Tuesday, August 2

This Day In History

• 1776   Members of the Continental Congress began attaching their signatures to the Declaration of Independence.
  
• 1769   The city of Los Angeles was named on this day. Gaspar de Portola, a Spanish army captain, and Juan Crespi, a Franciscan priest, stopped on their way north from San Diego. They really liked the area and decided to name it Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula, which means Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula -- Porciuncula being a chapel in Italy.
  
• 1824   Fifth Avenue was opened in New York City. It became one of the most famous thoroughfares in the world, the home of many beautiful, fashionable stores.
  
• 1858   The first mailboxes were installed along the streets of Boston and New York City. The idea of mailboxes began in Belgium in 1848. We suggest that you check yours twice on this special day. And remember, mailboxes must be, as it says on the lid, “Approved by Postmaster General”!
  
• 1876   Wild Bill (James Butler) Hickok was gunned down by Jack McCall, a desperado from Texas, in Saloon #10 at Deadwood, in the Dakota Territory. Hickok was playing poker (with his back to the door) at the time of the shooting. McCall shot Wild Bill in the back, and was hanged for the shooting, never revealing his motive. The poker hand Hickok was holding when he died consisted of a pair of black aces and a pair of black eights. This combination became known as the dead man's hand.
  
• 1887   Barbed wire was patented by Chester A. Hodge of Beloit, WI.
  
• 1921   Opera singer Enrico Caruso died in Naples, Italy.
  
• 1921   A jury in Chicago acquitted several former members of the Chicago White Sox and two others of conspiring to defraud the public by throwing the World Series.
  
• 1934   German President Paul von Hindenburg died, paving the way for Adolf Hitler's complete takeover.
  
• 1939   Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program.
  
• 1943   A Navy patrol torpedo boat, PT-109, commanded by Lt. John F. Kennedy, sank after being sheared in two by a Japanese destroyer off the Solomon Islands. Kennedy was credited with saving members of the crew.
  
• 1945   President Harry S. Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Clement Attlee concluded the Potsdam conference.
  
• 1964   The Pentagon reported the first of two attacks on U.S. destroyers by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin.
  
• 1979   New York Yankees catcher Thurman Munson died in the crash of his private plane in Canton, Ohio.
  
• 1985   A Delta Air Lines jumbo jet crashed while attempting to land at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, killing 137 people.
  
• 1990   Iraq invaded Kuwait, seizing control of the oil-rich emirate.
  
• 1997   Author William S. Burroughs died at age 83.
  
• 2000   Republicans nominated Texas Gov. George W. Bush for president and Dick Cheney for vice president at the party's convention in Philadelphia.
  
• 2001   Muslim extremists seized 36 Filipinos on the southern island of Basilan and beheaded at least four.
  
• 2003   Liberian President Charles Taylor agreed to cede power.
  

Happy Birthday To

• 1905   Myrna Loy (Williams) (actress: Thin Man movies, Airport)
  
• 1924   James Baldwin (author: Go Tell It on the Mountain; died Dec 1, 1987)
  
• 1924   Carroll O’Connor (Emmy Award-winning actor: All in the Family)
  
• 1932   Peter O’Toole (actor)