Historical Events on August 2

Events 1 - 200 of 211

• 338 BC Macedonian army led by Philip II defeats combined forces of Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea, securing Macedonian hegemony in Greece and the Aegean
• 216 BC Second Punic War: Battle of Cannae - Carthaginian army lead by Hannibal defeats numerically superior Roman army under command consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro
• 257 St Stephen I's death ends his reign as Catholic Pope

• 1057 Frederik van Lotharingen elected as 1st Belgium Pope Stephen IX [X]
• 1100 King William II of England (William Rufus) is killed by an arrow shot by Sir Walter Tyrell while hunting in the New Forest
• 1542 French troops leave Flanders

• 1578 Battle of Rijmenam: Spanish Habsburg forces defeated by Dutch troops (Eighty Years' War)
• 1581 Leiden University names Rudolph Snellius as math professor

• 1665 Battle of Vågen: English warships attack a Dutch merchant and treasure fleet in neutral Bergen, Norway. English forced to retreat after suffering 421 dead and wounded.
• 1665 French expedition against Barbarians in Tunis and Algiers
• 1695 Daniel Quare receives a British patent for his portable barometer
• 1718 Austria joins Triple Alliance of Britain, France and the Dutch Republic forming the Quadruple Alliance, to fight against Spain

• 1787 Swiss alpine explorer Horace Bénédict de Saussure becomes the third person to reach the top of Mont Blanc
• 1790 1st US census conducted, the population was 3,939,214 including 697,624 slaves
• 1791 Samuel Briggs and his son granted US patent for a nail-making machine

• 1819 1st parachute jump in US by Frenchman Louis-Charles Guille over Jersey City

• 1831 Ten day campaign begins, Dutch army occupies Belgium
• 1832 Battle of Bad Axe, Wisconsin: 1,300 Illinois militia defeat Sauk & Fox Native Americans ending the Black Hawk War in the US
• 1858 1st mailboxes installed in Boston and NYC streets
• 1858 Government of India transferred from East India Company to the British Crown
• 1861 Skirmish at Dug Springs, Missouri results in Union victory
• 1864 Saratoga Racecourse, America's oldest Thoroughbred racetrack, opens its inaugural meet with four days of racing

• 1865 Trans Atlantic Cable being laid by SS Great Eastern between Great Britain and America snaps and is lost
• 1870 Tower Subway, the world's first underground tube railway, opens in London
• 1873 1st trial run of San Francisco cable car, Clay Street between Kearny and Jones
• 1877 San Francisco Public Library opens with 5,000 volumes
• 1880 British Parliament officially adopts Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
• 1887 Chester A. Hodge of Beloit, Wisconsin, patents 'spur' barbed wire
• 1892 George A. Wheeler is granted a US patent for a prototype of the escalator
• 1894 Death duties 1st introduced in Britain
• 1894 Dutch Society for Women Suffrage gets royal charter
• 1903 Unsuccessful uprising of Macedonians against Turkey
• 1906 Chicago White Sox beat Boston Americans, 3-0 to start AL record 19 game MLB win streak

• 1909 Army Air Corps formed as Army takes 1st delivery from Wright Brothers
• 1909 US issues 1st Lincoln penny
• 1911 Haiti's dictator Simon flees on US warship near Jamaica
• 1914 Belgian government receives German ultimatum
• 1914 German press falsely reports that French have bombed Nuremberg
• 1914 German troops overthrow Luxembourg
• 1914 Germany and Turkey sign secret treaty of alliance
• 1914 Great Britain mobilizes
• 1914 Postdam Conference ends
• 1914 WWI: Russian troops invade East Prussia
• 1916 World War I: Austrian sabotage causes the sinking of the Italian battleship Leonardo da Vinci in Taranto
• 1918 Japan announces that it is deploying troops to Siberia in the aftermath of World War I

