TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: Aug 2
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
1375 1st roller skating rink opens (London)
1492 Jews are expelled from Spain by King Ferdinand & Queen Isabella
1589 During France’s religious war, a fanatical monk stabs King Henry II to death.
1776 Formal signing of the US Declaration of Independence by 56 people (date most accepted by modern historians)
1790 1st US census conducted, the population was 3,939,214 including 697,624 slaves
1791 Samuel Briggs and his son Samuel Briggs, Jr. received a joint patent for their nail-making machine. They were the first father-son pair to receive a patent.
1802 Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed “Consul for Life” by the French Senate after a plebiscite from the French people.
1832 Troops under General Henry Atkinson massacre Sauk Indian men, women and children who are followers of Black Hawk at the Bad Axe River in Wisconsin. Black Hawk himself finally surrenders three weeks later, bringing the Black Hawk War to an end.
1861 The United States Congress passed the first income tax. The revenues were intended for the war effort against the South. The tax was never enacted.
1862 The Army Ambulance Corps is established by Maj. Gen. George McClellan.
1870 World’s first underground railway opened
1876 Wild Bill Hickok is shot while playing poker.
1887 Rowell Hodge patented barbed wire.
1903 Unsuccessful uprising of Macedonians against Turkey
1909 The first Lincoln penny was issued.
1921 Eight White Sox players were acquitted of throwing the 1919 World Series.
1923 Vice President Calvin Coolidge becomes president upon the death of Warren G. Harding.
1934 German President Paul von Hindenburg dies and Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor.
1938 Bright yellow baseballs were used in a major league baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the St. Louis Cardinals. It was hoped that the balls would be easier to see.
1939 Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Roosevelt urging the U.S. to have an atomic weapons research program.
1939 U.S. President Roosevelt signed the Hatch Act. The act prohibited civil service employees from taking an active part in political campaigns.
1943 Lt. John F. Kennedy, towing an injured sailor, swims to a small island in the Solomon Islands. The night before, his boat, PT-109, had been split in half by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri.
1958 The Arab Federation is dissolved
1965 Newsman Morley Safer films the destruction of a Vietnamese village by U.S. Marines.
1967 New Orleans Saints 1st pre-season game, they lose to LA Rams 16-77
1983 U.S. House of Representatives approved a law that designated the third Monday of January would be a federal holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The law was signed by President Reagan on November 2.
1990 Invasion of Kuwait begins. In 2 days Iraqi forces had overrun Kuwaiti forces and Saddam Hussein declared Kuwait as the 19th province of Iraq. The invasion lasted for 7 months and ended after a UN-authorized coalition force led by the United States intervened.
1995 China ordered the expulsion of two U.S. Air Force officers. The two were said to have been caught spying on military sights.
1998 Second Congo War Begins
2018 Apple becomes the first American public listed company to reach $1 trillion in value
REFERENCE: HISTORY.NET, ONTHISDAY.COM, TIMEANDDATE.COM, INFOPLEASE.COM, FACTMONSTER.COM, SCOPESYS.COM, ON-THIS-DAY.COM, THEPEOPLEHISTORY.COM
