August 29 is the 241st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (242nd in leap years), with 124 days remaining.

Events

• 25 BC - Christian Cross Asterism (astronomy) at Zenith of Lima, Peru.
• 708 - Copper coins are minted in Japan for the first time (Traditional Japanese date: August 10, 708).
• 1189 - Ban Kulin wrote "The Charter of Kulin", which become a symbolic "birth certificate" of Bosnian statehood
• 1261 - Urban IV becomes Pope, the last man to do so without being a Cardinal first.
• 1350 - Battle of Winchelsea (or Les Espagnols sur Mer). The English naval fleet under King Edward III defeats a Castilian fleet of 40 ships.
• 1475 - The Treaty of Picquigny ends a brief war between France and England.
• 1484 - Cardinal Giovanni Battista Cibo is elected Pope Innocent VIII.
• 1521 - The Ottoman Turks capture Nándorfehérvár, now known as Belgrade.
• 1526 - Battle of Mohács: The Ottoman Turks led by Suleiman the Magnificent defeat and kill the last Jagiellonian king of Hungary and Bohemia.
• 1533 - Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire: Inca emperor Atahualpa is executed in Cajamarca by the garrote by Spanish invaders known as Conquistadores.
• 1541 - The Ottoman Turks capture Buda, the capital of the Hungarian Kingdom.
• 1756 - Frederick the Great attacks Saxony, beginning the Seven Years' War.
• 1786 - Shays' Rebellion, an armed uprising of Massachusetts farmers, begins in response to high debt and tax burdens.
• 1831 - Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction.
• 1833 - The United Kingdom legislates the abolition of slavery in its empire.
• 1842 - Treaty of Nanking signing ends the First Opium War
• 1869 - The Mount Washington Cog Railway opens, making it the world's first rack railway.
• 1871 - Emperor Meiji orders the Abolition of the han system and the establishment of prefectures as local centers of administration. (Traditional Japanese date: July 14, 1871).
• 1885 - Gottlieb Daimler patents the world's first motorcycle.
• 1895 - The formation of the Northern Rugby Union at the George Hotel, Huddersfield, England.
• 1896 - Chop suey is invented in New York City.
• 1898 - The Goodyear tire company is founded.
• 1907 - The Quebec Bridge collapses during construction, killing 75 workers.
• 1910 - Japan changes Korea's name to Chōsen and appoints a governor-general to rule its new colony.
• 1911 - Ishi, considered the last Native American to make contact with European Americans, emerges from the wilderness of northeastern California.
• 1922 - Turkish forces set fire to Smyrna, in Asia Minor.
• 1930 - The last 36 remaining inhabitants of St Kilda are voluntarily evacuated to other parts of Scotland.
• 1943 - German-occupied Denmark scuttles most of its navy; Germany dissolves Danish government.
• 1944 - Slovak National Uprising takes place as 60,000 Slovak troops turn against the Nazis.
• 1949 - Soviet atomic bomb project: The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, known as First Lightning or Joe 1, at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan.
• 1952 - Premiere of John Cage's 4′33″ in Woodstock, New York.
• 1958 - United States Air Force Academy opens in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
• 1966 - Last Beatles concert, in San Francisco, California.
• 1970 - First flight of the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 jetliner, a competitor to the Boeing 747.
• 1982 - The synthetic chemical element Meitnerium, atomic number 109, is first synthesized at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, Germany.
• 1991 - Supreme Soviet suspends all activities of the Soviet Communist Party.
• 1995 - NATO launches Operation Deliberate Force against Bosnian Serb forces.
• 1996 - Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801, a Vnukovo Airlines Tupolev Tu-154 crashes into a mountain on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen, killing all 141 aboard.
• 1997 - At least 98 villagers are killed by the GIA in the Rais massacre, Algeria.
• 2003 - Ayatollah Sayed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the Shia Muslim leader in Iraq, is assassinated in a terrorist bombing, along with nearly 100 worshippers as they leave a mosque in Najaf.
• 2005 - Hurricane Katrina devastates much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing more than 1,836 and costing over 115 billion dollars in damage.

Births

• 1619 - Jean-Baptiste Colbert, French minister of finance (d. 1683)
• 1628 - John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath, English royalist statesman (d. 1701)
• 1632 - John Locke, English philosopher (d. 1704)
• 1725 - Charles Townshend, English politician (d. 1767)
• 1756 - Heinrich Graf von Bellegarde, Austrian field marshal and statesman (d. 1845)
• 1756 - Jan Śniadecki, Polish mathematician, philosopher and astronomer (d. 1830)
• 1777 - Nikita Yakovlevich Bichurin, founder of Sinology (d. 1853)
• 1780 - Jean Ingres, French painter (d. 1867)
• 1805 - Frederick Maurice, English theologian (d. 1872)
• 1809 - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., American physician (d. 1894)
• 1810 - Juan Bautista Alberdi, founding father of the Argentine Republic (d. 1884)
• 1843 - David B. Hill, Governor of New York (d. 1910)
• 1844 - Edward Carpenter, English Socialist poet (d. 1929
• 1862 - Andrew Fisher, fifth Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1928)
• 1862 - Maurice Maeterlinck, Belgian writer, Nobel laureate (d. 1949)
• 1871 - Albert Lebrun, French politician (d. 1950)
• 1876 - Charles F. Kettering, American inventor (d. 1958)
• 1898 - Preston Sturges, American screenwriter (d. 1959)

