Today in History - August 2
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216BC Aug 2,
Hannibal Barca of Carthage won his greatest victory over the Romans
at Cannae. Hannibal seized a grain depot in the small village of
Cannae in order to lure the Romans to battle. Having crossed over
the Alps, Hannibal‘s forces defeated the Romans at the Trebia River
and also at Lake Trasimene. Thereafter, the Romans were unwilling to
commit a large force to attacking Hannibal. However, Hannibal‘s
spies had learned two Roman consuls shared command of the legions
and attempted to goad the more impetuous of the two into battle at
Cannae.
(HN, 8/2/98)(HNQ, 11/16/00)
47BC Aug 2, Caesar defeated
Pharnaces at Zela in Syria and declares "veni, vidi, vici," (I came,
I saw, I conquered).
(HN, 8/2/98)
257 Aug 2, Pope Stefanus I (St. Stephen), bishop
of Rome (254-57), heretic fighter, died.
(MC, 8/2/02)
686 Aug 2, John V, 1st
Greek-Syrian Pope (685-86), died.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1002 Aug 2, Abu Amir Mohammed
ibn Abd Allah ibn Mohammed ibn Abi Amir (64) died.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1100 Aug 2, William II (44),
[Rufus], king of England, was shot dead in New Forest.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1455 Aug 2, Johan Cicero,
elector of Brandenburg (1486-99), was born.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1552 Aug 2, The treaty of
Passau gave religious freedom to Protestants living in Germany.
(HN, 8/2/98)
1553 Aug 2, An invading French
army was destroyed at the Battle of Marciano in Italy by an imperial
army.
(HN, 8/2/98)
1589 Aug 2, Henry III, King of
France, was assassinated by a Jacobin monk, Jacques Clement. Last of
the House of Valois, he named Henry (1553-1610), King of Navarre, to
succeed him. During France's religious war, a fanatical monk stabbed
King Henry II to death.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.24)(WUD, 1994, p.662)(HN, 8/2/98)
1754 Aug 2, Pierre Charles
L'Enfant, French engineer who designed the layout of Washington,
D.C., was born.
(HN, 8/2/98)
1776 Aug 2, In
Philadelphia most members of the Continental Congress began
attaching their signatures to the parchment copy of the Declaration
of Independence. Benjamin Harrison was one of the signers. His son
and grandson later became the 9th and 23rd presidents of the US.
Most of the 55 signatures were affixed on August 2, but Matthew
Thornton of New Hampshire, who was not a member of Congress when the
declaration was adopted, added his name in November.
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.61)(SFC, 5/7/96,
p.A-6)(AP, 8/2/97)(HNQ, 7/4/99)
1782 Aug 2, George Washington
created the Honorary Badge of Distinction. [see Aug 7]
(MC, 8/2/02)
1787 Aug 2, Horace de Saussure,
Swiss scientist, reached the top of Mont Blanc.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1788 Aug 2, Thomas Gainsborough
(61), English painter, died. His work included the 1771 portraits of
the Viscount and Viscountess Ligonier and "Blue Boy."
(HN, 5/14/01)(AAP, 1964)(MC, 5/14/02)(WSJ,
12/19/02, p.D10)(MC, 8/2/02)
1790 Aug 2, The enumeration for
the first United States census began; the final total was 3,929,214.
(AP, 8/2/06)
1791 Aug 2, Samuel Briggs and
his son patented a nail-making machine.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1799 Aug 2, Jacques-Etienne
Montgolfier (54), balloonist, died.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1802 Aug 2, Napoleon Bonaparte
was proclaimed "Consul for Life" by the French Senate after a
plebiscite from the French people.
(HN, 8/2/98)
1819 Aug 2, The first parachute
jump from a balloon was made by Charles Guille in New York City.
(HN, 8/2/01)
1820
Aug 2, John Tyndall (d.1893), British physicist, was born. He was
the first scientist to show why the sky is blue. "It is as fatal as
it is cowardly to blink (at) facts because they are not to our
taste."
(AP, 9/25/99)(HN, 8/2/00)
1831 Aug 2, The Dutch army,
headed by the Dutch princes, invaded Belgium, in the so-called "Ten
Days Campaign", and defeated Belgian forces near Hasselt and Leuven.
Only the appearance of a French army under Marchal Gérard
caused the Dutch to stop their advance.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Revolution)
1832 Aug 2, Some 1,300 Illinois
militia under General Henry Atkinson massacred Sauk Indian men,
women and children who were followers of Black Hawk at the Bad Axe
River in Wisconsin. Black Hawk himself finally surrendered three
weeks later, bringing the Black Hawk War to an end.
(HN, 8/2/98)(MC, 8/2/02)
1835 Aug 2, Elisha Grey,
inventor (Telephone), was born.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1847 Aug 2, William A.
Leidesdorff launched the first steam boat in San Francisco Bay.
(HN, 8/2/98)
1862 Aug 2, The US Army
Ambulance Corps was established by Maj. Gen. George McClellan.
(HN, 8/2/00)
1862 Aug 2, Union General John
Pope captured Orange Court House, Virginia.
(HN, 8/2/98)
1865 Aug 2, Irving Babbitt,
founder of modern humanistic movement, was born.
(HN, 8/2/98)
1865 Aug 2, A new transatlantic
cable being laid by the SS Great Eastern snapped and was lost. It
was recovered and spliced to another cable in 1866.
(http://thecanadasite.com/antiques/memorab2_gteastern2.html)(ON,
10/10, p.3)
1873 Aug 2, Inventor Andrew S.
Hallidie successfully tested a cable car he had designed for the
city of San Francisco. Various references give the date of this
event as Aug. 1, but more recent research points to Aug. 2.
(AP, 8/2/06)
1874 Aug 2, Gold was discovered
in the Black Hills of western South Dakota during an expedition led
by Colonel Custer. The land belonged to the Sioux but was invaded by
prospectors. Sioux leaders Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull retaliated.
(HT, 3/97, p.43)(AH, 6/03, p.37)
1875 Aug 2, The world’s 1st
roller skating rink opened in London.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1876 Aug 2, Frontiersman Wild
Bill Hickok, holding aces over eights, was shot and killed from
behind by “Crooked Nose” Jack McCall, while playing poker at a
saloon in Deadwood, S.D.
(AP, 8/2/97)(MC, 8/2/02)(Econ, 5/29/04, p.32)
1877 Aug 2, Sir James Douglas
(b.1803), the first provincial governor of British Columbia
(1858-1864), died. He was the son of a black woman from Barbados and
a Scottish planter.
(SFC, 2/12/10, p.A18)
1887 Aug 2, Rowell Hodge
patented barbed wire.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1891 Aug 2, Arthur Edward
Drummond Bliss, composer (Olympians), was born in London.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1892 Aug 2, Jack Warner, US
movie studio head (Warner Bros), was born.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1892 Aug 2, Charles A. Wheeler
patented a prototype of the escalator. [see Mar 15]
(MC, 8/2/02)
1909 Aug 2, The 1st Lincoln
head pennies were minted. It was 95% copper and was the first US
coin to depict the likeness of a president.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, Par p.21)(SFC, 12/29/96, Z1
p.2)(MC, 8/2/02)
1909 Aug 2, The Wright Flyer
was formally accepted by the US Army in exchange for $30,000. It was
designated Signal Corps Airplane No. 1, the world’s first military
airplane.
