but increasing recognition abroad gradually won over the opposition in Sweden. He also did important work on reaction rates; the equation describing the dependence of reaction rates on temperature is often called the Arrhenius law, and he was the first to recognize the greenhouse effect. After receiving the Royal Society of London's Davy Medal (1902), he became in 1903 the third recipient of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. He is regarded as one of the founders of the field of physical chemistry.

Learn more about Arrhenius, Svante (August) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Jan. 22, 1849, Stockholm, Swed.—died May 14, 1912, Stockholm) Swedish playwright and novelist. While working as a journalist, he wrote the historical drama Mäster Olof (1872); though rejected by the national theatre and not produced until 1890, it is now considered the first modern Swedish drama. He won fame with his novel The Red Room (1879), which satirized the Stockholm art world. His unhappy life included three marriages and episodes of mental instability. In his most creative period he moved restlessly around Europe for six years, writing his three major plays: The Father (1887), Miss Julie (1888), and The Creditors (1890). These iconoclastic works portrayed the battle of the sexes using a combination of dramatic naturalism and psychology. During this period he also wrote three novels. After a mental breakdown he experienced a religious conversion that inspired symbolic dramas such as The Dance of Death (1901), A Dream Play (1902), and five “chamber plays,” including The Ghost Sonata (1907).

Learn more about Strindberg, (Johan) August with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Feb. 19, 1821, Meiningen, Saxe-Meiningen—died Dec. 6, 1868, Jena, Prussia) German linguist. He began his career studying classical and Slavic languages. Influenced by G.W.F. Hegel and Charles Darwin, he formed the theory that a language is an organism, with periods of development, maturity, and decline. He invented a system of language classification that resembled a botanical taxonomy, tracing groups of related languages and arranging them in a genealogical tree. His model, the Stammbaumtheorie (“family-tree theory”), was a major development in the study of Indo-European languages. His great work was A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European, Sanskrit, Greek and Latin Languages (1874–77), in which he attempted to reconstruct Proto-Indo-European.

Learn more about Schleicher, August with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Sept. 8, 1767, Hannover, Hanover—died May 12, 1845, Bonn) German scholar and critic. He worked as a tutor and wrote for Friedrich Schiller's short-lived periodical Die Horen before cofounding with his brother Friedrich von Schlegel the periodical Athenäum (1798–1800), which became the organ of German Romanticism. While a professor at the University of Jena, he undertook translations of the works of William Shakespeare (1797–1810) that became standard editions and are among the finest of all German literary translations. His Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature (1809–11) was widely translated and helped spread fundamental Romantic ideas throughout Europe. From 1818 until his death he taught at the University of Bonn.

Learn more about Schlegel, August Wilhelm von with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born May 3, 1849, Ribe, Den.—died May 26, 1914, Barre, Mass., U.S.) U.S. journalist and social reformer. He immigrated to the U.S. at 21 and became a police reporter for the New York Tribune (1877–88) and the New York Evening Sun (1888–99). He publicized the deplorable living conditions in the slums of New York's Lower East Side, photographing the rooms and hallways of tenements. He compiled his findings in How the Other Half Lives (1890), a book that stirred the nation's conscience and spurred the state's first significant legislation to improve tenements.

Learn more about Riis, Jacob A(ugust) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born June 10, 1832, Holzhausen, Nassau—died Jan. 26, 1891, Cologne, Ger.) German engineer who developed the four-stroke internal-combustion engine. He built his first gasoline-powered engine in 1861, and in 1876 he built an internal-combustion engine using the four-stroke cycle (four strokes of the piston for each explosion), which offered the first practical alternative to the steam engine as a power source. Though the four-stroke cycle was patented in 1862 by Alphonse Beau de Rochas (1815–93), it is commonly known as the Otto cycle since Otto was the first to build such an engine.

