August 2: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

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

Events

• 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.
• 461 - Majorian resigns as Western Roman Emperor; shortly afterwards Libius Severus is declared western Roman emperor by Ricimer
• 1610 - Henry Hudson sails into what it is now known as Hudson Bay, thinking he had made it through the Northwest Passage and reached the Pacific Ocean.
• 1776 - Delegates to the Continental Congress begin signing the United States Declaration of Independence.
• 1790 - The first US Census is conducted.
• 1798 - Second Coalition: The Battle of the Nile between French and British navies ends with a British victory.
• 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.
• 1903 - Fall of the Ottoman Empire: Unsuccessful uprising of the Bulgarians against Ottoman Turkey, also known as the Ilinden uprising.
• 1916 - World War I: Austrian sabotage causes the sinking of the Italian battleship Leonardo da Vinci in Taranto.
• 1918 - Japan announces that it is deploying troops to Siberia in the aftermath of World War I.
• 1934 - Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany.
• 1943 - PT-109, with future president of the United States Lieutenant John F. Kennedy aboard, sinks.
• 1945 - World War II: Potsdam Conference, in which the Allied Powers discuss the future of defeated Germany, concludes.
• 1950 - The New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures is released in a public event held in Yankee Stadium in New York City.
• 1955 - Velcro is patented.
• 1964 - North Vietnam allegedly fires on a US destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
• 1967 - The second Blackwall Tunnel opens in Greenwich, London.
• 1975 - In New Orleans, Louisiana, the Superdome officially opens with an NFL football game between the New Orleans Saints and Houston Oilers.
• 1976 - An intruder breaks into Priscilla Davis's mansion in Fort Worth, Texas and kills Andrea Wilborn and Stan Farr.
• 1979 - New York Yankees catcher Thurman Munson dies in a plane crash. An avid pilot, he was practicing takeoffs and landings in his new Cessna Citation jet. The official cause of the crash was determined to be pilot error.
• 1980 - A bomb explodes at the railway station in Bologna, Italy, killing 85 people and wounding more than 200.
• 1985 - A Delta Air Lines Lockheed L-1011 TriStar crashes at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in Texas, killing 137.
• 1990 - 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 - Eighteen lives are lost in the Thredbo landslide in New South Wales, Australia.
• 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.

• 1533 - Theodor Zwinger, Swiss scholar (d. 1588)
• 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)
• 1703 - Lorenzo Ricci, Italian Jesuit leader (d. 1775)
• 1754 - Pierre Charles L'Enfant, French-born architect and city planner (d. 1825)
• 1788 - Leopold Gmelin, German chemist (d. 1853)
• 1815 - Adolf Friedrich von Schack, German writer (d. 1894)
• 1834 - Frédéric Bartholdi, French sculptor (d. 1904)
• 1835 - Elisha Gray, American inventor and entrepreneur (d. 1901)
• 1854 - Milan I, King of Serbia (d. 1901)
• 1865 - Irving Babbitt, American literary critic (d. 1933)
• 1868 - King Constantine I of Greece (d. 1923)
• 1871 - John French Sloan, American artist (d. 1951)
• 1892 - Jack Warner, Canadian film producer (d. 1978)
• 1897 - Max Weber, Swiss Federal Councilor (d. 1974)
• 1900 - Helen Morgan, American actress (d. 1941)
• 1905 - Karl Amadeus Hartmann, German composer (d. 1963)
• 1905 - Myrna Loy, American actress (d. 1993)
• 1912 - Vladimir Zerjavic, Croatian statistician (d. 2001)
• 1914 - Beatrice Straight, American actress (d. 2001)
• 1915 - Gary Merrill, American actor (d. 1990)
• 1924 - James Baldwin, American author (d. 1987)
• 1924 - Carroll O'Connor, American actor (d. 2001)
• 1925 - Jorge Rafael Videla, Argentinian dictator
• 1932 - Peter O'Toole, Irish-born actor
• 1934 - Valery Bykovsky, cosmonaut
• 1937 - Garth Hudson, Canadian musician (The Band)
• 1939 - Wes Craven, American film director
• 1941 - Doris Coley, American singer (Shirelles) (d. 2000)
• 1942 - Isabel Allende, American author
• 1944 - Jim Capaldi, British drummer, singer, and songwriter (Traffic) (d. 2005)
• 1948 - Dennis Prager, American radio talk show host and author
• 1950 - Lance Ito, American judge
• 1953 - Butch Patrick, American actor
• 1957 - Mojo Nixon, American musician and actor
• 1959 - Apollonia Kotero, American singer and actress
• 1961 - Linda Fratianne, American figure skater
• 1964 - Mary-Louise Parker, American actress
• 1969 - Fernando Couto, Portuguese footballer
• 1969 - Richard Hallebeek, Dutch guitarist
• 1970 - Tony Amonte, American hockey player
• 1970 - Kevin Smith, American actor, director, and screenwriter
• 1974 - Jeremy Castle, American singer and songwriter
• 1975 - Xu Huaiwen, Chinese-born badminton player
• 1977 - Edward Furlong, American actor
• 1977 - Dave Farrel, American musician
• 1982 - Hélder Postiga, Portuguese footballer
• 1985 - Jeff Healy, Canadian musician
• 1992 - Hallie Kate Eisenberg, American actress