(www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Wright_Bros/Military_Flyer/WR11.htm)
1914 Aug 2, Germany invaded
Luxembourg.
(HN, 8/2/98)
1914 Aug 2, German press
falsely reported that French bombed Nuremberg.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1914 Aug 2, Great Britain
mobilized.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1914 Aug 2, Russian troops
invade Eastern Prussia.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1917 Aug 2, Royal Naval Air
Service officer E.H. Dunning became the first pilot to land on the
deck of a moving ship. He performed the tricky maneuver by flying
his Sopwith Pup alongside the HMS Furious as it steamed at high
speed into the wind, then side-slipping inward to the deck. Furious
joined the British Royal Navy as an aircraft carrier after being
fitted with a primitive flight deck. Five days after his successful
deck landing, Dunning drowned during another attempt when his
aircraft developed mechanical problems and plunged overboard.
(HNPD, 8/5/99)
1918 Aug 2, A British force
landed in Archangel, Russia, to support White Russian opposition to
the Bolsheviks.
(HN, 8/2/98)
1920 Aug 2, Marcus Garvey
presented his "Back To Africa" program in NYC.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1921 Aug 2, A jury in Chicago
acquitted several former members of the Chicago White Sox baseball
team and two others of conspiring to defraud the public in the
notorious "Black Sox" scandal.
(AP, 8/2/01)
1921 Aug 2, Opera singer Enrico
Caruso (b.1873) died in Naples, Italy. The body of the great tenor
Enrico Caruso was entombed for 6 years in a transparent coffin.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.B4)(AP, 8/2/00)(MC, 8//02)
1922 Aug 2, Alexander Graham
Bell (b.1847), Scottish-US physicist (telephone), died in Nova
Scotia. He and Gardiner Hubbard, his father-in-law, were the
founders of the National Geographic Society.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Graham_Bell)(ON, 1/03, p.5)
1922 Aug 2, China was hit by a
typhoon and some 60,000 died.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1923 Aug 2, The 29th president
of the United States, Warren G. Harding (57), died in San Francisco
at the Palace Hotel of a "stroke of apoplexy." Not considered to
have been a particularly intelligent man, Harding owed his rise to
political power to the driving ambition of his wife, Florence Kling
Harding. As president, the Ohio native was troubled by scandals
caused by his weakness for pretty women and a tendency to place
unscrupulous friends--called "The Ohio Gang"--in positions of power.
Graft, corruption and other scandals that led to the suicides of two
high Federal officials had begun to taint the Harding Administration
when the president suddenly died of a heart attack, just before the
Teapot Dome Scandal broke, the largest scandal of his
administration. In 1998 Carl Sferrazza Anthony published "Florence
Harding: The First Lady, The Jazz Age and the Death of America’s
Most Scandalous President." Vice President Calvin Coolidge became
president upon the death of Warren G. Harding.
(TMC, 1994, p.1923)(AP, 8/2/97)(SFEC, 3/1/98,
p.W27)(SFC, 8/1/98, p.A15,19)(HN, 8/2/98)(HN, 8/2/98)
1924 Aug 2, James Baldwin
(d.1987), writer, was born. His books included "The Fire the Next
Time," "Go Tell it on the Mountain" and "Notes of a Native Son."
"People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them." "The
price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an
intimate knowledge of its ugly side."
(AP, 3/1/98)(AP, 12/18/98)(HN, 8/2/02)
1924 Aug 2, Carroll O'Connor
(d.2001), actor (All in the Family, Heat of the Night), was
born in NYC. His youngest brother Robert was born Aug 1, 1935.
(www.bookrags.com/biography-carroll-oconnor/)(e-mail from Robert)
1927 Aug 2, Four years after
becoming president, Calvin Coolidge issued a written statement to
reporters: "I do not choose to run for President in 1928."
(AP, 8/2/08)
1931 Aug 2, Spanish Catalonia
agreed by over 99% for autonomous status.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1932 Aug 2, Peter O'Toole,
actor (Lord Jim, Beckett, Lawrence of Arabia), was born in
Ireland.
(HN, 8/2/00)(MC, 8/2/02)
1934 Aug 2, The 1st airplane
train towed 3 mail gliders behind it.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1934 Aug 2, Pres. Paul von
Hindenburg of Germany died. Within hours Adolf Hitler announced a
law, dated the previous day, that made him Reichsfuhrer, an office
that combined the duties of president and chancellor.
(www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/becomes.htm)
1936 Aug 2, French aviator
Louis Bleriot (b.1872) died. He made the first crossing of the
English Channel from Calais to the grounds of Dover Castle in 1909.
(ON, 6/07, p.9)
1939 Aug 2, US Congress passed
the Hatch Act. Its main provision is to prohibit federal employees
from engaging in partisan political activity. Named after Senator
Carl Hatch of New Mexico, the law was officially known as An Act to
Prevent Pernicious Political Activities.
(SFC, 3/12/08,
p.E2)(www.multieducator.com/Documents/hatchact.html)
1939 Aug 2, Albert Einstein
signed a letter to President Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic
weapons research program.
(HFA, '96, p.36)(AP, 8/2/97)
1940 Aug 2, Clermont-Ferrand
sentenced Gen. Charles de Gaulle to death. [see Aug 4]
(MC, 8/2/02)
1941 Aug 2, The summary of an
FBI probe of GM senior executives with links to Adolph Hitler found
collusion Germany by James D. Mooney, president of GM Overseas
Corp., but no evidence of any disloyalty to America.
(SSFC, 1/7/07, p.E6)
1941 Aug 2, Buffy Sainte-Marie,
folksinger and songwriter, was born in Saskatchewan, Canada.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffy_Sainte-Marie)
1941 Aug 2, German 11th Army
surrounded 20 Russian divisions at Uman.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1941 Aug 2, Jews were expelled
from Hungarian Ruthenia.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1942 Aug 2, Isabel Allende,
author of "The House of the Spirits," was born.
(HN, 8/2/00)
1943 Aug 2, A Navy patrol
torpedo boat, PT-109, commanded by Lt. John F. Kennedy, sank after
being sheared in two by the Amagiri, a Japanese destroyer, off the
Solomon Islands. Lt. John F. Kennedy, towing an injured sailor, swam
to a small island in the Solomon Islands. The night before, his
boat, PT-109, had been split in half by the destroyer Amagiri.
Kennedy was credited with saving members of the crew. Two members of
the crew were killed in the collision in the Blackett Strait off
Gizo, the main town of western Solomon Islands. An injured Kennedy
and the ship's other survivors clung to the wreckage and swam to a
nearby island, where Aaron Kumana and Biuku Gasa found them. The
pair rowed 35 miles through enemy-held waters to summon a rescue
boat.
