August 19, 2017 (Saturday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Terrorism in Russia
- A 23-year-old stabs and injures eight people in the Russian city of Surgut, before being killed by police. ISIL claims responsibility for the attack. (South Front) (Reuters)
- Syrian Civil War
- A day after a Russian sponsored ceasefire with a rebel group agreed a halt of fighting in the last opposition enclave in the capital, Syrian government airplanes and artillery strike rebel-held eastern Damascus suburbs and Ghouta with barrel bombs, killing at least five civilians in the towns of Hamouriya and Zalamka with several case of suffocation from rockets filled with chlorine that were fired at the front lines of Jobar and Ain Terma. (U.S. News and World Report) (Reuters) (SN4HR)
- Syrian Civil War spillover in Lebanon
- The Lebanese Armed Forces launches operation Fajr al-Joroud, and on the first day recaptures 30 km of territory near the Lebanon–Syria border formerly occupied by ISIS militants. Twenty ISIS militants were killed and 10 Lebanese soldiers were wounded. (The Daily Star)
Arts and culture
- Religion in Pakistan
- Pakistan holds a state funeral for German-born Catholic nun Ruth Pfau, known as "Pakistan's Mother Teresa," who devoted her life to eradicating leprosy in the South Asian country. (Reuters)
Disasters and accidents
- Earthquakes in 2017
- A magnitude 6.4 earthquake strikes west of the Pacific Island of Tonga. There are no immediate reports of casualties or damage. (Reuters)
- 2017 Khatauli train derailment
- A train derails near Khatauli, Uttar Pradesh, India, resulting in at least 23 deaths and 156 injuries. (Reuters), (Reuters via ABC News Australia)
- US Navy losses in World War II
- The wreckage of the USS Indianapolis heavy cruiser, torpedoed by the Imperial Japanese Navy submarine I-58 and sunk in 1945 after delivering parts for the Little Boy atomic weapon, is discovered on the floor of the North Pacific Ocean. Only 317 of the U.S. Sailors/Marines who survived the sinking were finally rescued after 4–5 days in shark-infested waters. (CNN)
Politics and elections
- 2017 Australian constitutional crisis
- Australian Senator Nick Xenophon is discovered to hold dual citizenship with Britain. (News.com.au)
- Politics of Nigeria
- Nigerian state television reports that President Muhammadu Buhari is back in the country after a three-month sick leave in Britain. (Reuters)
- Political appointments by Donald Trump
- Pastor A.R. Bernard becomes the first religious leader to resign from the president's evangelical advisory board. (CNN)
- 2017–18 Togolese protests