AP US History This Day in American History August – Union General Alfred Terry is promoted from brigadier general to major general of the United State Volunteers.

AP US History This Day in American History August – While visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for flirting with a white woman four days earlier.

AP US History This Day in American History August On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the African American civil rights movement reaches its high-water mark when Martin Luther King, Jr., speaks to about 250,000 people attending the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

AP US History This Day in American History August – The bodies of students are discovered at the Gatorwood Apartments, near the campus of the University of Florida. Their murders came two days after the discovery that three young female students had been killed and mutilated in two separate locations near the campus. The serial killer was known for positioning his victims' bodies in a lewd manner before he left. Authorities determined that all five murders were connected, and the Gainesville student community panicked.