On this day in History - Aug 2

• 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 / 216 a.C. O chefe cartaginês Haníbal (247 a.C.-183 a.C.), tendo atravessado os Alpes, e invadido a Itália com o seu exército, derrota um exército romano em Cannae. Morreram 50.000 legionários, um consul, 29 tribunos e 80 senadores, naquele que foi o maior desastre militar da história de Roma.
• 0461 - Majorian resigns as Western Roman Emperor; shortly afterwards Libius Severus is declared western Roman emperor by Ricimer
• 0640 - Severinus dies. Italian Pope.
• 0686 - Pope John V dies.
• 0932 - O califa omíada Abd al-Rahman III (891-961), fundador do Califado de Córdova, reocupou Toledo
• 1100 - King William (Rufus) II of England dies killed in New Forest, Hampshire (b.c. 1056) / Morre Guilherme II de Inglaterra, num alegado acidente de caça (n. cerca 1056)
• 1533 - Theodor Zwinger was born (d. 1588). Medical scholar.
• 1589 - King Henry III of France dies stabbed the previous day by Jacques Clement (b. 1551)
• 1611 - Kato Kiyomasa dies (b. 1562). Japanese daimyo and samurai.
• 1672 - Johann Jakob Scheuchzer was born (d. 1733). Swiss scholar.
• 1674 - Philip II, Duke of Orléans was born (d. 1723). Regent of France.
• 1675 - Inauguração da Sinagoga Portuguesa de Amsterdão.
• 1696 - Mahmud I was born (d. 1754). Ottoman Sultan.
• 1696 - Robert Campbell of Glenlyon dies (b. 1630). Scottish military commander at the Massacre of Glencoe.
• 1703 - Lorenzo Ricci was born (d. 1775). Italian Jesuit leader.
• 1754 - Pierre Charles L'Enfant was born (d. 1825). Architect, city planner.
• 1760 - Pope Leo XII was born.
• 1766 - Alvará, concedido a Augusto Ludovico Thymme, para a criação, em Lisboa, de uma fábrica de folhetas para a cravação de diamantes.
• 1769 - Daniel Finch, 8th Earl of Winchilsea, dies (b. 1689). English politician.
• 1776 - Delegates to the Continental Congress begin to sign the Declaration_of Independence.
• 1788 - Leopold Gmelin was born (d. 1853). Chemist.
• 1788 - Thomas Gainsborough dies (b. 1727). English artist.
• 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.
• 1815 - Adolf Friedrich von Schack was born (d. 1894). Writer.
• 1834 - Frédéric Bartholdi was born (d. 1904). Sculptor.
• 1835 - Elisha Gray, was born (d. 1901). American inventor and founder of Western Electric.
• 1838 - Portugal: O chefe guerrilheiro miguelista José Joaquim de Sousa Reis, conhecido pelo Remexido, é fuzilado. Tinha sido preso em 28 de Julho
• 1849 - Mehemet Ali dies. Paella of Egypt.
• 1854 - Milan I, was born. King of Serbia
• 1859 - Horace Mann dies (b. 1796). American educator and abolitionist.
• 1865 - Irving Babbitt was born (d. 1933). American literary critic.
• 1868 - King Constantine I of Greece was born (d. 1923)
• 1869 - Japan's samurai, farmer, artisan, merchant class system is abolished as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms. (Traditional Japanese date: June 25, 1869).
• 1869 - Irving Babbitt, critic and teacher, leader of the movement in literary criticism known as New Humanism, is born in Dayton, Ohio. He will be educated at Harvard and the Sorbonne, and gather T. S. Eliot and George Santayana as followers.
• 1870 - Tower Subway, the world's first underground tube railway, opens in London.
• 1871 - John French Sloan was born (d. 1951). Artist.
• 1872 - Manuel Pardo, fundador del Partido Civilista, se convierte en presidente de Perú.
• 1876 - James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, dies (b. 1837). American gunfighter.
• 1880 - Nacimiento, en San Francisco de Macorís, Republica Dominicana, de Mercedes Mota Mota (m. 12 Mar 1964). Notable educadora y escritora.
• 1884 - Rómulo Gallegos was born in Caracas. Venezuelan writer and politician. President (elected) of Venezuela (1949-1952). In 1958 was awarded with The Nacional Prize for Literature.
• 1889 - Eduardo Gutiérrez dies in Buenos Aires (b. 15 Jul 1851). Novelist ( "Juan Moreira" "Santos Vega", "Hormiga negra" y "Croquis y siluetas militares" ).
• 1892 - Jack Warner was born (d. 1978). Canadian film producer.
• 1897 - Max Weber was born (d. 1974). Swiss Federal Councilor.
• 1900 - Helen Morgan was born (d. 1941). Actress.
• 1903 - Fall of the Ottoman Empire: Unsuccessful uprising of the Bulgarians against Ottoman Turkey, also known as the Ilinden uprising.
