On this day: August 29

Events on August 29

• 1261 Pope Urban IV succeeds Pope Alexander IV, becoming the 182nd pope. Wikipedia
• 1350 Hundred Years' War: Led by King Edward III, a fleet of 50 English ships captured at least 14 Castilian vessels and sank several more at the Battle of Winchelsea. Wikipedia
• 1475 France signed the Treaty of Picquigny with England, freeing Louis XI to deal with the threat posed by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Wikipedia
• 1484 Pope Innocent VIII succeeds Pope Sixtus IV. Wikipedia
• 1526 Battle of Mohács: The Ottoman Turks led by Suleiman the Magnificent defeat and kill the last Jagiellonian king of Hungary and Bohemia. Wikipedia
• 1756 Frederick the Great attacks Saxony, beginning the Seven Years' War in Europe. Wikipedia
• 1786 Angered by high tax burdens and disfranchisement, farmers in western Massachusetts led by Daniel Shays began an armed uprising against the U.S. federal government. Wikipedia
• 1831 Michael Faraday first experimentally demonstrated electromagnetic induction, leading to the formulation of the law of induction named after him. Wikipedia
• 1842 Under the Treaty of Nanking, an "unequal treaty" that ended the First Opium War, the Chinese island from which Hong Kong would grow was ceded to Britain. Wikipedia
• 1885 Gottlieb Daimler patented the world's first internal-combustion motorcycle, the Reitwagen. Wikipedia
• 1903 Slava, the last of five Borodino-class battleships, was launched by the Imperial Russian Navy. Wikipedia
• 1911 The last member of the Yahi, known as Ishi, emerged from the wilderness near Oroville, California, to join European American society. Wikipedia
• 1914 Due to price increases on macaroni products, rioting occurred in the Little Italy area of Providence, Rhode Island. Wikipedia
• 1916 Congress passed the Philippine Autonomy Act, the first formal and official declaration of the U.S.'s commitment to grant independence to the Philippines. Wikipedia
• 1941 World War II: Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, is occupied by Nazi Germany following an occupation by the Soviet Union. Wikipedia
• 1944 World War II: Slovak National Uprising takes place as 60,000 Slovak troops turn against the Nazis. Wikipedia
• 1949 The Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear weapons test, detonating the 22-kiloton RDS-1. Wikipedia
• 1959 Mona Best opened the Casbah Coffee Club with a performance by the Quarrymen, the precursor of the Beatles. Wikipedia
• 1960 Air France Flight 343 crashed while attempting to land at Yoff Airport, Dakar, killing all 63 occupants. Wikipedia
• 1984 Followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh began deliberately infecting people in The Dalles, Oregon, with Salmonella in the first and largest bioterrorist attack in United States history. Wikipedia
• 1991 Italian businessman Libero Grassi was killed by the Sicilian Mafia in Palermo after taking a public stand against their extortion demands. Wikipedia
• 1996 Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801 crashed on approach to Svalbard Airport, Norway, killing all 141 on board. Wikipedia
• 1997 Netflix is launched as an internet DVD rental service. Wikipedia
• 2005 Hurricane Katrina devastates much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing up to 1,392 people and causing $125 billion in damage. Wikipedia
• 2007 Six nuclear warheads were mistakenly loaded onto a United States Air Force heavy bomber that flew from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. Wikipedia
• 2016 Chen Quanguo became the Chinese Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang, and in that role later oversaw the creation of the Xinjiang internment camps. Wikipedia

