August 2nd
Today in America's Present Past
1675 | Indian Wars: Wheeler’s Surprise and the Siege of Brookfield begin.
1701 | Michilimackinac Chief Kondiaronk died.
1754 | Architect Pierre Charles L’Enfant was born.
1776 | War of Independence: The date on which a majority of the 56 signers’ signatures were collected on the Declaration of Independence.
1790 | The first US census was conducted.
1811 | Founding Father William Williams died.
1858 | The first mailboxes are installed in Boston, Massachusetts, and New York City, New York.
1859 | Author, activist, and educator Horace Mann died.
1864 | Saratoga Racecourse opens.
1865 | Author Irving Babbitt was born.
1876 | Wild Bill Hickok was shot dead.
1887 | Chester A. Hodge patents 'spur' barbed wire.
1905 | Actress Ruth Nelson was born.
1909 | The Army Air Corps was formed as the Army took the first delivery from the Wright Brothers of their military flyer.
1909 | The first Lincoln penny is issued.
1922 | Inventor Alexander Graham Bell died.
1923 | POTUS: President Warren Harding died.
1924 | Actor Carrol O’Connor was born.
1924 | Author James Baldwin was born.
1931 | Composer Philippa Schuyle was born.
1937 | Congress: Enacted the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937.
1939 | Congress: Enacted the Hatch Act, prohibiting political activity by federal workers.
1939 | Director Wes Craven was born.
1943 | POTUS: Lt John F. Kennedy's PT-boat 109 sinks at the Solomon Islands.
1955 | Historian Caleb Carr was born.
1955 | Poet Wallace Stevens died.
1964 | Vietnam War: North Vietnam fires at US Navy destroyer USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin.
1966 | Civil Rights: Perth Amboy, New Jersey, race riots start.
1967 | Film: “In the Heat of the Night” debuted.
1973 | Film: “American Graffiti” debuted.
1984 | Vice-President J. D. Vance was born.
1985 | Computer scientist Don Estridge died.
1986 | Lawyer and activist Roy Cohen died.
1990 | The U.S. led a coalition in the Gulf War.
1997 | Poet William Seward Burroughs died.
1999 | Film: “The Sixth Sense” debuted.
2005 | Terrorists murdered journalist Steven Vincent.
2016 | Chemist Ahmed Zewail died.
2022 | Journalist Vin Scully died.