• 1921 After 3 hours deliberation a Chicago jury acquits 8 Chicago White Sox accused in Black Sox scandal; next day they are banned from organised baseball for life
• 1922 China is hit by a typhoon; about 60,000 die
• 1924 A's 1st baseman Joe Hauser sets AL record of 14 total bases in a game; 3 HRs and a double as Philadelphia beats Cleveland Indians, 12-4 at Dunn Field

• 1929 Philadelphia 1st baseman Don Hurst sets NL record of 6 consecutive games with a HR in Phillies' 2-0 win v Pittsburgh Pirates
• 1931 Spanish Catalonia agrees (99+%) for autonomous status

• 1934 1st airplane train, plane tows 3 mail gliders behind it

• 1934 William Franks twirls an indian club overhead 17,280 times in 1 hour
• 1936 A Finnish trifecta in the 10,000m final at the Berlin Olympics; Ilmari Salminen beats teammates Arvo Askola and Volmari Iso-Hollo
• 1936 Americans Cornelius Johnson, Dave Albritton and Delos Thurber sweep the high jump medals at the Berlin Olympics
• 1937 Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 is passed in America, essentially rendering marijuana and all its by-products illegal
• 1938 MLB conducts the first test of bright yellow baseballs during Dodgers vs Cardinals doubleheader

• 1939 US Hatch Act prohibits political activity by federal workers

• 1940 KL-House of saxon & commandos focus on Gross Rosen, Silesia
• 1941 German 11st Army surrounds 20 Soviet divisions at Oeman
• 1941 Jews are expelled from Hungarian Ruthenia
• 1942 250 Dutch Catholic Jews arrested, transported to Amersfoort camp
• 1942 Colonel general Hermann Hoth's Panzer army reaches Kotelnikovo
• 1943 Armed revolt by 800 prisoners at Treblinka Extermination Camp: crematorium destroyed; 200 escape the compound, but only 100 survive

• 1943 Sunderland seaplanes sink U-706 and U-106
• 1944 Jewish survivors of Kovono Ghetto emerge from their bunker
• 1944 Turkey breaks diplomatic relationship with Nazi Germany

• 1947 Greek-American soprano makes her Italian debut in the title role of Amilcare Ponchielli's "La Gioconda" at the Verona Arena
• 1948 Danish swimmer Greta Anderson (1:06.3) touches out American Ann Curtis by 0.2 in the women's 100m freestyle at the London Olympics
• 1948 Fanny Blankers-Koen of the Netherlands wins the 100m in 11.9 at the London Olympics; 1st of unprecedented 3 individual track & field gold medals
• 1948 Italians Adolfo Consolini and Giuseppe Tosi go 1-2 in the men's discus final at the London Olympics

• 1952 Hungarian boxer László Papp wins his 2nd straight Olympic gold medal
• 1953 KCPQ TV channel 13 in Tacoma-Seattle, WA (IND) begins broadcasting
• 1954 Tahar Ben Ammar appointed premier of Tunisia
• 1955 USSR performs nuclear test
• 1957 Lovell Telescope's first light (first astronomical image) by then the world's largest steerable telescope, at Jodrell Bank, England [1]
• 1958 American pilots Jim Heth and Bill Burkhart take off from Dallas, Texas in "The Old Scotchman", their modified Cessna 172 in an effort to break airplane flight endurance record; they fly forslightly over 50 days, eclipsing existing record by more than 3 days
• 1958 Jordan and Iraq dissolve their Arab Federation, after 3 months

• 1959 Milwaukee Braves outfielder Bill Bruton hits 3 triples in 11-5 win v St. Louis Cardinals; 2 of them bases loaded, first time in 20th Century
• 1960 Baseball's new Continental League formally disbands without ever having played a game after established MLB promise of expansion including New York City achieved the owners' desired effect; on August 2, 1960, the Continental League formally disbanded.
• 1961 Cyrille Adula becomes premier of Congo
• 1961 St Louis Cardinals (NFL) beat Toronto Argonauts (CFL) 36-7 in an exhibition game in Toronto, Canada
• 1961 The Beatles 1st gig as house band of Liverpool's Cavern Club
• 1963 30th Chicago College All-Star Game: All-Stars 20, Green Bay 17, 65,000 at Soldier Field
• 1964 Dutch government gives Indonesia export guarantees
• 1964 North Vietnam fires at US Navy destroyer USS Maddox in what becomes known as the Gulf of Tonkin incident which would eventually escalate US involvement in the Vietnam War
• 1964 Race riot in Jersey City, New Jersey
• 1965 Morley Safer's sends 1st Vietnam report indicating the US is losing
• 1966 Radio Vila (New Hebrides) begins transmitting