• 686 - Pope John V
• 1100 - King William II of England
• 1222 - Count Raymond VI of Toulouse (b. 1156)
• 1511 - Andrew Barton, Scottish naval leader
• 1589 - King Henry III of France (b. 1551)
• 1611 - Kato Kiyomasa, Japanese warlord and samurai (b. 1562)
• 1696 - Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, Scottish military commander at the Massacre of Glencoe (b. 1630)
• 1769 - Daniel Finch, 8th Earl of Winchilsea, English politician (b. 1689)
• 1776 - Louis François I, Prince of Conti, French military leader (b. 1717)
• 1788 - Thomas Gainsborough, English artist (b. 1727)
• 1815 - Guillaume Marie Anne Brune, French marshal (murdered) (b. 1763)
• 1859 - Horace Mann, American educator and abolitionist (b. 1796)
• 1876 - James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, American gunfighter (b. 1837)
• 1890 - Louise-Victorine Ackermann, French poet (b. 1813)
• 1903 - Edmond Nocard, French veterinarian (b. 1850)
• 1921 - Enrico Caruso, Italian tenor (b. 1873)
• 1922 - Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-born inventor (b. 1847)
• 1923 - Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States (b. 1865)
• 1934 - Paul von Hindenburg, German general and politician (b. 1847)
• 1936 - Louis Blériot, French aviation pioneer (b. 1872)
• 1939 - Harvey Spencer Lewis, American Rosacrucian mystic (b. 1883)
• 1945 - Pietro Mascagni, Italian composer (b. 1863)
• 1976 - Fritz Lang, Austrian film director (b. 1890)
• 1978 - Carlos Chávez, Mexican composer (b. 1899)
• 1979 - Thurman Munson, baseball player (b. 1947)
• 1986 - Roy Cohn, American politician (b. 1927)
• 1988 - Raymond Carver, American writer (b. 1938)
• 1990 - Norman Mclean, American writer (b. 1902)
• 1997 - William S. Burroughs, American writer (b. 1914)
• 1998 - Shari Lewis, American puppeteer (b. 1933)
• 2003 - Don Estelle, British actor (b. 1933)
• 2003 - Mike Levey, American television personality (b. 1948)
• 2004 - Don Tosti, musician (b. 1923)

• Costa Rica - Our Lady of the Angels
• Bulgaria/Republic of Macedonia - Ilinden (St. Ilya Day), a day of remembrance of the Ilinden Uprising
• Feast day of Ilya the Prophet in Russian Orthodox Church
• Feast day of St Peter Julian Eymard Roman Catholic Church
• Day of airborne forces in Russia

August 1 - August 3 - July 2 - September 2 -- listing of all days