Title: August 2 Content: == Events == === Up to 1940 === *338 BC Rise of Macedon: Philip II of Macedon crushes Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea. *216 BC Punic Wars: In the Battle of Cannae, Hannibal destroys the Roman army of Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro in what is considered one of the great masterpieces of the tactical art. *AD 461 Majorian resigns as Western Roman Emperor; shortly afterwards Libius Severus is declared western Roman emperor by Ricimer. *1274 Edward I of England returns from the Ninth Crusade and is crowned King 17 days later. *1377 Russian troops are defeated at the Battle of Pyana River because of drunkenness. *1610 Henry Hudson sails into what is now Hudson Bay, thinking he had reached the Pacific Ocean through the Northwest Passage. *1776 Delegates to the Continental Congress begin to sign the United States Declaration of Independence. *1790 First US Census; records are missing for five states: Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey and Virginia. Destroyed somewhere between that date and 1830. *1798 Second Coalition: End of the Battle of the Nile between French and British navies; France defeated. *1830 Charles X of France leaves the throne to his grandson Henri, Count of Chambord, who is, disputedly, King of France until August 9. *1832 Battle of Bad Axe: US troops defeat Native American Chief Black Hawk. *1858 British Columbia becomes a British colony. *1869 Japan's samurai, farmer, artisan, merchant class system is abolished as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms. (Traditional Japanese date: June 25, 1869). *1870 Tower Subway, the world's first underground tube railway, opens in London. *1873 The Clay Street Railroad begins operating the first cable car in San Francisco's famous cable car system. *1874 Iceland celebrates 1,000 years of settlement. *1876 In Deadwood, South Dakota, Jack McCall shoots and kills American Western figure Wild Bill Hickok, who was playing a game of cards at the time. The combination of cards he held at the time is now referred to as Dead Man's Hand. *1897 Anglo-Afghan War: The Siege of Malakand ends. *1903 Fall of the Ottoman Empire: Unsuccessful uprising of the Bulgarians against Ottoman Turkey, also known as the Ilinden uprising. *1909 The 'Tragic Week' uprising in Barcelona against Spain's colonial politics in Morocco is violently crushed by police. Over 100 people are killed. *1916 World War I: Austrian sabotage causes the sinking of Italian battleship Leonardo da Vinci in Taranto. *1918 Japan announces that it is deploying troops to Siberia in the aftermath of World War I. *1918 The first General Strike in Canadian history takes place in Vancouver. *1922 A typhoon hits Shantou, Republic of China, killing over 50,000 people. *1923 After the death of Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge becomes President of the United States. *1934 Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany. *1937 Marijuana is made illegal in the United States. *1939 Leó Szilárd and Albert Einstein sign a letter to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, warning of the dangers posed by Nazi Germany and calling for the development of a nuclear weapon. === From 1941 === *1943 PT-109, with future president of the United States Lieutenant John F. Kennedy aboard, sinks. He manages to save most of the crew. *1944 The Socialist Republic of Macedonia is created. *1944 Beginning of the Treblinka uprising. *1945 World War II: Potsdam Conference, in which the Allied Powers discuss the future of defeated Germany, concludes. *1947 A British South American Airways Avro Lancastrian airliner crashes into a mountain on a flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago de Chile. The wreckage disappears under a glacier and only reappears over 50 years later. The meaning of its last message, "STENDEC", remains a mystery. *1950 The New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures was published on Yankee Stadium, New York. *1955 Velcro is patented. *1964 