• 1967 NFL New Orleans Saints play 1st ever pre-season game, lose to Los Angeles Rams 16-7 at Anaheim Stadium in California
• 1967 The second Blackwall Tunnel opens to traffis under the Thames River in Greenwich, London
• 1967 US's Lunar Orbiter 5 launches; enters lunar orbit Aug 5
• 1968 35th Chicago College All-Star Game: Green Bay 34, All-Stars 17, 69,917 at Soldier Field
• 1968 Ron Hansen (Washington Senators) & Tim Cullen (Chicago White Sox) become the first MLB players to be traded for each other twice in the same season; they had been traded in February in opposite directions

• 1970 France performs nuclear test at Fangataufa Island
• 1970 Rubber bullets used for the first time in Northern Ireland during 'The Troubles'
• 1972 Gold hits record $70 an ounce in London

• 1975 104°F (40°C) at Providence, Rhode Island (state record)
• 1975 107°F (42°C) at Chester/New Bedford, Massachusetts (state record)
• 1977 In his comeback Test, England cricket batsman Geoff Boycott is unbeaten on 80 after a 1st innings 107 as England beats Australia by 7 wickets in the 3rd Test at Trent Bridge
• 1979 MLB New York Mets purchase contract of outfielder José Cardenal from Philadelphia Phillies between games of a double-header between the two teams

• 1979 Washington, D.C. trial attorney Edward Bennett Williams buys MLB's Baltimore Orioles from Jerold Hoffberger for reported $12.3 million
• 1980 Cuban super-heavyweight Teofilo Stevenson becomes the 1st fighter to win 3 Olympic gold medals in the same division, scores 4-1 points decision over Pyotr Zayev (Soviet Union) in Moscow
• 1980 Fascist bomb attack on Bologna Italy train station, 86 killed

• 1982 Roger Ebert's "Movie News" premieres on ABC FM network
• 1983 STS-8 vehicle moves to launch pad
• 1983 US District Court begins trying Yonkers accused of race discrimination
• 1984 Jeff Blatnick becomes first American to win a gold medal in Greco-Roman wrestling at the Los Angeles Olympics, Blatnick was in remission for Hodgkin’s disease
• 1984 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• 1985 5 die in a train crash in Westminster Colo
• 1985 Delta Lockheed L-1011 crashes at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, 137 die

• 1986 Lee Elder fires a record 11-under par 61 on his way to winning the Senior PGA Merrill Lynch/Golf Digest Commemorative at Sleepy Hollow CC; mark stands for 11 years

• 1986 TODAY/PC born today
• 1987 Cincinnati outfielder Eric Davis is 7th to hit 30 HRs & steal 30 bases in one season as he homers in Reds 5-4 win v Giants
• 1987 Don Brown sets flight record for handbow (1,336 yds 1'3")
• 1987 Michael Andretti runs fastest Indy car race in history (171.49mph) in winning the Marlboro 500 at the Michigan International Speedway, Brooklyn, Michigan
• 1987 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
• 1988 Raymond Acevedo (16) retires from pop singing boy band Menudo
• 1988 System Enhancement Association settles case with PKware (ARC vs PKARC)

• 1990 Iraq invades and occupies Kuwait, Emir flees to Saudi Arabia

• 1990 Yankees rookie 1st baseman Kevin Maas hits his 10th MLB homer in 6-5 loss v Detroit, fastest to reach that mark, just 77 at bats