(AP, 8/2/97)(HN, 8/2/98)(AP, 8/30/07)
1943 Aug 2, The 10-day allied
bombing of Hamburg, Germany, ended.
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWhamburg.htm)
1943 Aug 2, In Poland at the
Nazi Treblinka concentration camp some 600 prisoners staged an
uprising and fled into the woods. Only 40 survived. In 1999 Ian
MacMillan authored "Village of a Million Spirits: A Novel of the
Treblinka Uprising."
(SFEC, 8/22/99, BR p.5)
1944 Aug 2, Jewish survivors of
Kovno Ghetto, Lithuania, emerged from their bunker.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1945 Aug 2, President Truman,
Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Clement Attlee
concluded the Potsdam conference.
(AP, 8/2/97)
1945 Aug 2, Pietro Mascagni
(81), Italian composer (Cavalleria Rusticana), died.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1945 Aug 2, Emil Nikolaus von
Reznicek (b.1860), Austrian composer, died in Berlin. The overture
to his opera Donna Diana (1894) was later used as the theme for the
radio and TV series “Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_von_Reznicek)(SFC, 2/19/07, p.B4)
1949 Aug 2, James Fallows,
writer and editor of U.S. News and World Report, was born.
(HN, 8/2/00)
1950 Aug 2, Lance Ito, judge in
the OJ Simpson trial, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Ito)
1950 Aug 2, The U.S. First
Provisional Marine Brigade arrived in Korea from the United States.
(AP, 8/2/98)
1950 Korea suffered its worst
winter of the century.
(HN, 8/2/98)
1952 Aug 2, Paul David Crews,
murderer (featured in the FBI Most Wanted List), was born in SC.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1956 Aug 2, Albert Woolson
(109), last veteran US Union army, died. Walter Williams, officially
recognized as the last survivor of the 4 million who fought in the
Civil War, died in 1959 at age117 in Houston. He had served as
forage master for a Confederate cavalry company.
(HN,
12/19/98)(www.chipublib.org/008subject/005genref/faqvet.html)
1961 Aug 2, In San Francisco a
shooting at 924 Grant Ave. in Chinatown left George Kwan (56) dead
and Peter Kwan (52) wounded. They were both members of the Four
Families Association. Lew Fook You (55), also an association member,
was taken into custody.
(SSFC, 7/31/11, DB p.42)
1964 Aug 2, The Pentagon
reported the first of two attacks on U.S. destroyers by North
Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. U.S. destroyer
Maddox was reportedly attacked by North Vietnamese patrol boats.
Later evidence supported claims that the Tonkin Gulf incident was
deliberately provoked or was in reaction to American covert
operations.
(AP,
8/2/97)(www.usni.org/navalhistory/articles99/nhandrade.htm#tx17)
1964 Aug 2, There was a race
riot in Jersey City, NJ.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1965 Aug 2, Newsman Morley
Safer filmed the destruction of the Vietnamese village of Cam Ne by
US Marines. Safer sent the 1st Vietnam report indicating we are
losing. Safer’s report was broadcast by CBS on August 5 and led
Pres. Johnson to call CBS demanding that Safer be fired. CBS
president Frank Stanton refused to fire Safer.
(HN, 8/2/98)(WSJ, 12/30/06, p.A8)
1967 Aug 2, The crime and race
drama "In the Heat of the Night," starring Sidney Poitier and Rod
Steiger, opened in New York.
(AP, 8/2/07)
1969 Aug 2, Bob Dylan made a
surprise appearance at the Minn. Hibbing High School 10-year
reunion.
(http://oldies.about.com/od/oldieshistory/a/august2.htm)
1969 Aug 2, Richard Nixon
visited Romania becoming the first president to visit a communist
nation since the start of the Cold War.
(HNQ,
11/20/01)(www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1464.html)
1973 Aug 2, A flash fire killed
51 at the Summerland leisure center on the Isle of Man, UK.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerland_disaster)
1976 Aug 2, Fritz Lang
(b.1890), Austrian-born, German and American film director, died in
Beverly Hills. His work included "Metropolis," "M," and "The Big
Heat."
(WSJ, 4/3/00,
p.A46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Lang)
1980 Aug 2, In Bologna, Italy,
a Fascist bomb attack killed 85 people at the train station.
(AP,
8/2/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_massacre)
1985 Aug 2, In Texas 137 people
were killed when a Delta Air Lines jumbo jet crashed while
attempting to land at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
(AP, 8/2/97)
1986 Aug 2, US attorney Roy M.
Cohn died at Bethesda Naval Hospital of cardiac arrest and
complications from AIDS.
(AP, 8/2/06)
1987 Aug 2, More than a million
people gathered in Tehran, calling for the overthrow of the sheiks
of Saudi Arabia, where hundreds of Iranian pilgrims had died in
rioting in the Muslim holy city of Mecca.
(AP, 8/2/97)
1988 Aug 2, Despite threats of
a veto, President Reagan promised reluctantly to allow a
plant-closing notification bill to become law, accusing Democrats of
"political shenanigans."
(AP, 8/2/98)
1988 Aug 2, Raymond Carver
(b.1938), American poet, short story writer (Furious Season), died.
His books included “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”
(1981). In 2009 Carol Sklenicka authored “Raymond Carver: A Writer’s
Life.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Carver)(SSFC, 11/22/09, Books
p.F1)
1989 Aug 2, The House of
Representatives voted against including abortion curbs in a spending
bill for the District of Columbia.
(AP, 8/2/99)
1989 Aug 2, NASA confirmed
Voyager 2's discovery of 3 more moons of Neptune designated
temporarily 1989 N2 (Larissa), 1989 N3 (Despina) and 1989 N4
(Galatea).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galatea_(moon))
1990 Aug 2, Norman Maclean
(b.1902), writer and professor of English, died in Chicago. His
books included "A River Runs Through It and Other Stories" (1976).
(RB,
1993)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Maclean)
1990 Aug 2, Iraq invaded
Kuwait, seizing control of the oil-rich emirate. The day came to be
known in Kuwait as "Black Thursday." 330 Kuwaitis died during the
occupation and war. Sadam Hussein, leader of Iraq, took over Kuwait.
G. Bush led an inter-national coalition for sanctions and a demand
for withdrawal. The Iraqis were later driven out in Operation Desert
Storm.
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)(TMC, 1994, p.1990)(AP,
8/2/97)(SFEC, 7/30/00, p.C18)
1990 Aug 2, By a vote of 14-0,
the United Nations Security Council condemned the invasion and
annexation of Kuwait by Iraq and demanded in Resolution 660 the
unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
(HNQ, 5/27/99)
1990 Aug 2, Yasser Arafat
supported Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. This resulted in the PLO’s
isolation.
(SFC, 11/11/04, p.A18)
1991 Aug 2, President Bush told
a news conference only poor health would prevent his running for
re-election.
