August 5: A bomb-laden B-29 Superfortress crashes into a residential area in California; 17 are killed, 68 injured.

August 6: Monarchist demonstrations lead to a riot in Brussels.

August 8: Florence Chadwick swims across the English Channel in 13 hours, 22 minutes. - Winston Churchill supports idea of a pan-European army allied with Canada and the U.S.

August 12: Korean War: Bloody Gulch massacre. - In his encyclical Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII declares evolution to be a serious hypothesis that did not contradict essential Catholic teachings.

August 15: 1950 Assam: Tibet earthquake: An earthquake in the Assam state of India kills 780 people and causes the Subansiri River to be dammed. Eight days later, the dam bursts, drowning another 536 people. The twin disasters leave 5,000,000 homeless.

August 17: Korean War: In the Hill 303 massacre, 39 U.S. soldiers are executed after being captured in battle by North Korea.

August 22: The Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary is founded in Tagbilaran City, Philippines.

August 23: Legendary singer-actor Paul Robeson, whose passport had recently been revoked because of his alleged Communist affiliations, meets with U.S. officials in an effort to get it reinstated. He is unsuccessful, and it is not reinstated until 1958. (source: Wikipedia)