• 1991 Hedy Lamaar is arrested for shoplifting in LA
• 1991 Pan Am games open in Havana
• 1991 Space shuttle STS 43 (Atlantis 9) launched
• 1992 American Jacki Joyner-Kersee becomes first athlete to win consecutive gold medals in the gruelling heptathlon with a 199 point win over Irina Belova (Soviet Union) at the Barcelona Olympics

• 1992 Vitaly Scherbo of Belarus becomes the first gymnast to win 6 gold medals at one Olympics in Barcelona, also first to win 4 gold in one day's competition (pommel, vault, rings & parallel bars)
• 1993 Maryland investors led by Baltimore attorney Peter Angelos buy the MLB Baltimore Orioles team at auction in New York for $173M, nearly $50M more than ever paid for a baseball team
• 1993 NYC radio (WFAN) personality Don Imus' lung collapses
• 1993 Shamrock Broadcasting, a Disney company, officially takes ownership of Cleveland's WMMS-FM/100.7 & WHK-AM/1420
• 1993 Train crash in tunnel at Vega de Anzo Spain, 12 killed
• 1994 Congressional hearings begin on White Water
• 1994 Explosion in lead/zinc mine in Guangxi China, 120+ killed
• 1994 Noureddine Morceli runs world record 3000m (7:25.11)

• 1995 Saudi Arabia's King Fahd issues a decree replacing all members of the Council of Ministers who do not have blood ties to the royal Family

• 2003 South African cricket batsman Graeme Smith blazes 259, fast bowler Makhaya Ntini has 5 wickets in each England innings as Proteas win 2nd Test by an innings and 92 at Lord's
• 2005 MESSENGER spacecraft performs an Earth flyby
• 2005 The largest trade in NBA history is completed as 5 teams combine to swap 13 players; deal brings Antoine Walker & Jason Williams to Miami, leads to Heat's 1st ever championship that season

• 2012 23 people are killed after two blasts in a fruit market in Lahore, Pakistan
• 2012 American swimmer Michael Phelps wins an unprecedented third consecutive gold medal in the 200m individual medley in 1:54.27 at the London Olympics
• 2012 American swimmer Rebecca Soni becomes first woman to win the 200m breaststroke twice with a world record 2:19.59 at the London Olympics
• 2013 40 people are killed after an ammunition depot explodes in Homs, Syria

• 2013 Naresh Sohal's orchestral work "The Cosmic Dance" first performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Peter Oundjian, at the Royal Albert Hall, London
• 2014 Super Rugby Final, ANZ Stadium, Sydney: NSW Waratahs win their first SR title in a nail-biting 33-32 home effort against New Zealand's Canterbury Crusaders
• 2017 First footage of white giraffes posted by Hirola Conservation Program in north eastern Kenya
• 2017 First successful gene editing in human embryos to repair disease-causing mutation reported by scientists in "Nature"

• 2017 More than a billion people around the world need glasses and 36 million are blind, according to new study published in "The Lancet"
• 2017 New crypto-currency Bitcoin Cash is created via a hard-fork of Bitcoin's blockchain technology and brand

• 2018 Apple becomes the first American public listed company to reach $1 trillion in value
• 2018 Fields Medal for mathematics awarded to Caucher Birkar (his stolen minutes later), Alessio Figalli, Peter Scholze and Akshay Venkatesh
• 2018 Oldest library in Germany confirmed unearthed in Cologne dating to 2AD, possibly held 20,000 scrolls
• 2018 Pope Frances declares the death penalty unacceptable in all cases, reversing church teachings and adding to Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church
• 2018 TikTok, the video-sharing social network, becomes available worldwide after merging with Musical.ly
• 2018 Tokyo Medical University revealed to have been tampering with female entrance exams to ensure under 30% accepted, by Japanese newspaper "Yomiuri Shimbun"
• 2019 Pedro Pierluisi sworn in as new Governor of Puerto Rico replacing Ricardo A. Rosselló
• 2019 Saudi Arabia announces news rules for women including allowing them to travel independently abroad without a male guardian's permission
• 2019 Seven-year-old boy operated on after 526 teeth found inside his mouth in Chennai, India

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