Born on August 29

• 1619 Jean-Baptiste Colbert, French economist and politician, Controller-General of Finances (died 1683) Wikipedia
• 1632 John Locke, English physician and philosopher (died 1704) Wikipedia
• 1780 Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, French painter and illustrator (died 1867) Wikipedia
• 1809 Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., American physician and author (died 1894) Wikipedia
• 1862 Maurice Maeterlinck, Belgian poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1949) Wikipedia
• 1871 Albert François Lebrun, French engineer and politician, 15th President of France (died 1950) Wikipedia
• 1904 Werner Forssmann, German physician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1979) Wikipedia
• 1915 Ingrid Bergman, Swedish actress (died 1982) Wikipedia
• 1920 Charlie Parker, American saxophonist and composer (died 1955) Wikipedia
• 1923 Richard Attenborough, English actor, director, and producer (died 2014) Wikipedia
• 1936 John McCain, American captain and politician (died 2018) Wikipedia
• 1938 Elliott Gould, American actor and producer Wikipedia
• 1939 Joel Schumacher, American director, producer, and screenwriter (died 2020) Wikipedia
• 1943 Arthur B. McDonald, Canadian astrophysicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate Wikipedia
• 1946 Demetris Christofias, Cypriot businessman and politician, 6th President of Cyprus (died 2019) Wikipedia
• 1946 Bob Beamon, American long jumper Wikipedia
• 1947 James Hunt, English race car driver and sportscaster (died 1993) Wikipedia
• 1958 Michael Jackson, American singer-songwriter, producer, dancer, and actor (died 2009) Wikipedia
• 1959 Ramón Díaz, Argentine footballer and manager Wikipedia
• 1971 Carla Gugino, American actress Wikipedia
• 1986 Lea Michele, American actress and singer Wikipedia
• 1993 Liam Payne, English singer-songwriter from One Direction (died 2024) Wikipedia

Died on August 29

• 886 Basil I, Byzantine emperor (born 811) Wikipedia
• 1526 Louis II, king of Hungary and Croatia (born 1506) Wikipedia
• 1533 Atahualpa, Inca emperor (born 1497) Wikipedia
• 1799 Pius VI, pope of the Catholic Church (born 1717) Wikipedia
• 1877 Brigham Young, American religious leader, 2nd President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (born 1801) Wikipedia
• 1904 Murad V, Ottoman sultan (born 1840) Wikipedia
• 1966 Sayyid Qutb, Egyptian theorist, author, and poet (born 1906) Wikipedia
• 1975 Éamon de Valera, Irish soldier and politician, 3rd President of Ireland (born 1882) Wikipedia
• 1982 Ingrid Bergman, Swedish actress (born 1915) Wikipedia
• 1987 Lee Marvin, American actor (born 1924) Wikipedia
• 2016 Gene Wilder, American stage and screen comic actor, screenwriter, film director, and author (born 1933) Wikipedia
• 2018 James Mirrlees, Scottish economist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1936) Wikipedia
• 2021 Ed Asner, American actor (born 1929) Wikipedia
• 2021 Jacques Rogge, Belgian orthopedic surgeon, Olympic sailor and the 8th President of the International Olympic Committee (born 1942) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Christian feast day: Adelphus of Metz Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Beheading of St. John the Baptist Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Bronislava of Poland Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Eadwold of Cerne Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Euphrasia Eluvathingal (Syro-Malabar Catholic Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Jeanne Jugan Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: John Bunyan (Episcopal Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Sabina Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Teresa Bracco Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Vitalis, Sator and Repositus Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: August 29 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• International Day against Nuclear Tests Wikipedia
• Day of Remembrance of the Defenders of Ukraine (Ukraine) Wikipedia
• National Sports Day (India) Wikipedia
• Slovak National Uprising Anniversary (Slovakia) Wikipedia

Sources

• Wikipedia — “August 29” — events, births, deaths and observances (text under CC BY-SA 4.0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikipedia — “Selected anniversaries/August 29” — the anniversaries editors chose for the date and the article each one is about (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikidata — in how many language editions each entry's own article exists, used to fill the lists (CC0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• vacanza/holidays (open-source holiday rules, MIT licence) — holiday rules used to build the lists (checked 2026-10-15)

The events, births, deaths and observances above are from the English Wikipedia article “August 29” and the articles it links to (authors and history), retrieved 2026-10-15 through the Wikimedia “On this day” feed. They are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; this selection is shared under the same licence. Every anniversary that Wikipedia's editors selected for August 29 stays on the list; the remaining places, up to 26 events, 22 births and 14 deaths, go to the entries whose own article — about the event itself, or else the person or thing it is about — appears in the most language editions (counted from Wikidata); an article about a person or thing, which covers far more than one day, counts half. An entry with no article of its own counts, also at half, by the least covered article it links, and one that links only places counts for nothing. Each list runs by year, and the wording is unchanged apart from removing references to pictures, audio and video.