Learn more about Otto, Nikolaus August with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born June 10, 1832, Holzhausen, Nassau—died Jan. 26, 1891, Cologne, Ger.) German engineer who developed the four-stroke internal-combustion engine. He built his first gasoline-powered engine in 1861, and in 1876 he built an internal-combustion engine using the four-stroke cycle (four strokes of the piston for each explosion), which offered the first practical alternative to the steam engine as a power source. Though the four-stroke cycle was patented in 1862 by Alphonse Beau de Rochas (1815–93), it is commonly known as the Otto cycle since Otto was the first to build such an engine.

Learn more about Otto, Nikolaus August with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born June 9, 1865, Sortelung, near Norre Lyndelse, Den.—died Oct. 3, 1931, Copenhagen) Danish composer. He studied violin and trumpet as a child and began composing by imitating classical models. In 1890 he went to Germany to learn of newer developments and met Johannes Brahms, whose music came to influence his own. His individual style—still following classical forms but using intense chromaticism combined with a lyric, melodic strain—emerged after 1900. The last five of his six symphonies (1902–25) are the core of his work, but he also composed many short orchestra pieces, piano and chamber music, concertos for violin, flute, and clarinet, and a wind quintet.

Learn more about Nielsen, Carl (August) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Jan. 6, 1838, Cologne, Prussia—died Oct. 2, 1920, Friedensau, near Berlin, Ger.) German composer. Bruch held many conducting positions and taught for 20 years at the Berlin Academy. He was known in his lifetime principally for his many sacred and secular choral pieces, including Odysseus (1872) and Das Lied von der Glocke (1879). Today he is remembered especially for his first violin concerto (1868); he also wrote two further violin concertos, the cello variations Kol Nidrei (1881), and operas and symphonies.

Learn more about Bruch, Max (Karl August) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born May 3, 1849, Ribe, Den.—died May 26, 1914, Barre, Mass., U.S.) U.S. journalist and social reformer. He immigrated to the U.S. at 21 and became a police reporter for the New York Tribune (1877–88) and the New York Evening Sun (1888–99). He publicized the deplorable living conditions in the slums of New York's Lower East Side, photographing the rooms and hallways of tenements. He compiled his findings in How the Other Half Lives (1890), a book that stirred the nation's conscience and spurred the state's first significant legislation to improve tenements.

Learn more about Riis, Jacob A(ugust) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Feb. 1, 1859, Dublin, Ire.—died May 26, 1924, New York, N.Y., U.S.) Irish-born U.S. composer. After his widowed mother married a German doctor, he was raised in Stuttgart, and he studied at its conservatory. He married the soprano Therese Forrester in 1886, and they moved to the U.S., she to sing and he to play in the orchestra at the new Metropolitan Opera. He was soon active as a conductor, cellist, composer, and teacher. His solid training, orchestrating skill, and melodic gift found natural expression in more than 40 operettas, including Babes in Toyland (1903), Mlle Modiste (1905), The Red Mill (1906), and Naughty Marietta (1910).

Learn more about Herbert, Victor (August) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born May 8, 1899, Vienna, Austria—died March 23, 1992, Freiburg, Ger.) Austrian-born British economist. He moved to London in 1931 and held positions at the University of London and the London School of Economics, becoming a British citizen in 1938. Later posts included a professorship at the University of Chicago (1950–62). Throughout his life Hayek criticized socialism, often contrasting it with a system of free markets. In his works he opposed the theories of John Maynard Keynes and argued that government intervention in the free market is destructive of individual values and could not prevent such economic ailments as inflation, unemployment, and recession. His books include The Road to Serfdom (1944), The Constitution of Liberty (1960), and The Political Order of a Free People (1979). His views have been highly influential among conservatives, including Margaret Thatcher. In 1974 he shared the Nobel Prize with Gunnar Myrdal.