(AP, 8/2/01)
1991 Aug 2, US Secretary of
State James A. Baker III met in Jerusalem with a group of
Palestinians, but failed to line up their immediate support for a
Middle East peace conference.
(AP, 8/2/01)
1991 Aug 2, Blaine Harden of
the Washington Post wrote that the Serbian aim "is obviously ethnic
cleansing of the critical areas that are to be annexed to Serbia."
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)
1992 Aug 2,
At the Barcelona Summer Olympics, American Jackie Joyner-Kersee
repeated as heptathlon champion.
(AP, 8/2/97)
1992 Aug 2, The Bush campaign,
accused by Bill Clinton of mudslinging, responded with a vitriolic
press release that referred to "sniveling hypocritical Democrats."
President Bush later disavowed the release.
(AP, 8/2/97)
1993 Aug 2, In a dramatic scene
shown on national television, Jessica, a 2 1/2-year-old girl at the
center of a custody battle, was removed from the Michigan home of
Jan and Roberta DeBoer and turned over to her biological parents,
Dan and Cara Schmidt of Iowa.
(AP, 8/2/98)
1994 Aug 2, US Congressional
hearings began on White Water.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1994 Aug 2, Serbia threatened
to cut all aid to the Bosnian Serbs if they didn't approve an
international peace plan.
(AP, 8/2/99)
1995 Aug 2, Hurricane "Erin"
came ashore near Vero Beach, Florida; the storm was blamed for
eleven deaths.
(AP, 8/2/00)
1995 Aug 2, China ordered the
expulsion of two US Air Force officers it said were caught spying on
military sites.
(AP, 8/2/00)
1996 Aug 2, Wall Street
investors, worried about possible interest rate increases, roared
their approval after the government reported that unemployment was
creeping higher, consumer spending had slipped and manufacturing may
have stalled.
(AP, 8/2/97)
1996 Aug 2, In Somalia Mohamed
Farrah Aidid was buried after dying from wounds received during
fighting in Mogadishu. Followers named his son, Hussein, as their
new leader.
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.A1)
1997 Aug 2, Two fires in San
Diego burned out of control and destroyed 11 homes, 30 cars, 15
other structures and caused the crash of an air tanker dousing the
flames.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.B5)
1997 Aug 2, William Burroughs
(1914-1997), writer, the godfather of the beat generation, died at
83 in Kansas City Mo. His work included "Naked Lunch" (1959), which
was originally banned and published in the US in 1962. He also wrote
the books "Junkie" and "Queer."
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.B6)(SFC, 8/4/97, p.E5)(AP,
8/2/98)
1997 Aug 2, Typhoon Victor
struck Hong Kong and one person was killed. The typhoon battered the
surrounding Guangdong province and at least 65 people were killed.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A18)(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 2, Charles Taylor was
sworn in as president of Liberia.
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 2, In Nigeria Fela
Anikulapo-Kuti (b.1938), pop superstar, died of AIDS. He was a
saxophone player who fused rock with African rhythms into a blend
known as "Afrobeat." His albums included: "Zombie," "Army
Arrangement," and "Vagabond in Power." He recorded more than 50
albums in the 1970s and 1980s and his 27 wives mourned his death. In
2003 Michael Veal authored "Fela: the Life and Times of an African
Lion."
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A16)(SFC, 4/27/04, p.E6)
1998 Aug 2, In Indiana a stolen
pickup carrying a homemade bomb crashed into the Tippecanoe County
Courthouse in Lafayette. The driver escaped and there were no
injuries.
(SFC, 8/4/98, p.A3)
1998 Aug 2, Ventriloquist Shari
Lewis (Sheri Lewis, puppeteer) died in Los Angeles at age 65.
(AP, 8/2/99)(SFC, 8/4/98, p.A7)
1998 Aug 2, In Afghanistan the
Taliban captured the base of Rashid Dostum.
(WSJ, 8/3/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 2, Cyclist Marco
Pantani of Italy won the Tour de France, which had been marred by a
doping scandal.
(AP, 8/2/99)
1998 Aug 2, Fidel Castro
visited Grenada following an invitation from Prime Minister Keith
Mitchell.
(SFC, 7/25/98, p.A10)(SFC, 8/3/98, p.A8)
1998 Aug 2, In Mexico Felipe
Gonzalez of the National Action (PAN) led the elections in
Aguascalientes.
(SFC, 8/3/98, p.A8)
1998 Aug 2, Serbian forces,
shelling rebel position and burning villages, pushed back Albanian
separatists on 3 fronts.
(SFC, 8/3/98, p.A8)
1999 Aug 2, The Clinton
administration declared West Virginia and parts of 5 other eastern
states agricultural disaster areas due to heat and drought.
(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A3)
1999 Aug 2, The US EPA moved to
restrict the pesticides azinphos-methyl and methyl parathion due to
evidence of toxicity to children.
(WSJ, 8/2/99, p.C22)(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A3)
1999 Aug 2, The US Army THAAD
missile, Theater High-Altitude Air Defense, was tested successfully
over New Mexico for a 2nd time following a string of failures dating
to 1995.
(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A5)
1999 Aug 2, It was reported
that the national death toll from the recent US-East heat wave hit
185 with 80 dead in Illinois and 44 in Missouri.
(SFC, 8/2/99, p.A5)(WSJ, 8/2/99, p.A1)
1999 Aug 2, In Afghanistan the
Taliban captured the capital of northern Parwan province, the last
stronghold of Sheik Massood. Thousands fled their homes.
(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A9)
1999 Aug 2, In Bosnia NATO
troops arrested Radomir Kovac, former Bosnian Serb paramilitary
leader, for enslaving and raping Muslim women in 1992-1993.
(WSJ, 8/3/99, p.A1)
1999 Aug 2, In a war of nerves
with rival Taiwan, China tested a new long-range rocket, the 3-stage
Dong Feng 31.
(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A8)(AP, 8/2/00)
1999 Aug 2, In India the
Brahmputra Mail train from Gauhati collided with the Awadh-Assam
Express from New Delhi at Gaisan Station. Over 285 people were
killed and a 1000 injured. A faulty switch was suspected.
(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A8)(SFC, 8/4/99, p.A9)(SFC,
8/5/99, p.A14)(AP, 2/18/04)
1999 Aug 2, In Kosovo thousands
of Albanian students and professors reclaimed Pristina Univ.
(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A9)
1999 Aug 2, In Namibia
separatist rebels for the independence of the Caprivi border area
attacked the town of Katima Mulilo and 16 people were killed. Pres.
Sam Nujoma later blamed the Caprivi Liberation Army and accused from
opposition leader Mishake Muyongo of being behind the revolt.
(WSJ, 8/3/99, p.A1)(SFC, 8/4/99, p.A9)
1999 Aug 2, Russian troops
clashed with Islamic fighters in Dagestan and 11 people were killed.
(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.A20)
1999 Aug 2, In Serbia, an
independent group of experts in Belgrade laid out "The Stability
Pact for Serbia," a plan for a transitional government. In Valjevo
some 8,000 rallied for the resignation of Milosevic.
