August 2


August 2 is the 214th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (215th in
leap years), with 151 days remaining.

Events

   * 338 BC - Philip of Macedon crushes Athens and Thebes in the Battle of
     Chaeronea.
   * 216 BC - Battle of Cannae Hannibal destroys the Roman army of Lucius
     Aemilius Paulus and Publius Terentius Varro in what is considered one
     of the great masterpieces of the tactical art.
   * 1798 - End of the Battle of the Nile between French and British navies.
   * 1861 - First income tax imposed in the US.
   * 1903 - Unsuccessful uprising of Balkan people against Turkey.
   * 1934 - Adolf Hitler becomes FŸhrer of Germany.
   * 1945 - Potsdam Conference concludes.
   * 1955 - Velcro patented.
   * 1975 - In New Orleans, Louisiana, the Superdome officially opens with
     an American football game between the New Orleans Saints and Houston
     Oilers.
   * 1990 - Iraq invades Kuwait, eventually leading to the Gulf War.
   * 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.

Births

   * 1533 - Theodor Zwinger
   * 1672 - Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, savant (+ 1733)
   * 1754 - Pierre Charles L'Enfant, architect, city planner (+ 1825)
   * 1788 - Leopold Gmelin, chemist (+ 1853)
   * 1815 - Adolf Friedrich von Schack, writer (+ 1894)
   * 1854 - Milan I, king of Serbia
   * 1868 - Constantine I of Greece, king of Greece (+ 1923)
   * 1871 - John Sloan, artist (+ 1951)
   * 1892 - Jack Warner, film producer (+ 1978
   * 1900 - Helen Morgan, actress (+ 1941)
   * 1905 - Myrna Loy, Academy Award winning actress (+ 1993)
   * 1905 - Rudolf Prack, actor (+ 1981)
   * 1914 - Beatrice Stgraight, Academy Award winning actress (+ 2001)
   * 1915 - Gary Merrill, actor (+ 1990)
   * 1924 - Carroll O'Connor, actor (+ 2001)
   * 1924 - James Baldwin, author (+ 1987)
   * 1932 - Peter O'Toole, actor: Lawrence of Arabia, The Lion in Winter
   * 1934 - Valery Bykovsky, cosmonaut
   * 1939 - Wes Craven, horror film director
   * 1942 - Isabel Allende, author
   * 1951 - Lance Ito, judge in the O.J. Simpson case
   * 1953 - Butch Patrick, actor
   * 1957 - Mojo Nixon, rockabilly musician, actor
   * 1961 - Linda Fratianne, Olympics figure skater
   * 1972 - Kevin Smith, actor, director, screenwriter
   * 1977 - Edward Furlong, actor
   * 1992 - Hallie Kate Eisenberg, actress, Pepsi-Cola spokesperson

Deaths

   * 461 - Majorian, Roman Emperor (assassination)
   * 1100 - King William II of England
   * 1921 - Enrico Caruso, opera singer
   * 1922 - Alexander Graham Bell, inventor
   * 1934 - Paul von Hindenburg, general and politician
   * 1936 - Louis BlŽriot, French aviation pioneer
   * 1976 - Fritz Lang, film director
   * 1986 - Roy Cohn, politician, anti-Communist
   * 1997 - William S. Burroughs, writer
   * 1998 - Shari Lewis, puppeteer

Holidays and observances

   * Costa Rica - Our Lady of the Angels