North Vietnam fires on a US destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. *1967 The second Blackwall Tunnel opened in Greenwich, London. *1967 Turkish sports club Trabzonspor is founded in Trabzon. *1968 An earthquake hits Casiguran, Aurora, Philippines, killing over 270 people. *1970 Powder Ridge Rock Festival *1973 A flash fire kills 51 people at the Summerland amusement centre in Douglas, Isle of Man. *1975 In New Orleans, Louisiana, the Superdome officially opens with an American football game between the New Orleans Saints and Houston Oilers. *1976 An intruder breaks into Priscilla Davis's Mockingbird Lane mansion in Fort Worth, Texas. Priscilla Davis and a friend are injured while Andrea Wilborn and Stan Farr are killed. T. Cullen Davis is tried and found innocent of the crime. *1980 A terrorist bombing at the railway station in Bologna, Italy kills 85 people and wounds more than 200. *1980 Hard rock band AC/DC release Back in Black, their first album with lead singer Brian Johnson and their best-selling *1985 A Delta Air Lines Lockheed L-1011 TriStar crashes at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in Texas, killing 137. *1989 Pakistan is re-admitted to the Commonwealth of Nations. *1989 A massacre is carried out by an Indian Peacekeeping Force in Sri Lanka, killing 64 ethnic Tamil civilians. *1990 On the orders of Saddam Hussein, Iraq invades Kuwait, eventually leading to the Gulf War. *1994 Popular Japanese television and movie actor Beat Takeshi is seriously injured in a motorcycle accident. *1997 Australian ski instructor Stuart Diver is rescued as the sole survivor from the Thredbo landslide in New South Wales, Australia, in which 18 lives were lost. *1998 The Second Congo War begins. *2003 A 65th anniversary edition of The Beano is released. *2005 Air France Flight 358 lands at Toronto Pearson International Airport, and runs off the runway, causing the plane to burst into flames. All on board survive, with 12 injured. *2007 Crews from the Russian submarines Mir 1 and Mir 2 plant the Flag of Russia in the seabed beneath the North Pole. *2014 A factory explosion near Shanghai kills 146 people. *2018 Apple Inc. becomes the first company to reach a worth of a trillion United States dollars. *2018 The first multi-sport European Championships, co-hosted by Glasgow (Scotland) and Berlin (Germany), begin. == Births == === Up to 1900 === *1455 John Cicero, Elector of Brandenburg (d. 1499) *1533 Theodor Zwinger, medical scholar (d. 1588) *1612 Saskia van Uylenburgh, wife of Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn (d. 1642) *1627 Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten, Dutch painter and writer (d. 1678) *1672 Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, Swiss scholar (d. 1733) *1674 Philip II, Duke of Orléans, regent of France (d. 1723) *1696 Mahmud I, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1754) *1702 Dietrich of Anhalt-Dessau (d. 1769) *1703 Lorenzo Ricci, General of the Society of Jesus (d. 1775) *1754 Pierre Charles L'Enfant, architect, city planner (d. 1825) *1780 Marie-Anne Gaboury, French-Canadian settler in Manitoba (d. 1875) *1788 Leopold Gmelin, German chemist (d. 1853) *1802 Nicholas Wiseman, English theologian, cardinal and archbishop (d. 1865) *1808 Augustus French, 9th Governor of Illinois (d. 1864) *1815 Adolf Friedrich von Schack, writer (d. 1894) *1820 John Tyndall, British physicist (d. 1893) *1824 Princess Francisca of Brazil (d. 1898) *1825 J. Neely Johnson, 4th Governor of California (d. 1872) *1827 Manuel Pavía y Rodríguez de Albuquerque, Spanish general (d. 1895) *1834 Frédéric Bartholdi, French sculptor (d. 1904) *1835 Elisha Gray, American inventor and founder of Western Electric (d. 1901) *1849 Princess Maria Pia of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (d. 1882) *1854 Milan I, King of Serbia (d. 1901) *1858 Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont, Regent of the Netherlands (d. 1934) *1862 Duncan Campbell Scott, Canadian writer (d. 1947) *1865 Irving