20th Century

• 1904 - Werner Forssmann, German physician, Nobel laureate (d. 1979)
• 1905 - Dhyan Chand, Indian hockey player (d. 1979)
• 1915 - Ingrid Bergman, Swedish actress (d. 1982)
• 1916 - George Montgomery, American actor (d. 2000)
• 1916 - Luther Davis, American playwright
• 1917 - Isabel Sanford, American actress (d. 2004)
• 1920 - Charlie Parker, American musician (d. 1955)
• 1923 - The Lord Attenborough, English film director
• 1924 - Consuelo Velázquez, Mexican songwriter (d. 2005)
• 1924 - Dinah Washington, American singer (d. 1963)
• 1933 - Arnold Koller, Swiss Federal Councilor
• 1936 - John McCain, American politician
• 1937 - James Florio, Governor of New Jersey
• 1938 - Elliott Gould, American actor
• 1938 - Robert Rubin, United States Secretary of the Treasury
• 1939 - William Friedkin, American film director
• 1939 - Joel Schumacher, American film director
• 1940 - Gary Gabelich, race car driver
• 1941 - Robin Leach, English television host
• 1946 - Bob Beamon, American jumper
• 1953 - James Quesada, Nicaraguan-American anthropologist
• 1957 - Jerry Bailey, American racing jockey
• 1958 - Michael Jackson, American singer
• 1958 - Lenny Henry, British comic
• 1959 - Ernesto Rodrigues, Portuguese composer
• 1959 - Akkineni Nagarjuna, Telugu film actor
• 1959 - Timothy Perry Shriver, American chairman of the Special Olympics
• 1961 - Carsten Fischer, German field hockey player
• 1962 - Rebecca De Mornay, American actress
• 1963 - Elizabeth Fraser, English singer (Cocteau Twins)
• 1967 - Anton Newcombe, American musician (The Brian Jonestown Massacre)
• 1969 - Me'Shell NdegéOcello, American singer
• 1969 - Joe Swail, Northern Irish snooker player
• 1970 - Jacco Eltingh, Dutch tennis player
• 1971 - Carla Gugino, American actress
• 1973 - Adam Sessler, TV show host
• 1976 - Stephen Carr, Irish footballer
• 1976 - Pablo Mastroeni, American soccer player
• 1977 - John O'Brien, American soccer player
• 1977 - Roy Oswalt, American baseball player
• 1978 - Celestine Babayaro, Nigerian footballer
• 1979 - Chieu Luu, Canadian journalist
• 1980 - David Desrosiers, Canadian musician (Simple Plan)
• 1980 - Chris Simms, American football player
• 1981 - Lanny Barbie, Canadian porn star

Deaths

• 886 - Basil I, Byzantine Emperor (b. 811)
• 1093 - Hugh I, Duke of Burgundy (b. 1057)
• 1395 - Duke Albert III of Austria (b. 1349)
• 1435 - Isabeau de Bavière, wife of Charles VI of France (b. 1371)
• 1442 - John VI, Duke of Brittany (b. 1389)
• 1526 - King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia (killed in battle) (b. 1506)
• 1533 - Atahualpa, last Inca ruler of Peru
• 1542 - Cristovão da Gama, Portuguese soldier (born c.1516)
• 1657 - John Lilburne, English dissenter
• 1712 - Gregory King, English statistician (b. 1648)
• 1769 - Edmund Hoyle, English author and teacher (b. 1672)
• 1780 - Jacques-Germain Soufflot, French architect (b. 1713)
• 1799 - Pope Pius VI (b. 1717)
• 1856 - Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck, British Christian writer (b. 1778)
• 1877 - Brigham Young, American religious leader and western settler (b. 1801)
• 1891 - Pierre Lallement, inventor of the bicycle (b. 1843 or 1844)
• 1904 - Murad V, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1840)
• 1930 - William Archibald Spooner, English writer (b. 1844)
• 1935 - Queen Astrid of Belgium (b. 1905)
• 1947 - Manolete, Spanish bullfighter (b. 1917)
• 1966 - Sayyid Qutb, Egyptian theoretician (b. 1906)
• 1968 - Ulysses S. Grant III, American soldier and planner (b. 1881)
• 1972 - Lale Andersen, German singer (b. 1905)
• 1975 - Eamon de Valera, first Taoiseach and third President of Ireland (b. 1882)
• 1981 - Lowell Thomas, American writer and broadcaster (b. 1892)
• 1982 - Ingrid Bergman, Swedish actress (b. 1915), who sadly died on her birthday (see above)
• 1987 - Lee Marvin, American actor (b. 1924)
• 1989 - Peter Scott, English explorer, naturalist, and painter (b. 1909)
• 2001 - Graham Strachan, Australian television presenter (b. 1952)
• 2002 - Alan MacNaughtan, Scottish actor (b. 1920)
• 2003 - Ayatollah Sayed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, Iraqi political leader (b.1939)
• 2004 - Hans Vonk, Dutch conductor (b. 1942)

Holidays and observances

• Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholic Church commemorate the beheading of John the Baptist with a feast day
• Slovakia - Slovak National Uprising Day (1944, against the Nazis)
• The first day of Thoth - which is the first day of the Egyptian calendar. Thoth is the Ibis-headed god of knowledge.