(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A8)
2000 Aug 2, Pres. Clinton
delayed the federal execution of Juan Raul Garza, convicted in 1993
for killing 3 men in Texas in 1990-1991. Garza, a Texas drug
kingpin, was executed June 19th, 2001.
(SFC, 8/3/00, p.A3)(AP, 8/2/01)
2000 Aug 2, Republicans awarded
Texas Governor George W. Bush their 2000 presidential nomination at
the party’s convention in Philadelphia and ratified Dick Cheney as
his running mate.
(AP, 8/2/01)
2000 Aug 2, Former President
Ford was hospitalized after suffering one, possibly two, small
strokes.
(AP, 8/2/01)
2000 Aug 2, In SF a jury
awarded 17 bakery workers of Interstate Brands Corp. $120 million
for racial discrimination.
(SFC, 8/3/00, p.A1)
2000 Aug 2, In India rain in
Tibet flooded the Sutlej River in India and drowned at least 107
people in Himachal Pradesh state.
(SFC, 8/3/00, p.A13)
2000 Aug 2, In Kashmir the
death toll from guerrilla attacks climbed to 101.
(SFC, 8/3/00, p.A12)
2000 Aug 2, In the Solomon
Islands warring militias signed a cease-fire on an Australian
warship off the capital of Honiara.
(WSJ, 8/3/00, p.A1)
2000 Aug 2, Zimbabwe’s Congress
of Trade Unions (ZCTU) called a one day general strike to protest
the policies of Pres. Mugabe. Finance minister Simba Makoni
announced that the government had agreed to devalue its currency
24%.
(WSJ, 8/2/00, p.A17)(WSJ, 8/3/00, p.A1,9)
2001 Aug 2, Robert S. Mueller
(56), former US attorney in SF, won Senate confirmation to become
the FBI director.
(SFC, 8/3/01, p.A3)
2001 Aug 2, Solid Democratic
opposition sank President Bush's nomination of Mary Sheila Gall to
be chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
(AP, 8/2/06)
2001 Aug 2, Ron Townson, the
centerpiece singer for the pop group the 5th Dimension, died of
renal failure in Las Vegas. He was 68.
(AP, 8/2/02)
2001 Aug 2, Belize agreed to
conserve 23,000 acres in exchange for the cancellation of a US debt
that included $1.4 million in debt relief and $10 million savings in
interest payments over 26 years.
(SFC, 8/3/01, p.D3)
2001 Aug 2, The UN war crimes
tribunal found Radislav Krstic, former Bosnian Serb general, guilty
for the 1995 genocide of some 8,000 Muslim men in Srebrenica. He was
sentenced to 46 years in prison. A 2004 appeal reduced the sentence
to 35 years.
(SFC, 8/3/01, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/gm9l9)
2001 Aug 2, Colombia reported a
big victory over rebels at Juan Jose. 60 rebels were killed along
with 13 soldiers.
(SFC, 8/3/01, p.D3)
2001 Aug 2, In Iran Pres.
Khatami was confirmed for a 2nd 4-year term.
(SSFC, 8/5/01, p.A14)
2001 Aug 2, Palestinian judges
sentenced 4 Palestinian men to death for helping Israel’s army carry
out lethal attacks. 3 Palestinian men, suspected of collaboration,
were recently gunned down in the streets.
(SFC, 8/3/01, p.A12)
2001 Aug 2, In the Philippines
Abu Sayyaf extremists seized 36 Filipinos civilians on Basilan
island and beheaded 10 of them.
(SFC, 8/4/01, p.A6)(SSFC, 8/5/01, p.A14)
2001 Aug 2, On Vieques, Puerto
Rico, the US Navy used tear gas and foam rubber projectiles to clear
protesters and journalists.
(SFC, 8/4/01, p.A3)
2002 Aug 2, A federal judge
ruled the U.S. government had to reveal the names of people detained
in the investigation of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks; an appeals
court later sided with federal authorities.
(AP, 8/2/03)
2002 Aug 2, In Louisiana Gov.
Mike Foster declared a state of emergency after West Nile virus
killed 4 residents and infected another 58.
(SFC, 8/3/02, p.A3)
2002 Aug 2, The Angolan
government and UNITA rebels declared the official end to their
nearly three-decade old civil war.
(AP, 8/2/02)
2002 Aug 2, Australia and
Malaysia signed a counter-terrorism pact which pledged them to work
together to fight suspected Islamic militants in the region.
(Reuters, 8/2/02)
2002 Aug 2, In Greece a cache
of weapons, including automatic rifles, was stolen from a military
armory after thieves tunneled through a wall.
(AP, 8/3/02)
2002 Aug 2, In Gonaives, Haiti,
gunmen broke through the wall of a prison, freeing Amiot
Metayer, a former presidential supporter and head of the Cannibal
Army, a militant communal group. 159 of 221 inmates escaped.
(AP, 8/3/02)
2002 Aug 2, Facing an
increasing possibility of U.S. military action, Iraq gave the first
solid indication in nearly four years that it will allow U.N.
weapons inspectors to return and invited the chief inspector to
Baghdad for talks.
(AP, 8/2/02)
2002 Aug 2, The Israeli army
blew up two buildings with explosives labs and arrested at least 50
Palestinians in house to house searches as troops took control of
Nablus, a city Israel called "the main factory of suicide bombings."
Israelis killed 3 people in Nablus and 3 Palestinians in Gaza
including a woman (85) and a girl (9).
(AP, 8/2/02)(SFC, 8/3/02, p.A1)
2002 Aug 2, A government plan
to buy Swaziland's King Mswati III a $250 million luxury jet, a
price five times the nation's national deficit, drew protests in
this South African nation, which has been plagued by severe food
shortages.
(AP, 8/2/02)
2002 Aug 2, In Uruguay the
government sent thousands of police to guard shopping districts, a
day after looters hit stores and supermarkets as the national
economic crisis deepened.
(AP, 8/2/02)
2002 Aug 2, Pope John Paul II
returned to Rome after ending an 11-day pilgrimage to Canada,
Guatemala and Mexico.
(AP, 8/2/03)
2002 Aug 2, In Venezuela gunmen
with high-caliber weapons ambushed a police patrol in a Caracas
slum, wounding at least five people and raising tensions ahead of a
Supreme Court ruling on alleged coup leaders.
(AP, 8/2/02)
2003 Aug 2, Gov. Davis signed a
nearly $100 million budget for California and blamed Republicans for
the budget's painful cuts.
(SSFC, 8/3/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 2, Bolivian police
seized 3 more tons of cocaine meant for shipment to Spain in the
country's biggest drug bust ever.
(AP, 8/3/03)
2003 Aug 2, Indonesia judges
sentenced US reporter William Nessen to 41 days for failing to
inform officials of an address change in Jakarta. Nessen had already
been jailed for 40 days following time spent with rebels in Aceh.
