2012 – NASA's Curiosity rover lands on the surface of Mars.

1996 – NASA announces that the ALH 84001 meteorite, thought to originate from Mars, contains evidence of primitive life-forms.

1991 – Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. WWW debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet.

1964 – Prometheus, a bristlecone pine and the world's oldest tree, is cut down.

1945 – World War II: Hiroshima, Japan is devastated when the atomic bomb "Little Boy" is dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay. Around 70,000 people are killed instantly, and some tens of thousands die in subsequent years from burns and radiation poisoning.

1901 – Kiowa land in Oklahoma is opened for white settlement, effectively dissolving the contiguous reservation.

August the Fifth, 1966

Give due honor to the coolest of the Beatles, in my opinion...2:55 - 4:59..."which one of his was on Revolver?" 

1934—Birth of Wendell Berry—noted poet, essayist, author, and farmer.

1962 – Apartheid in South Africa: Nelson Mandela is jailed. He would not be released until 1990.

1925 – Plaid Cymru is formed with the aim of disseminating knowledge of the Welsh language that is at the time in danger of dying out.

Tonkin at 50: One of Those Times America Lied to Go to War - Truthdig

 Red_Dragon wrote: 

& jerry was born

1981 – MTV begins broadcasting in the United States and airs its first video, "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles.

1834 – Slavery is abolished in the British Empire as the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 comes into force.

1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover.

1964 – Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes.

1930 – The radio mystery program The Shadow airs for the first time.

2003 – In Mexico, the last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line.

1990 – George Steinbrenner is forced by Commissioner Fay Vincent to resign as principal partner of New York Yankees for hiring Howie Spira to "get dirt" on Dave Winfield.