2nd of September

It is the 245th day of the year, with 120 days remaining.

44 BC - Cicero, Roman politician, launches the first of his Phillipics or oratorial attacks on Mark Antony.  He will make a total of 14 of them over the following months.

31 BC - Battle of Actium occurs off the western coast of Greece.  Forces of Roman Emperor Octavian, defeat troops under the command of Mark Antony and Cleopatra.

1666 AD - The Great Fire of London breaks out and burns for a total of three days.  It destroys over 10,000 buildings and structures, including St. Paul's Cathedral.

1752 - Great Britain finally adopts the Gregorian calendar, nearly two centuries later than most of Western Europe.

1789 - The United States Department of the Treasury is founded.

1792 - During what became known as the September Massacres of the French Revolution, rampaging mobs slaughter three Roman Catholic bishops, more than 200 priests, and other prisoners believed to be royalist sympathizers.

1838 - Liliuokalani, the last monarch and only queen regnant of the Kingdom of Hawai'i, is born.

1850 - Albert Spalding, professional baseball player and co-founder of A.G. Spalding sporting goods company, is born.

1862 - Abraham Lincoln reluctantly restores Union General George B. McClellan to full command after General John Pope's disastrous defeat at the Battle of Second Bull Run.

1864 - Union forces enter the city of Atlanta, Georgia.  It is one day after the Confederate defenders flee the city.

1870 - At the Battle of Sedan, Prussian forces take Napoleon III of France and 100,000 of his soldiers prisoner during the Franco-Prussian War.

1885 - In Rock Springs, Wyoming, 150 white miners, who are struggling to unionize so they could strike for better wages and work conditions, attack their fellow Chinese workers.  They kill 28, wound 15, and force several hundred more out of town.

1901 - U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, utters the famous phrase, "Speak softly and carry a big stick," at the Minnesota State Fair.

1945 - The Instrument of Surrender of Japan is signed by Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and accepted aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

1945 - Vietnam declares its independence, forming the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

1969 - Vietnamese Marxist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of North Vietnam, dies as the age of 79.

1973 - J. R. R. Tolkien, English writer, poet and professor, best known for his works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, passes away at the age of 81.