Babbitt, American literary critic (d. 1933) *1865 John Radecki, Australian stained glass artist (d. 1955) *1866 Adrien de Gerlache, Belgian explorer (d. 1934) *1866 Charles Francis Adams III, American politician, United States Secretary of the Navy (d. 1954) *1867 Ernest Dowson, English poet (d. 1900) *1868 King Constantine I of Greece (d. 1923) *1870 Marianne Weber, German sociologist (d. 1954) *1871 John French Sloan, artist (d. 1951) *1875 Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Russian general (d. 1957) *1876 Pingali Venkayya, designer of the Flag of India (d. 1963) *1877 Ravishankar Shukla, Indian politician, 1st Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh (d. 1956) *1878 Aino Kallas, Finnish-Estonian writer (d. 1956) *1880 Arthur Dove, American artist (d. 1946) *1882 Albert Bloch, American painter, writer and translator (d. 1961) *1882 Red Ames, American baseball player (d. 1936) *1883 Jonathan Wainwright, American general (d. 1953) *1884 Rómulo Gallegos, 46th President of Venezuela (d. 1969) *1886 John Alexander Douglas McCurdy, Canadian aviator (d. 1961) *1891 Arthur Bliss, English composer and conductor (d. 1975) *1891 Viktor Zhirmunsky, Russian literary historian and linguist (d. 1971) *1892 Jack Warner, Canadian movie producer (d. 1978) *1894 Carlo Galimberti, Italian weightlifter (d. 1939) *1897 Max Weber, Swiss Federal Councillor (d. 1974) *1897 Karl Otto Koch, German SS officer (d. 1945) *1899 Charles Bennett, English director and screenwriter (d. 1995) *1900 Helen Morgan, American actress (d. 1941) === 1901 1950 === *1902 Pope Cyril VI of Alexandria, Egyptian Coptic Church Patriarch (d. 1971) *1905 Karl Amadeus Hartmann, composer (d. 1963) *1905 Myrna Loy, American actress (d. 1993) *1905 Rudolf Prack, Austrian actor (d. 1981) *1912 Vladimir Zerjavic, Croatian statistician (d. 2001) *1912 Ann Dvorak, American actress (d. 1979) *1914 Beatrice Straight, American actress (d. 2001) *1915 Gary Merrill, American actor (d. 1990) *1919 Carlo Savina, Italian movie score composer (d. 2002) *1919 Nehemiah Persoff, Israeli-American actor *1920 François Flohic, French admiral (d. 2018) *1921 Ruth Barcan Marcus, American philosopher and logician (d. 2012) *1921 Alan Whicker, British journalist and broadcaster (d. 2013) *1922 Paul Laxalt, American politician, 22nd Governor of Nevada (d. 2018) *1923 Shimon Peres, 9th President of Israel (d. 2016) *1924 James Baldwin, American writer (d. 1987) *1924 Carroll O'Connor, American actor (d. 2001) *1925 John McCormack, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2017) *1925 Jorge Rafael Videla, Argentinian dictator (d. 2013) *1928 Luigi Colani, German industrial designer (d. 2019) *1929 Irwin Fridovich, American biochemist (d. 2019) *1929 Ursula Karusseit, German actress (d. 2019) *1929 K.M. Peyton, English writer *1929 David Waddington, Baron Waddington, British Governor of Bermuda (d. 2017) *1929 Vidya Charan Shukla, Indian politician (d. 2013) *1931 Karl Miller, British literary editor, critic and writer (d. 2014) *1932 Peter O'Toole, Irish-British actor (d. 2013) *1932 Lamar Hunt, American sportsman (d. 2006) *1933 Lorenzo Milam, writer and broadcaster *1934 Valery Bykovsky, Soviet-Russian cosmonaut (d. 2019) *1935 Alex Parker, Scottish footballer *1937 Garth Hudson, Canadian musician, organist/keyboardist with The Band *1937 Gundula Janowitz, Austrian soprano *1937 Jim McLean, Scottish footballer *1938 Timo Konietzka, German-Swiss footballer and manager (d. 2012) *1938 Paul Jenkins, American actor (d. 2013) *1939 Wes Craven, American movie director (d. 2015) *1939 Benjamin Barber, American theorist, author and academic (d. 2017) *1939 John W. Snow, American politician *1941 Jules Hoffmann, Luxembourg-French biologist and Nobel Prize winner *1941 François Weyergans, Belgian writer and director (d. 2019) *1941 Doris Coley, singer (Shirelles) (d. 2000) *1941 Fabio Testi, Italian actor *1942 Isabel Allende, Chilean-American writer *1942 Leo Beenhakker, Dutch football coach *1942 Juan Formell, Cuban musician and composer (d. 