August 5: A 6.75 Richter scale earthquake in Ecuador kills 6,000 and destroys 50 towns.

August 8: Bhutan becomes independent

August 12: The Fourth Geneva Convention is agreed to.

August 14: The Salvatore Giuliano Gang explodes mines under a police barracks outside Palermo, Sicily. - A military coup in Syria ousts the president.

August 21: Deportivo Saprissa enters Costa Rica: soccer's first division.

August 22: The Queen Charlotte earthquake is Canada's largest earthquake since the 1700 Cascadia earthquake.

August 24: North Atlantic Treaty Organization established.

August 28: The last 6 surviving veterans of the American Civil War meet in Indianapolis.

August 29: The Council of Europe meets for the first time. - The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, code named "Joe 1". Its design imitates the American plutonium bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan in 1945.

August 31: The retreat of the Greek Democratic Army in Albania after its defeat at Mount Grammos marks the end of the Greek Civil War. (source: Wikipedia)