Today In History 8/2

Published 4:00 am Wednesday, August 2, 2023

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

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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.

1776

Members of Congress affix their signatures to an enlarged copy of the Declaration of Independence.

1790

 1st US census conducted, the population was 3,939,214 including 697,624 slaves.

1830

Charles X of France abdicated the throne, unable to resist the July Revolution.

1832

Battle of Bad Axe, Wisconsin: 1,300 Illinois militia defeat Sauk & Fox Native Americans ending the Black Hawk War in the US.

1858

Government of India transferred from East India Company to the British Crown.

1864

Saratoga Racecourse, America’s oldest Thoroughbred racetrack, opens its inaugural meet with four days of racing.

1865

The captain and crew of the C.S.S. Shenandoah, still prowling the waters of the Pacific in search of Yankee whaling ships, is finally informed by a British vessel that the South has lost the war.

1876

Wild Bill Hickok—a frontiersman, marksman, gambler, and legend of the American West—was murdered in the city of Deadwood, in what is now South Dakota.

1920

Marcus Garvey, Black leader and founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, reached the height of his power as he presided at an international convention in New York City.

1934

Hitler becomes dictator of Germany.

1943

PT-109, a U.S. Navy torpedo boat under John F. Kennedy’s command, was sunk by a Japanese destroyer during World War II.

1961

The Beatles 1st gig as house band of Liverpool’s Cavern Club.

1973

“American Graffiti”, directed by George Lucas and starring Richard Dreyfuss and Ron Howard premieres at the Locarno International Film Festival, Switzerland.

1990

Iraq invaded Kuwait on this day in 1990, and Saddam Hussein’s subsequent refusal to withdraw his troops sparked the Persian Gulf War, in which an international force led by the United States quickly defeated Iraq.

1992

At the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, American athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee, considered by many to be the greatest female athlete ever, won the heptathlon, becoming the first person to win the event in consecutive Games.

2016

Chemist Ahmed H. Zewail, who in 1999 became the first Egyptian and the first Arab to win a Nobel Prize in a science category (chemistry), died at age 70.

2018

Apple becomes the first American public listed company to reach $1 trillion in value.