2014) *1943 Jon R. Cavaiani, American soldier (d. 2014) *1943 Max Wright, American actor *1943 Rose Tremain, British writer *1944 Jim Capaldi, British drummer, singer, and songwriter (Traffic) (d. 2005) *1944 Naná Vasconcelos, Brazilian singer and musician (d. 2016) *1945 Joanna Cassidy, American actress *1947 Massiel, Spanish singer, actress and television presenter *1948 Dennis Prager, radio talk show host and writer *1949 Mario Illien, Swiss engineer *1950 Jussi Adler-Olsen, Danish writer *1950 Lance Ito, American judge *1950 Mathieu Carrière, German actor *1950 Ken Kutaragi, Japanese businessman, founder of PlayStation === 1951 1975 === *1951 Per Westerberg, Swedish politician *1951 Joe Lynn Turner, American singer *1951 Marcel Iures, Romanian actor *1952 Alain Giresse, French footballer and manager *1953 Donnie Munro, Scottish musician and singer, formerly of the band Runrig *1953 Butch Patrick, American actor *1954 Ken MacLeod, Scottish writer *1954 Sammy McIlroy, Irish footballer *1954 Enrique Saura, Spanish footballer *1956 Fulvio Melia, Italian-American physicist, astrophysicist and writer *1956 Isabel Pantoja, Spanish singer *1957 Mojo Nixon, musician and actor *1958 Elaine C. Smith, Scottish actress and comedienne *1959 Johnny Kemp, Bahamian singer (d. 2015) *1960 Olivier Gruner, French actor *1961 Linda Fratianne, American figure skater *1961 Mike Ross, American politician *1963 Laura Bennett, American fashion designer *1964 Mary-Louise Parker, American actress *1965 Hisanobu Watanabe, Japanese baseball player and coach *1965 Joe Hockey, Australian politician *1967 Marco Giampaolo, Italian footballer and manager *1967 Aaron Krickstein, American tennis player *1968 Chrystia Freeland, Canadian politician *1968 Stefan Effenberg, German footballer *1968 Russell Latapy, Trinidadian footballer *1969 Fernando Couto, Portuguese footballer *1969 Angélica Rivera, Mexican actress and First Lady *1970 Tony Amonte, American ice hockey player *1970 Kevin Smith, American actor, director, comedian and writer *1972 Muriel Bowser, American politician, 8th Mayor of the District of Columbia *1972 Corinne Rey-Bellet, Swiss ski racer (d. 2006) *1972 Justyna Steczkowska, Polish singer *1972 Carol Monaghan, Scottish politician *1972 Mohamed Al-Deayea, Saudi Arabian footballer *1973 Miguel Mendonça, Anglo-Azorean writer *1973 Susie O'Neill, Australian swimmer *1974 Jeremy Castle, singer and songwriter *1975 Xu Huaiwen, Chinese-born German badminton player *1975 Mineiro, Brazilian footballer === From 1976 === *1976 Sam Worthington, Australian actor *1976 Kati Wilhelm, German biathlete *1977 Edward Furlong, American actor *1978 Deividas Semberas, Lithuanian footballer *1982 Hélder Postiga, Portuguese footballer *1983 Laura Bassett, English footballer *1983 Michel Bastos, Brazilian footballer *1984 Giampaolo Pazzini, Italian footballer *1985 Stephen Ferris, Irish rugby player *1985 Britt Nicole, American singer *1985 David Hart Smith, Canadian professional wrestler *1986 Alisha Annas, musician *1986 Mathieu Razanakolona, Malagasy skier *1987 Yura Movsisyan, Armenian footballer *1989 Nacer Chadli, Belgian footballer *1990 Skylar Diggins, American basketball player *1991 Skyler Day, American actress *1991 Hrafnhildur Lúthersdóttir, Icelandic swmmer *1992 Charli XCX, English singer and songwriter *1992 Hallie Kate Eisenberg, American actress *1997 Christina Robinson, American actress == Deaths == === Up to 1900 === * 640 Pope Severinus * 686 Pope John V * 924 King Ælfweard of Wessex (b. 904) * 1100 King William II of England (b. 1056) * 1222 Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse (b. 1156) * 1316 Louis of Burgundy (b. 1297) * 1332 King Christopher II of Denmark (b. 1276) * 1512 Alessandro Achillini, Italian physician and philosopher (b. 1463) * 1546 Peter Faber, Jesuit priest (b. 1506) * 1589 King Henry III of France (b. 1551) * 1611 Kato Kiyomasa, Japanese warlord and samurai (b. 1562) * 1644 Bernardo Strozzi, Italian Baroque painter (b. 1581) * 1667 Francesco Borromini, Swiss architect (b. 1599) * 