August 2 holidays in 2017

Historical Events on August 2

• 338 BC: Philip II of Macedon defeats armies from both Athens and Thebes during the Battle of Chaeronea.
• 216 BC: Hannibal leads the Carthaginian Army against the Roman Army during the Second Punic War.
• 1776: 56 delegates formally sign the United States Declaration of Independence.
• 1790: The first United States census was conducted revealing a U.S population of over 3.9 million people and almost 700,000 slaves.
• 1832: The Black Hawk War ends in the United States when 1300 Illinois militia militarily defeat members of the Sauk and Fox Native American tribes at the Battle of Bad Axe.
• 1858: The Indian Government is transferred to the British Crown from the East India Company.
• 1929: A heat wave strikes portions of Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma producing drought conditions and driving temperatures over 100-degrees.
• 1934: After the death of German President Paul Von Hindenburg, Adolf Hitler becomes Germany’s President and Chancellor – otherwise known as the Fuhrer.
• 1937: The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 is passed in the United States making all forms of marijuana illegal.
• 1943: Future U.S President John F. Kennedy saved members of his crew when the ship he was Lieutenant of, the PT-109, was sunk by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri while it was on patrol near the Solomon Islands.
• 1949:S. Comedian Bob Hope is bucked off of a fake steed on a Hollywood set while he was working on a movie.
• 1964: Three North Vietnamese torpedo boats attack the United States Destroyer Maddox at the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of Northern Vietnam.
• 1980: Right wing terrorists explode a bomb in a waiting room at a railway station in Bologna, Italy. The resulting blast kills over 70 people and wounds more than 200 others.

Famous Birthdays on August 2

• Swiss scholar Theodor Zwinger is born in 1533
• Dutch painter Samuel Dircksz van Hoogstraten is born in 1627
• Electrical engineer Elisha Grey is born in 1835
• French classical architect Nicolas de Pigage is born in 1723
• British Poet Ernest C. Dowson is born in 1867