August 2

Events

338 BC – A Macedonian army led by Philip II defeated the combined forces of Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea, securing Macedonian hegemony in Greece and the Aegean.
216 BC – Second Punic War: Battle of Cannae – The Carthaginian army led by Hannibal defeats a numerically superior Roman army under command of consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro.
461 – Majorian is arrested near Tortona (Northern Italy) and deposed by the Suebian general Ricimer as puppet emperor.
1377 – Russian troops are defeated in the Battle on Pyana River because of drunkenness.
1610 – Henry Hudson sails into what is now known as Hudson Bay thinking he had made it through the Northwest Passage and reached the Pacific Ocean.
1776 – The signing of the United States Declaration of Independence took place.
1790 – The first US Census is conducted.
1798 – French Revolutionary Wars: the Battle of the Nile concludes in a British victory.
1830 – Charles X of France abdicates the throne in favor of his grandson Henri.
1869 – Japan's samurai, farmer, artisan, merchant class system (Shinōkōshō) is abolished as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms. (Traditional Japanese date: June 25, 1869).
1870 – Tower Subway, the world's first underground tube railway, opens in London.
1873 – The Clay Street Hill Railroad begins operating the first cable car in San Francisco's famous cable car system.
1897 – Anglo-Afghan wars: The Siege of Malakand ends when a relief column is able to reach the British garrison in the Malakand region of colonial India's North West Frontier Province.
1903 – Fall of the Ottoman Empire: an unsuccessful uprising led by the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization against Ottoman Turkey, also known as the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising, takes place.
1916 – World War I: Austrian sabotage causes the sinking of the Italian battleship Leonardo da Vinci in Taranto.
1918 – Japan announces that it is deploying troops to Siberia in the aftermath of World War I.
1918 – The first general strike in Canadian history takes place in Vancouver.
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
1932 – The positron (antiparticle of the electron) is discovered by Carl D. Anderson.
1934 – Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany.
1937 – The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 is passed in America, the effect of which is to render marijuana and all its by-products illegal.
1939 – Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd write a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan project to develop a nuclear weapon.
1943 – Rebellion in the Nazi death camp of Treblinka.
1943 – World War II: the Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 is rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri and sinks. Lt. John F. Kennedy, future U.S. President, saves all but two of his crew.
1944 – ASNOM: birth of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, celebrated as Day of the Republic in the Republic of Macedonia.
1945 – World War II: the Potsdam Conference, at which the Allied Powers discuss the future of defeated Germany, is concluded.
1964 – Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin incident – North Vietnamese gunboats allegedly fire on the U.S. destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy.
1968 – An earthquake hits Casiguran, Aurora, Philippines killing more than 270 people and wounding 261.
1973 – A flash fire kills 51 at the Summerland amusement centre at Douglas, Isle of Man.
1980 – A bomb explodes at the railway station in Bologna, Italy, killing 85 people and wounding more than 200.
1985 – Delta Air Lines Flight 191, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar crashes at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport killing 137.
1989 – Pakistan is re-admitted to the Commonwealth of Nations after having restoring democracy for the first time since 1972.
1989 – A massacre is carried out by an Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka killing 64 ethnic Tamil civilians.
1990 – Iraq invades Kuwait, eventually leading to the Gulf War.
2005 – Air France Flight 358, lands at Toronto Pearson International Airport, and runs off the runway causing the plane to burst into flames leaving 12 injuries and no fatalities.

Holidays and observances

Christian Feast Day:
Alphonsus Mary de Ligouri
Basil Fool for Christ (Russian Orthodox Church)
Eusebius of Vercelli
Pope Stephen I
August 2 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Day of Airborne Forces (Russia and Ukraine)
Day of Azerbaijani cinema (Azerbaijan)
Our Lady of the Angels Day (Costa Rica)
Republic Day, also known as Ilinden. (Republic of Macedonia)

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