On this day: August 3

Events on August 3

• 435 Deposed Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Nestorius, considered the originator of Nestorianism, is exiled by Roman Emperor Theodosius II to a monastery in Egypt. Wikipedia
• 1057 Pope Stephen IX was crowned as pope. Wikipedia
• 1347 Hundred Years' War: The French town of Calais capitulated to English forces after an eleven-month siege, ending the Crécy campaign. Wikipedia
• 1460 James II of Scotland was killed by an exploding cannon at Roxburgh Castle. Wikipedia
• 1492 Christopher Columbus sets sail from Palos de la Frontera, Spain. Wikipedia
• 1692 British-Dutch forces under William III defending the city of Brussels fight an inconclusive battle at Steenkerque against a French army under the duke of Luxembourg, with both sides suffering heavy casualties. Wikipedia
• 1811 First ascent of Jungfrau, third highest summit in the Bernese Alps by brothers Johann Rudolf and Hieronymus Meyer. Wikipedia
• 1857 Indian Rebellion: An eight-day siege of a fortified outbuilding in Arrah occupied by 68 defenders against more than 10,000 men ended when a relief party dispersed the besiegers. Wikipedia
• 1900 The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is founded. Wikipedia
• 1903 Macedonian rebels in Kruševo established a republic, which existed for ten days before Ottoman forces destroyed the town. Wikipedia
• 1913 An agricultural workers' strike in Wheatland degenerated into a riot, becoming one of the first major farm-labor confrontations in California. Wikipedia
• 1929 Jiddu Krishnamurti, believed by some Theosophists to be a likely candidate for the messianic "World Teacher", dissolved the Order of the Star, the organisation established to support him. Wikipedia
• 1936 African-American athlete Jesse Owens won the first of his four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics, dashing Nazi leaders' hopes of Aryan domination at the games. Wikipedia
• 1940 World War II: Italian forces began a conquest of British Somaliland, capturing the region in 16 days. Wikipedia
• 1949 The Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League finalize the merger that would create the National Basketball Association. Wikipedia
• 1958 The world's first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus, becomes the first vessel to complete a submerged transit of the geographical North Pole. Wikipedia
• 1971 Fighting Dinosaurs, a fossil specimen featuring a Velociraptor and a Protoceratops in combat, was unearthed in the Djadochta Formation of Mongolia. Wikipedia
• 1972 The United States Senate ratifies the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Wikipedia
• 1975 A privately chartered Boeing 707 struck a mountain peak and crashed near Agadir, Morocco, killing 188. Wikipedia
• 1977 Tandy Corporation announces the TRS-80, one of the world's first mass-produced personal computers. Wikipedia
• 1997 The Sky Tower, then the tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere at 328 m (1,076 ft), opened in Auckland, New Zealand. Wikipedia
• 2004 The pedestal of the Statue of Liberty reopens after being closed since the September 11 attacks. Wikipedia
• 2005 Mauritanian president Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya was overthrown in a military coup while he attended the funeral of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. Wikipedia
• 2009 The last vessels involved in Taurus 09, a Royal Navy training deployment covering 20,400 miles (32,800 km), returned to HMNB Devonport, England. Wikipedia
• 2014 A 6.1 magnitude earthquake kills at least 617 people and injures more than 2,400 in Yunnan, China. Wikipedia
• 2019 A mass shooting occurred at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 23 people and injuring 22 others. Wikipedia

Born on August 3

• 1770 Frederick William III of Prussia (died 1840) Wikipedia
• 1856 Alfred Deakin, Australian lawyer and politician, 2nd Prime Minister of Australia (died 1919) Wikipedia
• 1867 Stanley Baldwin, English businessman and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1947) Wikipedia
• 1872 Haakon VII of Norway (died 1957) Wikipedia
• 1903 Habib Bourguiba, Tunisian journalist and politician, 1st President of the Republic of Tunisia (died 2000) Wikipedia
• 1904 Clifford D. Simak, American journalist and author (died 1988) Wikipedia
• 1926 Tony Bennett, American singer and actor (died 2023) Wikipedia
• 1934 Jonas Savimbi, Angolan general, founded UNITA (died 2002) Wikipedia
• 1940 Martin Sheen, American actor and producer Wikipedia
• 1941 Martha Stewart, American businesswoman, publisher, and author, founded Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Wikipedia
• 1948 Jean-Pierre Raffarin, French lawyer and politician, 166th Prime Minister of France Wikipedia
• 1952 Osvaldo Ardiles, Argentinian footballer and manager Wikipedia
• 1959 Koichi Tanaka, Japanese chemist and engineer, Nobel Prize laureate Wikipedia
• 1963 James Hetfield, American singer-songwriter and guitarist Wikipedia
• 1964 Abhisit Vejjajiva, English-Thai economist and politician, 27th Prime Minister of Thailand Wikipedia
• 1967 Mathieu Kassovitz, French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter Wikipedia
• 1977 Tom Brady, American football player Wikipedia
• 1979 Evangeline Lilly, Canadian actress Wikipedia
• 1984 Sunil Chhetri, Indian footballer Wikipedia
• 1984 Ryan Lochte, American swimmer Wikipedia
• 1989 Jules Bianchi, French racing driver (died 2015) Wikipedia
• 1999 Brahim Díaz, Spanish-Moroccan footballer Wikipedia

Died on August 3

• 1460 James II, king of Scotland (born 1430) Wikipedia
• 1780 Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, French epistemologist and philosopher (born 1715) Wikipedia
• 1924 Joseph Conrad, British novelist (born 1857) Wikipedia
• 1929 Thorstein Veblen, American economist and sociologist (born 1857) Wikipedia
• 1942 Richard Willstätter, German-Swiss chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1872) Wikipedia
• 1954 Colette, French novelist and journalist (born 1873) Wikipedia
• 1964 Flannery O'Connor, American short story writer and novelist (born 1925) Wikipedia
• 1968 Konstantin Rokossovsky, Marshal of the Soviet Union during World War II (born 1896) Wikipedia
• 1977 Makarios III, Cypriot archbishop and politician, 1st President of the Republic of Cyprus (born 1913) Wikipedia
• 1979 Bertil Ohlin, Swedish economist and politician, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1899) Wikipedia
• 1995 Ida Lupino, English-American actress and director (born 1918) Wikipedia
• 2004 Henri Cartier-Bresson, French photographer and painter (born 1908) Wikipedia
• 2008 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian novelist, dramatist and historian, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1918) Wikipedia
• 2020 John Hume, Northern Irish politician (born 1937) Wikipedia

Holidays and observances

• Anniversary of the Killing of Pidjiguiti (Guinea-Bissau) Wikipedia
• Armed Forces Day (Equatorial Guinea) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Blessed Augustin Kažotić Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: George Freeman Bragg, W. E. B. Du Bois (Episcopal Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Lydia of Thyatira Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Myrrhbearers (Lutheran Church) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Nicodemus Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Olaf II of Norway (Translation of the relic) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Stephen (Discovery of the relic) Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: Waltheof of Melrose Wikipedia
• Christian feast day: August 3 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Wikipedia
• Flag Day (Venezuela) Wikipedia
• Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Niger from France in 1960. Arbor Day (Niger) Wikipedia
• National Guard Day (Venezuela) Wikipedia

Sources

• Wikipedia — “August 3” — events, births, deaths and observances (text under CC BY-SA 4.0) (checked 2026-10-15)
• Wikipedia — “Selected anniversaries/August 3” — 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 3” 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 3 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.