• 1905 - Karl Amadeus Hartmann was born (d. 1963). Composer.
• 1905 - Myrna Loy was born (d. 1993). Actress.
• 1905 - Rudolf Prack was born (d. 1981). Actor.
• 1912 - Vladimir Zerjavic was born (d. 2001). Statistician
• 1914 - Beatrice Straight was born (d. 2001). Actress.
• 1914 - Junji Kinoshita, is born in Tokyo. Japanese playwright and leaderin the attempt to revitalize the post - Worl War II theater. Yuzuru (Twilight Crane, 1949) being an Kaeru Shoten ("Ascension of the Frog," 1951) and Shimpan (The Judgement, 1970).
• 1915 - Gary Merrill was born (d. 1990). Actor.
• 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.
• 1921 - Enrico Caruso dies (b. 1873). Italian tenor.
• 1922 - Alexander Graham Bell, dies in Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia (b. 3 Mar 1847). Scottish inventor of the telephone.
• 1923 - Warren G. Harding dies (b. 1865). 29th President of the United States
• 1924 - James Baldwin was born in Harlem Hospital, New York City (d. 1 Dec 1987). American author."The Fire the Next Time," "Go Tell it on the Mountain" and "Notes of a Native Son."
• 1924 - Carroll O'Connor was born (d. 2001). Actor
• 1925 - Jorge Rafael Videla was born. Argentinian dictator (1976-1981).
• 1929 - Nasce em Aveiro Zeca Afonso (José Manuel Cerqueira Afonso dos Santos) músico de intervenção (Grândola Vila Morena)
• 1932 - Peter O'Toole was born. Irish actor (Lord Jim, Beckett, Lawrence of Arabia )
• 1933 - Lorenzo Milam was born. Author and broadcaster.
• 1933 - Machel del Castillo is born in Madrid. He will become famous at 24 with the short novel, Tanguy (Child of Our Time), which, like The Diary of Anne Frank, told with the poignancy of a child's witness to cruel historical events, tells of his actual experiences as a political refugee and a prisoner in concentration camps.
• 1934 - Valery Bykovsky was born. Cosmonaut
• 1934 - Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany.
• 1934 - Paul von Hindenburg dies (b. 1847). German general and politician. / O general Hindenbourg (1847-1934) , presidente em exercício da Alemanha, morre com 87 anos. Será substituído nas funções presidenciais por Adolf Hitler, enquanto Fuhrer da Alemanha.
• 1936 - Louis Blériot dies (b. 1872). French aviation pioneer.
• 1937 - Garth Hudson was born. Canadian musician, organist/keyboardist with The Band
• 1939 - Wes Craven was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Film director (Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream ).
• 1939 - Harvey Spencer Lewis dies (b. 1883). Founder of AMORC.
• 1939 - Albert Einstein escreveu uma carta ao Presidente americano Franklin D. Roosevelt sobre a possibilidade da existência de armas atómicas
• 1941 - Doris Coley was born (d. 2000). Singer (Shirelles).
• 1942 - Isabel Allende was born in Lima, Peru. Niece of the former Chilean president Salvador Allende. Author. (La casa de los espíritus - The House of the Spirits )
• 1943 - PT-109, with future president of the United States Lieutenant John F. Kennedy aboard, sinks.
• 1944 - Beginning of the Treblinka uprising.
• 1944 - Jim Capaldi was born (d. 28 Jan 2005). British drummer, singer, and songwriter (Traffic)
• 1944 - Felix Nussbaum, dies assassinated in Auschwitz . German painter
• 1944 - Nasce Altamiro Barbosa Machado (m. 2001). Professor catedrático e director do Departamento de Sistemas de Informação (DSI) da Escola de Engenharia da Universidade do Minho
• 1945 - World War II: Potsdam Conference, in which the Allied Powers discuss the future of defeated Germany, concludes.
• 1945 - Pietro Mascagni dies (b. 1863). Italian composer (Cavalleria Rusticana).
• 1947 - Maria de los Angeles Santamaria, “Massiel” was born. Spanish singer.
• 1947 - Tomás Berreta dies. Uruguay statesman.
• 1947 - Demite-se o Governo chileno: González Videla forma um novo com personalidades independentes.
• 1948 - Dennis Prager was born. Radio talk show host and author
• 1950 - The New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures was published on Yankee Stadium, New York.
• 1951 - Lance Ito was born. American judge
• 1953 - Butch Patrick was born. Actor
• 1955 - Velcro is patented.
• 1955 - Fray Justino Russolillo dies. Religious.
• 1956 - Isabel Pantoja was born. Spanish singer.