Learn more about Hayek, Friedrich (August) von with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born May 8, 1899, Vienna, Austria—died March 23, 1992, Freiburg, Ger.) Austrian-born British economist. He moved to London in 1931 and held positions at the University of London and the London School of Economics, becoming a British citizen in 1938. Later posts included a professorship at the University of Chicago (1950–62). Throughout his life Hayek criticized socialism, often contrasting it with a system of free markets. In his works he opposed the theories of John Maynard Keynes and argued that government intervention in the free market is destructive of individual values and could not prevent such economic ailments as inflation, unemployment, and recession. His books include The Road to Serfdom (1944), The Constitution of Liberty (1960), and The Political Order of a Free People (1979). His views have been highly influential among conservatives, including Margaret Thatcher. In 1974 he shared the Nobel Prize with Gunnar Myrdal.

Learn more about Hayek, Friedrich (August) von with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born June 9, 1865, Sortelung, near Norre Lyndelse, Den.—died Oct. 3, 1931, Copenhagen) Danish composer. He studied violin and trumpet as a child and began composing by imitating classical models. In 1890 he went to Germany to learn of newer developments and met Johannes Brahms, whose music came to influence his own. His individual style—still following classical forms but using intense chromaticism combined with a lyric, melodic strain—emerged after 1900. The last five of his six symphonies (1902–25) are the core of his work, but he also composed many short orchestra pieces, piano and chamber music, concertos for violin, flute, and clarinet, and a wind quintet.

Learn more about Nielsen, Carl (August) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Jan. 6, 1838, Cologne, Prussia—died Oct. 2, 1920, Friedensau, near Berlin, Ger.) German composer. Bruch held many conducting positions and taught for 20 years at the Berlin Academy. He was known in his lifetime principally for his many sacred and secular choral pieces, including Odysseus (1872) and Das Lied von der Glocke (1879). Today he is remembered especially for his first violin concerto (1868); he also wrote two further violin concertos, the cello variations Kol Nidrei (1881), and operas and symphonies.

Learn more about Bruch, Max (Karl August) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Feb. 22, 1840, Deutz, near Cologne, Ger.—died Aug. 13, 1913, Passugg, Switz.) German socialist and writer. A turner by trade, Bebel joined the Leipzig Workers' Educational Association (1861) and became its chairman (1865). Influenced by the ideas of Wilhelm Liebknecht, in 1869 he helped found the Social Democratic Labour Party (later the Social Democratic Party) and became its most influential and popular leader for more than 40 years. He served in the Reichstag in 1867, 1871–81, and 1883–1913. He spent a total of nearly five years in prison on such charges as “libel of Bismarck.” He wrote a number of works, including Woman and Socialism (1883), a powerful piece of Social Democratic propaganda.

Learn more about Bebel, August with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Feb. 21, 1866, Bamberg, Bavaria—died March 16, 1925, Berlin, Ger.) German bacteriologist. With Albert Neisser (1855–1916) he developed a test for the antibody to the spirochete that causes syphilis in 1906. That test, along with other procedures, is still used to diagnose syphilis. He is also noted for developing tests for tuberculosis. With Wilhelm Kolle he wrote Handbook of Pathogenic Microorganisms (6 vol., 1903–09).

Learn more about Wassermann, August von with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born April 27, 1945, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.—died Oct. 2, 2005, Seattle, Wash.) U.S. playwright. He was largely self-educated. A participant in the black aesthetic movement, he cofounded and directed Pittsburgh's Black Horizons Theatre (1968), published poetry in African American journals, and produced several plays, including Jitney (1982), before his Ma Rainey's Black Bottom opened on Broadway in 1984. Inspired by the colloquial language, music, folklore, and storytelling tradition of African Americans, he continued his cycle of plays, each set in a different decade of the 20th century, with Fences (1986, Pulitzer Prize), Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1988), The Piano Lesson (1990, Pulitzer Prize), Two Trains Running (1992), Seven Guitars (1996), Gem of the Ocean (first produced 2003), King Hedley II (2005), and Radio Golf (first produced 2005).

