Aug 19, 1909:
First race is held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway
On this day in 1909, the first race is held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, now the home of the world's most famous motor racing competition, the Indianapolis 500.
The rectangular two-and-a-half-mile track linked four turns, each exactly 440 yards from start to finish, by two long and two short straight sections. In that first five-mile race on August 19, 1909, 12,000 spectators watched Austrian engineer Louis Schwitzer win with an average speed of 57.4 miles per hour. The track's surface of crushed rock and tar proved a disaster, breaking up in a number of places and causing the deaths of two drivers, two mechanics and two spectators.
Aug 19, 1993:
Basinger and Baldwin marry
On this day in 1993, the actors Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin marry in East Hampton, New York. The Hollywood power couple reportedly became involved on the set of the romantic comedy The Marrying Man (1991), in which they played lovers. The film was a box-office flop, as was a second film the pair made together, The Getaway (1994). Individually, both Basinger and Baldwin's careers continued to thrive, but their marriage did not. The couple separated in 2000 and divorced in 2002. Their angry parting, and particularly their bitter, protracted custody battle over their daughter Ireland, who was born in 1995, continued to make headlines for years
Aug 19, 1964:
The Beatles kick off first U.S. tour at San Francisco's Cow Palace
The Beatles took America by storm during their famous first visit, wowing the millions who watched them during their historic television appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. But after the first great rush of stateside Beatlemania, the Beatles promptly returned to Europe, leaving their American fans to make do with mere records. By late summer of that same year, however, having put on an unprecedented and still unmatched display of pop-chart dominance during their absence, the Beatles finally returned. On August 19, 1964, more than six months after taking the East Coast by storm, the Fab Four traveled to California to take the stage at the Cow Palace in San Francisco for opening night of their first-ever concert tour of North America.
source: history.com