Tuesday, August 2, 2011

2nd of August

Today is the 214th day of the year, with 151 days remaining.

216 BC - Battle of Cannae during the Second Punic War, The Carthaginian army led by Hannibal defeats a numerically superior Roman army under command of consuls Lucius Aemilius Paulius and Gaius Terentius Varro.

1377 AD - Russian troops are defeated in the Battle on Pyana River because of drunkenness.

1776 - The United State Declaration of Independence is finally signed.

1790 - The first census in the United States is conducted.

1873 - The Clay Street Hill Railroad begins operating the first cable car in San Francisco's famous system.

1922 - A typhoon hits Shantou, Republic of China killing more than 50,000 people.

1923 - As vice president, Calvin Coolidge becomes the 30th President of the United States, after the death of Warren G. Harding.

1934 - Paul von Hindenburg, the German field marshal and second President of Germany, dies at the age of 86.

1934 - Adolf Hitler becomes the Fuhrer of Germany.

1937 - The Marihuana Tax Act is passed in America, the effect of which is to render marijuana and all its by-products illegal.

1939 - Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard write a letter to Franklin Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan project in order to develop a nuclear weapon.

1943 - Rebellion in the Nazi death camp of Treblinka erupts.

1943 - A Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 i rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri and sinks.  It is the famed boat the is carrying Lt. John F. Kennedy, who manages to save all but two of his crew.

1945 - It is the conclusion of the Potsdam Conference, at which the Allied powers discuss the future of defeated Germany.

1964 - The Gulf of Tonkin incident in which North Vietnamese gunboats allegedly fire on the U. S. destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy.

1966 - American baseball pitcher and famed knuckleball pitcher, Tim Wakefield is born.

1968 - An earthquake hits Casiguran, Aurora, Phillipines and kills more than 270 people and wounding 261.

1979 - American baseball catcher, Thurman Munson dies at the age of 32 in an accident.  While practicing how to land his Cessna Citation at the Akron-Canton Airport, he gets pinned down by debris and killed by smoke inhalation by the ensuing fire. 

James "Wild Bill' Hickok - The famous American Wild West gunfighter was killed on this day at Nuttall & Mann's Saloon No. 10 in Deadwood in the Black Hills, Dakota Territory.  The man was playing poker and usually played with his back against a wall, however today his seat was taken but he sat down anyway.  In mere minutes, a man known as Jack McCall appeared behind Hickok and said, "Take that!"  The bullet hit Hickok in the back of the head and exited the right cheek.  In front of the player, were his cards the eight of clubs, eight of spades, ace of clubs, ace of spades, and the five of diamonds.  This arrangement became the "dead man's hand."

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