Learn more about Wilson, August with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Sept. 8, 1767, Hannover, Hanover—died May 12, 1845, Bonn) German scholar and critic. He worked as a tutor and wrote for Friedrich Schiller's short-lived periodical Die Horen before cofounding with his brother Friedrich von Schlegel the periodical Athenäum (1798–1800), which became the organ of German Romanticism. While a professor at the University of Jena, he undertook translations of the works of William Shakespeare (1797–1810) that became standard editions and are among the finest of all German literary translations. His Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature (1809–11) was widely translated and helped spread fundamental Romantic ideas throughout Europe. From 1818 until his death he taught at the University of Bonn.

Learn more about Schlegel, August Wilhelm von with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Feb. 19, 1821, Meiningen, Saxe-Meiningen—died Dec. 6, 1868, Jena, Prussia) German linguist. He began his career studying classical and Slavic languages. Influenced by G.W.F. Hegel and Charles Darwin, he formed the theory that a language is an organism, with periods of development, maturity, and decline. He invented a system of language classification that resembled a botanical taxonomy, tracing groups of related languages and arranging them in a genealogical tree. His model, the Stammbaumtheorie (“family-tree theory”), was a major development in the study of Indo-European languages. His great work was A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European, Sanskrit, Greek and Latin Languages (1874–77), in which he attempted to reconstruct Proto-Indo-European.

Learn more about Schleicher, August with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Feb. 22, 1840, Deutz, near Cologne, Ger.—died Aug. 13, 1913, Passugg, Switz.) German socialist and writer. A turner by trade, Bebel joined the Leipzig Workers' Educational Association (1861) and became its chairman (1865). Influenced by the ideas of Wilhelm Liebknecht, in 1869 he helped found the Social Democratic Labour Party (later the Social Democratic Party) and became its most influential and popular leader for more than 40 years. He served in the Reichstag in 1867, 1871–81, and 1883–1913. He spent a total of nearly five years in prison on such charges as “libel of Bismarck.” He wrote a number of works, including Woman and Socialism (1883), a powerful piece of Social Democratic propaganda.

Learn more about Bebel, August with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Feb. 19, 1859, Vik, Swed.—died Oct. 2, 1927, Stockholm) Swedish physical chemist. His theories on dissociation of substances in solution into electrolytes or ions, first published in 1884 as his Ph.D. thesis, were initially met with skepticism, but increasing recognition abroad gradually won over the opposition in Sweden. He also did important work on reaction rates; the equation describing the dependence of reaction rates on temperature is often called the Arrhenius law, and he was the first to recognize the greenhouse effect. After receiving the Royal Society of London's Davy Medal (1902), he became in 1903 the third recipient of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. He is regarded as one of the founders of the field of physical chemistry.

Learn more about Arrhenius, Svante (August) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

August is the 8th month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days.

This month was originally named Sextilis in Latin, because it was the sixth month in the ancient Roman calendar, which started in March about 735 BC under Romulus. It became the eighth month either when January and February were added to the beginning of the year by King Numa Pompilius about 700 BC or when those two months were moved from the end to the beginning of the year by the decemvirs about 450 BC (Roman writers disagree). It was renamed in honor of Augustus in 8 BC because several of the most significant events in his rise to power, culminating in the fall of Alexandria, which fell in this month. Lore claims August originally had 29 days in the Roman Republican calendar. Augustus took two days from February and gave it to August when Sextilis was renamed in his honor. See Month lengths how this commonly believed lore was proven wrong.

August's flower is the gladiolus or poppy, and its birthstone is the peridot.

