August 4, 1981 (Tuesday)
- U.S. Patent 4,659,716 was granted to the American pharmaceutical company Schering-Plough for the active ingredient in Claritin, descarboethoxyloratadine, although the FDA did not approve the medicine's use until April 12, 1993. By 1999, Claritin had become the top selling antihistamine in America, with sales of $1.5 billion.
- U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, who in 1987 would become a central figure in the Iran-Contra Affair and then a conservative commentator, became a staffer on the National Security Council.
- In what was, at the time, the largest corporate merger in American history, the DuPont chemical company acquired majority ownership of the petroleum company Conoco Inc. for 7.8 billion dollars, buying up outstanding stock at 2:45 a.m.
- A day after a rebellion broke out at Santa Curz, General Luis Garcia Meza was forced to resign as President of Bolivia. He was replaced by a junta led by General Celso Torrelio.
- Born: Marques Houston, American singer and actor, in Los Angeles
- Died: Melvyn Douglas, 80, American film actor, winner of two Oscars
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Famous quotes containing the word august:
“A man with a so-called character is often a simple piece of mechanism; he has often only one point of view for the extremely complicated relationships of life.”
—J. August Strindberg (1849–1912)