(SFCM, 11/2/03, p.15)
2003 Aug 2, A bomb exploded in
a car south of Beirut, killing at least two people in the vehicle
and wounding passers-by.
(AP, 8/2/03)
2003 Aug 2, Canadian military
personnel joined nearly 2,000 civilian firefighters battling the
three fires -- in Kamloops, Barriere and Falkland, British Columbia.
An estimated 8,500 people had already been evacuated as 16,500 acres
burned.
(Reuters, 8/2/03)
2003 Aug 2, Saddam Hussein's
two elder sons and a grandson were buried as martyrs near the
deposed Iraqi leader's hometown of Tikrit, where insurgents
afterward attacked U.S. troops with three remote-controlled bombs.
(AP, 8/2/04)
2003 Aug 2, In Liberia Pres.
Charles Taylor agreed to cede power on Aug. 11.
(AP, 8/2/03)
2004 Aug 2, Pres. Bush proposed
creating a national intelligence director in line with the Sep 11
Commission recommendations.
(WSJ, 8/3/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 2, Police in Salt Lake
City arrested Mark Hacking, whose wife, Lori, had disappeared, on a
charge of aggravated murder. On October 1, 2004, searchers found
human remains in the Salt Lake County landfill. By that afternoon
police had confirmed that the remains were those of Lori Hacking.
Lori Kay Soares was buried in Orem City Cemetery, Orem, Utah County,
Utah. The dates on her stone are December 31, 1976 to July 19, 2004.
(AP,
8/2/05)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lori_Hacking)
2003 Aug 2, Afghan troops
backed by U.S. warplanes killed as many as 70 militants in a daylong
battle near the Pakistani border.
(AP, 8/3/03)
2004 Aug 2, Masked gunmen
killed a Turkish hostage with three gunshots to the head, according
to a video posted on the Internet, and the Turkish truckers' union
said it would stop bringing supplies to U.S. forces in Iraq. A car
bomb in Baquba killed at least 3 Iraqi national guardsmen. 6
American service members were reported killed over the last 24
hours.
(AP, 8/2/04)(SFC, 8/4/04, p.A3)
2004 Aug 2, In western Japan 7
members of a family were found stabbed to death with a kitchen
knife.
(AP, 8/2/04)
2004 Aug 2, In Gaza City 5
masked men broke into a hospital and shot dead a convicted
Palestinian collaborator who had been wounded in a grenade attack in
his prison cell just hours earlier.
(AP, 8/2/04)
2004 Aug 2, The UN began
air-dropping food for refugees in Darfur, Sudan.
(WSJ, 8/3/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 2, Ukraine's prime
minister called for reducing the country's troop contingent in Iraq,
openly disagreeing with top defense officials who want to increase
the force.
(AP, 8/2/04)
2005 Aug 2, President Bush
signed a free trade pact with five Central American nations and the
Dominican Republic.
(AP, 8/2/06)
2005 Aug 2, A federal appeals
court ruled that a 117-year-old policy of admitting only
Native Hawaiians to the exclusive Kamehameha Schools amounts to
unlawful racial discrimination.
(AP, 8/3/05)
2005 Aug 2, Seattle pitcher
Ryan Franklin was suspended 10 days for violating baseball's policy
on performance-enhancing drugs.
(AP, 8/2/06)
2005 Aug 2, Belarusian police
arrested two leaders of an ethnic Polish cultural group after
seizing the group's headquarters, raising already heightened
tensions between the neighboring countries.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 2, An Air France jet
skidded off a Toronto runway and burst into flames, prompting 309
passengers and crew to slide down escape chutes. In Dec, 2009, a
Canadian judge approved a C$12 million ($11.4 million) class-action
settlement with 184 passengers of the Air France jet.
(AP, 8/3/05)(Reuters, 12/31/09)
2005 Aug 2, France, Britain and
Germany hardened their tone toward Iran, warning that Tehran risked
triggering an international crisis and could face U.N. sanctions if
it follows through with a threat to resume its nuclear program.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 2, Georgia’s Pres,
Saakashvili said he is counting on US help to facedown Moscow and
reassert control over Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia.
(WSJ, 8/2/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 2, Forest fires in
Indonesia's Sumatra province covered Kuala Lumpur and 32 other areas
of Malaysia with a smoky haze.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 2, Hassan Moghaddas,
an Iranian judge who sentenced several reformist dissidents to jail,
including hunger-striking reporter Akbar Ganji, was shot dead in his
car by a lone gunman riding a motorcycle.
(Reuters, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 2, A roadside bomb
targeting a US military convoy exploded at the entrance to a tunnel
in central Baghdad, and at least 29 civilians were wounded. American
freelance journalist Steven Vincent was found shot to death in Basra
after being abducted by armed men. Vincent had been shot multiple
times after he and his Iraqi translator were abducted at gunpoint
hours earlier. He had been writing about the rise of conservative
Shiite Islam and the corruption of the Iraqi police.
(www.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/international/middleeast/03cnd-iraq.html?_r=1)(AP,
8/2/05)(AP, 8/2/06)
2005 Aug 2, North Korea's main
envoy said his country won't give up its nuclear weapons until an
alleged U.S. atomic threat against the communist nation is
eliminated, the first public comments from the North after eight
days of six-party negotiations.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 2, A 3-year old
Palestinian boy was killed and 9 Palestinians were wounded in the
northern Gaza Strip when rockets launched by militants misfired and
landed in Palestinian areas.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 2, The Russian Foreign
Ministry said it will not renew the accreditation of ABC-TV after it
broadcast an interview with a notorious Chechen warlord.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 2, Violent mobs surged
again into the streets of Sudan's capital sparked by the death of
Sudanese vice president and former southern rebel leader John
Garang.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2006 Aug 2, A Pentagon official
said evidence collected on the deaths of 24 Iraqis in Haditha
supports accusations that US Marines deliberately shot the
civilians, including unarmed women and children on Nov 19, 2005.
(AP, 8/2/06)
2006 Aug 2, Five days after
being pulled over by police, actor-director Mel Gibson was charged
with misdemeanor drunken driving, having an elevated blood-alcohol
level and having an open container of liquor in his car. Gibson
later pleaded no contest to drunken driving under a deal in which he
received three years' probation, paid a fine and agreed to attend
alcohol rehabilitation classes.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2006 Aug 2, Florida and CSX
Transportation struck a deal on a nearly $1 billion commuter rail
system in central Florida to relieve gridlock in and around Orlando.
(Reuters, 8/2/06)
2006 Aug 2, AOL shifted to an
advertising strategy as customers cancelled their dial-up service
and jumped to high-speed Internet connections.
(SFC, 8/3/06, p.C1)
2006 Aug 2, Australia's central
bank raised interest rates by 25 basis points to a six-year high of
6.0% in an effort to head off inflationary pressures in a booming
economy.
(AFP, 8/2/06)
2006 Aug 2, The Australian
government said it had started reducing troop numbers in East Timor
as security in the tiny nation was steadily improving.
