August 2 in History

Historical Events on August 2

216 BC The Carthaginian army led by Hannibal defeats a numerically superior Roman army at the Battle of Cannae.

1274 Edward I of England returns from the Ninth Crusade and is crowned King seventeen days later.

1776 The signing of the United States Declaration of Independence took place.

1916 World War I: Austrian sabotage causes the sinking of the Italian battleship Leonardo da Vinci in Taranto.

1923 Vice President Calvin Coolidge becomes U.S. President upon the death of President Warren G. Harding.

1939 Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard write a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear weapon.

1943 Jewish prisoners stage a revolt at Treblinka, one of the deadliest of Nazi death camps where approximately 900,000 persons were murdered in less than 18 months.

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.

1989 Pakistan is re-admitted to the Commonwealth of Nations after having restored democracy for the first time since 1972.

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Famous Birthdays on August 2

1923 Shimon Peres

1924 James Baldwin

1970 Kevin Smith

1992 Charli XCX

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Famous Deaths on August 2

1922 Alexander Graham Bell

1923 Warren G. Harding

1934 Paul von Hindenburg

1997 William S. Burroughs

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