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August 2 to August 4, 1996
This Day in History
August 2 in History

Born:

  • Peter O'Toole (1932), actor, Lawrence of Arabia
  • Carroll O'Connor (1924), actor, Archie Bunker
  • Mary-Louise Parker (1964), actress, Fried Green Tomatoes
  • Wes Craven (1939), director, A Nightmare on Elm Street
  • Myrna Loy (1905), actress, The Thin Man
  • James Baldwin (1924), writer, Go Tell It on the Mountain

1776: Nearly one month after its unanimous approval, the members of the Continental Congress formally sign their names to the Declaration of Independence. Boston merchant John Hancock does such an impressive job of it that his name becomes a part of the English language.

1876: Renowned gunslinger and sometime U.S. Marshal James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok is shot in the back and killed by Jack McCall while playing poker at a saloon in Deadwood, in the Dakota Territory.

1990: Iraqi president Saddam Hussein launches a massive invasion on tiny, defenseless, oil-rich Kuwait, which he will formally annex six days later.

August 3 in History

Born:

  • Tony Bennett (1926), crooner, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco"
  • Martin Sheen (1940), actor, Apocalypse Now
  • John Landis (1950), director, An American Werewolf in London, Coming to America
  • Leon Uris (1924), novelist, Exodus
  • P.D. James (1920), mystery writer

1492: Christopher Columbus begins his first voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a western trade route to Cathay (China) and Cipangu (Japan).

1921: Say it ain't so, Joe! In the culmination of the most famous scandal in the history of professional sports, the members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox--legendary "Shoeless" Joe Jackson among them--are banned for life from Major League baseball for allegedly throwing the 1919 World Series.

1958: The world's first atomic submarine, the U.S.S. Nautilus--so named in honor of the fictional vessel commanded by Captain Nemo in the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea--passes beneath the polar ice pack at the North Pole.

August 4 in History

Born:

  • Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (1900), monarch's mum
  • Richard Belzer (1944), comedian; actor, Homicide: Life on the Street
  • Frankie Ford (1939), singer, "Sea Cruise"
  • Roger Clemens (1962), powerful pitcher, Boston Red Sox

1916: The U.S. State Department negotiates the purchase of the Danish West Indies from Denmark at a price of $25 million. Six months later, the newly established U.S. territory is christened the Virgin Islands.

1966: Maybe he didn't mean it quite the way it sounded. Radio stations in several major U.S. cities ban the playing of all Beatles records in response to John Lennon's widely reported comment that the Fab Four had become "more popular than Jesus Christ."

1978: The first residents of the Love Canal district in Niagara Falls, New York, move out when their homes are endangered by toxic leakage from an abandoned waste dump. Three days later, President Carter will declare Love Canal a disaster area.


Copyright 1996 Starwave Corporation. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate or redistribute in any form.