(AP, 8/3/06)
2006 Aug 2, In southern
Colombia a land mine planted by leftist rebels killed six coca
eradicators and injured seven others.
(AP, 8/2/06)
2006 Aug 2, A Paris commercial
court granted Eurotunnel protection from creditors, enabling the
operator of the Channel Tunnel to freeze payments on its debt
mountain of 9.0 billion euros (11.5 billion dollars).
(AFP, 8/2/06)
2006 Aug 2, India banned
children under the age of 14 from working as domestic servants or at
hotels, tea shops, restaurants and resorts. The labor ministry said
the ban would come into effect from October 10.
(Reuters, 8/2/06)
2006 Aug 2, President Jalal
Talabani said that Iraqi forces will assume security duties for the
whole country by the end of the year, taking over responsibility
from US and other foreign troops now policing all but one of the 18
provinces. Sectarian and political violence claimed at least 53
lives, including 11 young soccer players and spectators who died
when two bombs exploded in a field in a Shiite neighborhood of
Baghdad. 2 US Marines died in Anbar province.
(AP, 8/2/06)(AP, 8/3/06)(SFC, 8/4/06, p.A9)
2006 Aug 2, Israel pressed the
first full day of a massive new ground attack, sending 8,000 troops
into southern Lebanon and seizing five people it said were Hezbollah
fighters in a dramatic airborne raid on a northeastern town.
Hezbollah retaliated with its deepest strikes yet into Israel,
firing a record number of more than 230 rockets. An Israeli-American
was killed as he fled for home by bicycle, and a stray rocket hit
the West Bank for the first time. People in the Lebanese village of
Al Jamaliyeh, outside the Hezbollah stronghold of Baalbek, used a
front-end loader to carry away some of the dead after a night of
Israeli airstrikes and a commando raid inside Baalbek that residents
said killed at least 15 civilians.
(AP, 8/2/06)(SFC, 8/3/06, p.A1)
2006 Aug 2, In Oaxaca, Mexico,
about 500 women banging spoons against pots and pans seized a
state-run television station and broadcast a homemade video that
showed police kicking protesters out of Oaxaca's main square last
month. In southern Monte Orden village heavy rains caused a
mountainside to give way, burying 2 homes and killing 11 people, 4
of them children.
(AP, 8/2/06)
2006 Aug 2, Production at
Cantarell, Mexico’s biggest oil field, was reported to be declining.
The site accounted for about 60% of Mexico’s oil. A third of
Mexico’s federal budget depended on oil sales.
(WSJ, 8/2/06, p.A4)
2006 Aug 2, Somali leaders
struggled to regroup after a week in which 29 ministers quit the
government, with the defectors urging the virtually powerless
administration to reconcile with Islamic militants who have seized
the capital.
(AP, 8/2/06)
2006 Aug 2, South Africans
faced one of their harshest winters in years, with at least four
deaths blamed on flooding from heavy rain that has caused travel
delays in the south and west of the country.
(AP, 8/2/06)
2006 Aug 2, Tamil rebels said
they had overrun four Sri Lankan army camps around the northeastern
port of Trincomalee. The Defense Ministry acknowledged that five
soldiers were killed in the attacks and claimed its forces killed 40
insurgents and wounded 70 others.
(AP, 8/2/06)
2006 Aug 2, In southern
Thailand a bomb planted along a railroad exploded and killed three
policemen.
(AP, 8/2/06)
2007 Aug 2, Charles Simic
(b.1938) of Concord, NH, a Yugoslav-born immigrant, was named to
become the new US poet laureate, replacing Donald Hall beginning Sep
29.
(SFC, 8/3/07, p.E20)
2007 Aug 2, A Marine Corps
squad leader was convicted at Camp Pendleton, Calif., of murdering
an Iraqi man during a frustrated search for an insurgent. Sgt.
Lawrence G. Hutchins III was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
(AP, 8/2/08)
2007 Aug 2, US federal agents
arrested dozens of doctors accused of obtaining medical licenses
through fraud or bribery, carrying out sweeping raids across Puerto
Rico. The FDA accused 88 doctors of falsified credentials.
(AP, 8/2/07)(WSJ, 8/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Aug 2, A US appeals court
ruled that Katrina victims cannot collect for damage from levee
breaches.
(WSJ, 8/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Aug 2, FBI agents arrested
Rahmat Abdhir (43), aka Sean Kasem and Sean Kalimin, in San Jose,
Ca., for providing material support to his brother, Zulkifli Abdhir
(41), a US-trained engineer and terror suspect in the Philippines.
(SFC, 8/3/07, p.B5)
2007 Aug 2, Scientists warned
that bisphenol A (BPA), an estrogen-like compound in plastic, is
probably causing an array of serious reproductive disorders in
people.
(SFC, 8/3/07, p.A3)
2007 Aug 2, In Washington state
a helicopter with four people aboard crashed and burst into flames
on the east slopes of the Cascade Range, starting a wildfire. By the
next day it spread through dry timber to cover 300 to 400 acres.
(AP, 8/3/07)
2007 Aug 2, In Oakland, Ca.,
Chauncey Bailey (57), editor of the Oakland Post and former reporter
for the Oakland Tribune, was shot and killed on his way to work by a
masked gunman. In 2009 an indictment accused Yusuf Bey IV (23), the
leader of Your Black Muslim Bakery, of murder for allegedly telling
two of his followers to kill Bailey. In 2009 Devaughndre Broussard
(21) pleaded guilty to 2 counts of voluntary manslaughter as part of
a deal to secure testimony against Yusuf Bey IV and Antoine Mackey,
another bakery figure.
(SFC, 8/3/07, p.A1)(SFC, 4/30/09, p.A1)(SFC,
5/8/09, p.B1)
2007 Aug 2, Armen Baliantz
(b.1921), SF restaurateur born in China to Armenian parents, died.
Her Bali’s Restaurant at Pacific and Battery, had closed in Feb,
1985.
(SFC, 8/4/07, p.A1)
2007 Aug 2, In southern
Afghanistan US-led airstrikes in Helmand province killed at least 3
senior Taliban figures, including commander Mullah Rahim.
(SFC, 8/4/07, p.A3)
2007 Aug 2, In Brazil a strike
by subway workers disrupted the commute of millions of people in Sao
Paulo, causing huge traffic jams and long lines at bus stops.
(AP, 8/3/07)
2007 Aug 2, Bulgaria said it
had decided to write off Libya's communist-era debt as a
contribution to an international fund for the victims of an AIDS
epidemic blamed by Tripoli on six Bulgarian medics.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 2, Canada dismissed
Russia's claim to a large chunk of the resource-rich Arctic, saying
the tactic was more suited to the 15th century than the real world.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 2, China’s state media
reported that courts in northern China have sentenced 31 people,
including a police officer, to prison terms of up to five years
stemming from the use of slave labor in brick kilns. In east China a
rising wave in the Qiantang River, known for its strong tides,
engulfed 33 swimmers and visitors walking along a levee. At least
eight were killed.
