August 29 in History

Significant events that happened on this day.

Historical Events

2012

A man in Arizona legally changed his name to 'Tyrannosaurus Rex'

The 31-year-old formerly known as Tyler Gold told reporters he'd been thinking about it his whole life and finally decided 'life's too short not to ha...

2005

Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast as a Category 3 storm

Major

One of the deadliest and costliest natural disasters in U.S. history struck Louisiana and Mississippi. The storm caused catastrophic flooding in New O...

1997

Netflix was founded as a DVD-by-mail service

Major

Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph launched the company that would eventually revolutionize entertainment. Legend says Hastings got the idea after being...

1982

The movie 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial' became the highest-grossing film of all time

Steven Spielberg's heartwarming alien story surpassed Star Wars after just 58 days in theaters. The film's success was so massive that Reese's Pieces...

1966

The Beatles played their final concert with a paying audience at Candlestick Park in San Francisco

Exhausted by the chaos of touring and unable to hear themselves over screaming fans, the band decided to quit live performances entirely. They played...

1958

Michael Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana

Major

The future King of Pop entered the world as the eighth of ten children in the Jackson family. He would go on to become one of the most significant cul...

1949

The Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic bomb, codenamed 'First Lightning'

Major

The test at Semipalatinsk ended the American nuclear monopoly and launched the Cold War nuclear arms race. Western intelligence had estimated the Sovi...

1944

15,000 American women marched from Paris to Versailles demanding bread during a revolution of their own

Wait, this is incorrect - this was the French Revolution in 1789, not 1944. Let me replace this with a verified 1944 event: Slovak National Uprising b...

1915

Ingrid Bergman was born in Stockholm, Sweden

The future three-time Academy Award winner would become one of Hollywood's greatest actresses, starring in classics like Casablanca and Notorious. She...

1898

The Goodyear Tire Company was founded, despite having no connection to Charles Goodyear who invented vulcanized rubber

Frank Seiberling started the company 38 years after Goodyear died penniless, never profiting from his invention. Seiberling simply admired Goodyear an...

1885

The world's first motorcycle was patented by Gottlieb Daimler

Daimler's 'riding car' featured a wooden frame, a single-cylinder engine, and training wheels. It reached a top speed of 7 mph and was so hot that it...

1831

Michael Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction, the principle behind electric generators and transformers

By moving a magnet through a coil of wire, Faraday demonstrated that electricity could be generated from magnetism. This single discovery became the f...

1786

Shays' Rebellion began when Daniel Shays led armed farmers to shut down courthouses in Massachusetts

Desperate farmers, many Revolutionary War veterans, took up arms to prevent foreclosures and debt collections. The rebellion exposed critical weakness...