1788 Thomas Gainsborough, English painter (b. 1727) * 1799 Pope Pius VI (b. 1717) * 1823 Lazare Carnot, French general, politician and mathematician (b. 1753) * 1849 Muhammad Ali of Egypt, Egyptian military officer and statesman (b. 1769) * 1859 Horace Mann, American educator and abolitionist (b. 1796) * 1876 Wild Bill Hickok, American gunfighter (b. 1837) === 1901 2000 === * 1913 Ferenc Pfaff, Hungarian architect (b. 1861) * 1921 Enrico Caruso, Italian tenor (b. 1873) * 1922 Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-American inventor (b. 1847) * 1923 Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States (b. 1865) * 1929 Mae Costello, American actress (b. 1882) * 1932 Ignaz Seipel, Chancellor of Austria (b. 1876) * 1934 Paul von Hindenburg, German military figure and President (b. 1847) * 1936 Louis Blériot, French aviator (b. 1872) * 1938 Yakov Yurovsky, Russian Bolshevik, led the execution of the family of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (b. 1878) * 1945 Pietro Mascagni, Italian composer (b. 1863) * 1955 Alfred Lépine, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (b. 1901) * 1973 Jean-Pierre Melville, French movie director (b. 1917) * 1976 Fritz Lang, Austrian movie director (b. 1890) * 1978 Antony Noghès, French businessman (b. 1890) * 1979 Thurman Munson, American baseball player (b. 1947) * 1988 Raymond Carver, American writer (b. 1938) * 1992 Michel Berger, French singer- songwriter and songwriter (b. 1947) * 1996 Mohamed Farah Aidid, Somali warlord (b. 1934) * 1996 Obdulio Varela, Uruguayan footballer (b. 1917) * 1997 Fela Kuti, Nigerian musician (b. 1938) * 1997 William S. Burroughs, American writer (b. 1914) * 1998 Shari Lewis, American television host and puppeteer (b. 1933) === From 2001 === * 2004 François Craenhals, Belgian comics artist (b. 1926) * 2004 José Pastoriza, Argentine footballer (b. 1942) * 2005 Jay Hammond, former Governor of Alaska (b. 1922) * 2007 Holden Roberto, Angolan rebel and activist (b. 1923) * 2007 Kay Dotrice, British actress (b. 1929) * 2011 Baruj Benacerraf, Venezuelan-born immunologist and Nobel Prize winner (b. 1920) * 2012 Mihaela Ursuleasa, Romanian pianist (b. 1978) * 2014 Barbara Prammer, Austrian politician (b. 1954) * 2014 James Thompson, American-Finnish author (b. 1964) * 2014 Pete van Wieren, American sports broadcaster (b. 1944) * 2015 Piet Fransen, Dutch footballer (b. 1936) * 2015 Forrest Bird, American aviator and inventor (b. 1921) * 2015 Giovanni Conso, Italian jurist and politician (b. 1922) * 2015 Natalia Molchanova, Russian freediver (b. 1962) * 2016 Jonathan Borwein, Scottish mathematician (b. 1951) * 2016 Forbes Carlile, Australian swimming coach and modern pentathlete (b. 1921) * 2016 Franciszek Macharski, Polish cardinal (b. 1927) * 2016 Ahmed Zewail, Egyptian chemist (b. 1946) * 2017 Wanda Chotomska, Polish writer (b. 1929) * 2017 John Graham, New Zealand rugby player (b. 1935) * 2017 Judith Jones, American cookbook author (b. 1924) * 2017 Daniel Licht, American composer and musician (b. 1957) * 2017 Jim Marrs, American newspaper journalist and author (b. 1943) * 2017 Ara Parseghian, American football player and coach (b. 1923) * 2017 Shen Daren, Chinese politician (b. 1928) * 2017 Santosh Mohan Dev, Indian politician (b. 1934) * 2018 Neil Argo, American composer (b. 1947) * 2018 Armand de Las Cuevas, French cyclist (b. 1968) * 2018 Herbert King, Colombian actor (b. 1963) * 2018 Winston Ntshona, South African actor and playwright (b. 1941) * 2018 Daan Schrijvers, Dutch footballer (b. 1941) * 2019 Vahakn Dadrian, Armenian-American sociologist and historian (b. 1926) * 2019 Deepak Obhrai, Canadian politician (b. 1950) * 2019 Jocelyne Roy-Vienneau, Canadian politician (b. 1955) * 2019 Alexandra Strelchenko, Russian folk singer (b. 1937) == Observances == * The Catholic Church celebrates on August 2, starting at noon of the preceding day, the "Perdono di Assisi", the plenary indulgence related to Saint Francis of Assisi. * Republic Day (North Macedonia) * Emancipation Day (Bahamas) August 02