• 1957 - Mojo Nixon was born. Musician and actor
• 1957 - João Klèber was born. Brazilian TV presenter
• 1961 - Linda Fratianne was born. Figure skater
• 1963 - Oliver La Farge dies in Albuquerque, New Mexico (b. 19 Dec 1901). American anthropologist who wrote novels and nonfiction books covering Native American life, and also spoke for the American Indian through his political actions. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 1930 for Laughing Boy; [Laughing Boy (1929, novel) The Sparks Fly Upward (1931, novel) Long Pennant (1933, novel) All the Young Men (1935, short stories) The Enemy Gods (1937, novel)The Copper Pot (1942, novel)Raw Material (1945, memoir) A Pause in the Desert (1957, short stories)The Door in the Wall (1965, short stories, posthumous)]
• 1964 - Mary-Louise Parker was born. Actress
• 1964 - North Vietnam fires on a US destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
• 1964 - José María Castro dies. Argentine musician.
• 1967 - The second Blackwall Tunnel opened in Greenwich, London.
• 1968 - Stefan Efenberg was born. German footballer.
• 1969 - Fernando Couto was born. Portuguese footballer
• 1970 - Tony Amonte was born. Hockey player
• 1970 - Powder Ridge Rock Festival
• 1970 - Kevin Smith was born. Actor, director, and screenwriter ( Chasing Amy, Mallrats, Clerks).
• 1970 - Ocurrió el primer secuestro aéreo de la historia, con el de un avión Boeing 747 que, con 378 pasajeros, fue desviado hacia Cuba cuando volaba desde Nueva York a Puerto Rico
• 1971 - Pete Sampras was born. Tennis champ, U.S. Open 1990
• 1974 - Jeremy Castle was born. Singer and songwriter
• 1975 - Xu Huaiwen was born. German badminton player
• 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.
• 1976 - Fritz Lang dies (b. 1890). Film director.
• 1976 - Stan Farr dies. Basketball player.
• 1977 - Edward Furlong was born. Actor
• 1978 - Carlos Chávez dies (b. 1899). Mexican composer
• 1978 - Oscar Viale dies (b. 2 Ago 1944). Actor and playwright.
• 1979 - Thurman Munson dies (b. 1947). Baseball player
• 1980 - Hard rock band AC/DC release Back in Black, their first album with lead singer Brian Johnson and their best-selling.
• 1980 - Donald Stewart, dies in London, England. American humorist, actor, playright, Academy Award-winning screenwriter.
• 1982 - Hélder Postiga was born. Portuguese football player.
• 1982 - John Malkovich /Glenne Headly marriage
• 1985 - A Delta Air Lines Lockheed L-1011 TriStar crashes at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in Texas, killing 137.
• 1985 - Se aprueba en España la ley del aborto.
• 1986 - Roy Cohn dies (b.1927). American politician and anti-communist.
• 1987 - Morre no Brasil o General João Sarmento Pimentel (n. 14 Jul 1888 em Mirandela). Um dos fundadores do Pertido Socialista. Grande lutador pela liberdade e democracia em Portugal
• 1988 - Raymond Carver dies (b. 1938). Writer, poet.
• 1990 - Norman Mclean dies (b. 1902). Writer.
• 1990 - Iraq invades Kuwait, eventually leading to the Gulf War.
• 1991 - Início dos Jogos Pan-Americanos em Cuba
• 1991 - Hallie Kate Eisenberg was born. Actress.
• 1994 - Popular Japanese television and movie actor Beat Takeshi is seriously injured in a motorcycle accident.
• 1996 - Muere el jugador de fútbol Obdulio Varela dies. Uruguayan football player, a simbol of the football of Uruguay who was Worl Champion in 1950.
• 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.
• 1997 - William S. Burroughs dies (b. 1914). Writer.
• 1998 - Shari Lewis dies (b. 1933). Puppeteer.
• 1999 - Gaisal trail disaster : Two trains carrying 2,500 people collided at the remote station of Gaisal, 310 miles from the city of Gauhati in Assam. The crash was at such high speeds that the trains actually exploded upon impact killing at least 285 people.
• 2002 - Fernando Bandeira Ferreira dies in Setubal (b. 2 Sep 1920). Portuguese archaelogist.
• 2002 - The Angolan government and UNITA rebels declared the official end to their nearly three-decade old civil war.
• 2003 - A 65th anniversary edition of The Beano is released.
• 2003 - Don Estelle dies. British actor
• 2003 - Mike Levey dies (b. 1948). American television personality
• 2003 - Peter Safar dies (b. 1924). Austrian physician.
• 2004 - Monday demonstrations against social cutbacks began in Germany
• 2004 - Wilhelm Fresenius dies (b. 1913). German chemist.
• 2004 - Don Tosti dies (b. 1923). Musician.
• 2005 - Air France Flight 358 skids off the runway at Toronto Pearson International Airport outside Toronto, Canada, destroying the plane but resulting in no loss of life.
• 2006 - Jorge de Brito dies. President of Benfica.
• Costa Rica - Our Lady of the Angels
• Bulgaria/Republic of Macedonia - Ilinden (St. Ilya Day), a day of remembrance of the Ilinden Uprising