Other names

• In Arabic, the month is called أغسطسص ʾUġusṭuṣ or آب ʾĀb; usage varies from place to place and person to person.
• In Croatian, the month is called kolovoz
• In Dhivehi, the month is called Augastu
• In Dutch the month is called Augustus
• In Estonian the month is called august
• In Finnish, the month is called elokuu, meaning "month of reaping" or literally, "month of life".
• In French, the month is called août derived from the Latin augustus.
• In Greek, the month is called Avgoustos (Αύγουστος')
• In Hungarian, the month is called augusztus
• In Bahasa Indonesia, the month is known as Agustus
• In Irish, August is known as Lúnasa, a modern rendition of Lughnasadh, from the god Lugh.
• In Japanese, the month is called hachigatsu (八月), meaning, simply, "eighth month."
• In Latvian, the month is called Augusts
• In Lithuanian, the month is called rugpjūtis
• In Polish, the month is called sierpień, meaning "month of sickle".
• In Portuguese, Spanish and Italian, the month is called agosto.
• In Romanian, the month is called august
• In Russian, the month is called avgust (авгуcт)
• In Swedish, the month is named augusti, literally plural of the Latin augustus - "the venerable".
• In Thai, the month is called Sing-ha-kom representing the Singha (lion)
• In Turkish, the month is called Ağustos
• In Welsh, the month is called Awst

Events in August

• In the pagan wheel of the year August begins at or near Lughnasadh in the northern hemisphere and Imbolc in the southern hemisphere.
• Some of Ireland's most famous battles have been fought in this month. They include: the Second Battle of Athenry (1316); the battle of Knockdoe (1504); the Battle of the Yellow Ford (1596); the First Battle of Curlew Pass (1599); the Battle of Dungans Hill (1647); the Battle of Castlebar (1798), and the Battle of the Bogside (1969).
• August 1, Swiss National Day, a public holiday in Switzerland
• August 6, 1825 Bolivia's independence day.
• August 6 National Salvadoran-American Day in the United States.
• In 1945 the end of the Second World War was brought about following the August 6 bombing of Hiroshima and August 9 bombing of Nagasaki in the first and only use of nuclear weapons against people. Emperor Hirohito declared Japan's unconditional surrender on August 15.
• August 9, 1965 Singapore separated from the Federation of Malaysia and became independent.
• August 10, 1822 Ecuador became an independent country.
• August 14, 1947 Pakistan became independent (included East Bengal region as a whole).
• August 15, Catholic, Feast of the Assumption
• August 15, 1769 Corsica, birth of Napoleon Bonaparte
• August 15, 1945 Korea became an independent country.
• August 15, 1947 India became an independent country.
• August 17, 1945 Indonesia became an independent country.
• August 19, 1945 Vietnam's August Revolution succeeded.
• August 20, 1083 Hungary's Saint Stephen canonized (1001 CE), thus becoming the first of the canonized confessor kings. St. Stephen's day is a national holiday in Hungary as well as an observed holiday for many Hungarian-Americans and other Hungarians around the world.
• August 21, 1959 Hawaii became the 50th state of the United States of America. The third Friday of August was designated Statehood Day, a state holiday.
• August 25, 1825 Uruguay became independent from Brazil.
• August 31, 1957 Malaysia became an independent country.

Monthlong events in August

• Edinburgh Festival is an internationally famous arts festival that takes place during August
• National Immunization Awareness Month
• National Psoriasis Awareness Month
• Women's Small Business Month
• In many European countries, August is the holiday month for most workers
• The Philippines celebrates August as the Buwan ng Wika ("Language Month")
• In the United States, August is National Back to School month. Some US School districts and systems return to school in August.
• In the United States, August is National Goat Cheese Month.

Weeklong events in August

• During the first week of August in Wales, the National Eisteddfod of Wales is held, in which many aspects of Welsh art and culture are celebrated.
• The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is held the first full week in August each year.
• The middle week of August is the peak of the Perseid meteor shower.

Other August events

• The first full weekend in August each year, Twinsburg, Ohio celebrates Twins Days.
• High school fall sports practices and band practices begin across the United States.
• August is the only month without a major (religious or federal) holiday in the United States.

Daily events in August

Last Sunday

• The Philippines celebrates National Heroes Day in commemoration of the First Cry of the Philippine Revolution on August 23, 1896.

August symbols

• August's birthstone is the peridot.
• Its birth flower is the gladiolus.

References

Further reading

• August, By David Plotz - Slate Magazine