(AP, 8/2/07)(AP, 8/3/07)
2007 Aug 2, Beijing and
Washington agreed to cooperate more closely on product and food
safety as the US recalled almost 1 million toys due to lead
concerns. Mattel apologized to customers as it recalled nearly a
million Chinese-made toys from its Fisher-Price division that were
found to have excessive amounts of lead.
(AP, 8/3/07)(SFC, 8/3/07, p.D1)(AP, 8/2/08)
2007 Aug 2, Officials said days
of heavy monsoon rains have devastated large swaths of northern
India and Bangladesh, killing at least 164 people, stranding
millions and washing away vital crops.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 2, Much of Baghdad was
without running water and had been for at least 24 hours. A suicide
car bomber slammed into an Iraqi police station northeast of
Baghdad, killing at least 13 people. Fadhil al-Akil (35), an aide to
Iraq's top cleric, was killed in the Shiite city of Najaf. A mortar
and rocket-propelled grenade landed on homes in Khan Bani Saad, a
mixed town northeast of Baghdad, killing four civilians, two of them
children. The US military said American and Iraqi troops had killed
seven suspects and captured 22 others in two days of raids across
Iraq. A total of 58 people were killed or found dead across the
country. US troops killed Haitham Sabah Shaker Mohammed al-Badri,
the al-Qaida in Iraq mastermind of the bombing that destroyed the
golden dome of a famed sacred Shiite shrine last year. 3 US soldiers
were killed in a single roadside bombing on Baghdad's east side. The
blast wounded 11 other US troops. Another soldier was killed and
three wounded in combat in western Baghdad. A US Marine was killed
during combat in Iraq's western Anbar province.
(AP, 8/2/07)(AP, 8/3/07)(AP, 8/4/07)(AP, 8/5/07)
2007 Aug 2, Lebanon's most
senior Shiite Muslim cleric issued a religious edict banning honor
killings, calling the custom of murdering a female relative for
sexual misconduct "a repulsive act." More fierce fighting erupted as
troops pounded the remaining Fatah Islam hideouts in the camp with
artillery and tank fire. Two more Lebanese soldiers were killed in
heavy fighting with the al-Qaida-inspired militants.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 2, A Libyan official
said that Moammar Gadhafi's long-isolated country has signed
contracts worth $405 million with French companies for missiles and
communications equipment.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 2, An Islamic militant
and a policeman died when officers foiled a suicide bombing at a
Pakistani police school in Sargodha.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 2, In the Netherlands
Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch maker of consumer goods and food products,
announced that it would cut 20,000 jobs worldwide, 11 percent of its
total workforce, over the next four years.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 2, Two deep-diving
Russian mini-submarines descended more than 2 1/2 miles under North
Pole ice to stake a flag on the ocean floor, part of a quest to
bolster Russian claims to much of the Arctic's oil-and-mineral
wealth.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 2, An unmanned Russian
cargo ship carrying over 2.5 tons of supplies, equipment and gifts
blasted off for the international space station.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 2, A 6.4-magnitude
quake struck on the southern tip of Sakhalin island, just north of
Japan. At least 2 people were killed and some 2,000 in Nevelsk moved
to tent camps after the powerful earthquake left apartment buildings
in ruins.
(AP, 8/3/07)
2007 Aug 2, Kafeel Ahmed (27),
the suspect who was critically burned in a botched car bomb attempt
at Glasgow Airport, died after 5 weeks in hospital from burns to 90%
of his body.
(AP, 8/3/07)
2007 Aug 2, In Sierra Leone 2
former members of a pro-government militia were convicted of war
crimes, the second round of rulings by a UN-backed court attempting
to punish those most responsible for brutalities committed during
Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war. A boat traveling from Freetown
to the northern town of Kassiri capsized in the mouth of the Little
Scarcies River. At least 10 people were killed and 45 others left
missing.
(AP, 8/2/07)(AP, 8/3/07)(AP, 8/4/07)
2007 Aug 2, In Somalia mortars
slammed into homes in Mogadishu after fighting between insurgents
and Ethiopian troops, killing 8 people, including a mother and her
two daughters.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 2, In Thailand a
lawyer said the wife of Thailand's deposed premier Thaksin
Shinawatra will seek 1.4 billion dollars in compensation from
military-backed authorities that have frozen her assets.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 2, In Yemen security
forces fired tear gas and water cannons at former soldiers
protesting in Aden demanding to be allowed back in the military. One
person was reported killed. The protesters were largely members of
the army of south Yemen who were ousted after being defeated by
northern forces.
(AP, 8/3/07)
2008 Aug 2, The US Centers for
Disease Control (CDC) said that due to new tracking methods 40% more
people are infected by the HIV virus than was previosly believed.
(SSFC, 8/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 2, In Santa Cruz, Ca.,
2 firebombs exploded outside the homes of 2 UC Santa Cruz
biologists. They were similar to some used in the past by animal
rights activists.
(SFC, 8/4/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 2, Peter W. Rodman
(b.1943), lawyer, government official and foreign policy expert,
died. His book “Presidential Command: Power, Leadership, and the
Making of Foreign Policy from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush” was
published in 2009.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rodman)(WSJ,
1/12/09, p.A11)
2008 Aug 2, In Afghanistan a
suspected rebel bomb struck a minibus carrying a newly married
couple, killing the bride and groom and 11 wedding guests.
(AP, 8/2/08)
2008 Aug 2, Perez Celis
(b.1939), a prestigious Argentine muralist, painter and sculptor,
died in Buenos Aires.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 2, Geoff Ballard
(b.1932), founder of Ballard Power and advocate for fuel cells, died
in Vancouver, Canada. In 1999 he had started General Hydrogen to
explore ways to manufacture and market hydrogen as a fuel. Plug
Power bought General Hydrogen in 2007 for $10 million.
(SFC, 8/12/08, p.B5)
2008 Aug 2, In China Zhang
Jinfu (43), a farmer, killed six and injured one in a stabbing spree
in the Hubei province village of Xuyang.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 2, China’s Sanlu
Group, a dairy product producer, told Fronterra, a New Zealand
company that owns 43% of Sanlu, that there was problem with milk
powder.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.57)
2008 Aug 2, Saad Eddin Ibrahim
(69), an exiled Egyptian human rights activist who also holds US
nationality, was sentenced in abstentia to two years in prison for
defaming Egypt. He was accused him of defaming the country after a
series of articles and speeches on citizenship and democracy in
which he criticized the Egyptian regime. Ibrahim, who founded the
Ibn Khaldoun Centre for Development Studies, was sentenced in 2001
to seven years for "tarnishing Egypt's reputation," before being
freed on appeal after spending 10 months behind bars.
(AFP, 8/2/08)
2008 Aug 2, Overnight fighting
that included sniper and mortar fire between Georgian forces and
separatists in the breakaway South Ossetia region left six people
dead and 13 wounded.
(AP, 8/2/08)
2008 Aug 2, In northern India
40 farm laborers died after a truck carrying them home from the
fields plunged into a river near Ghoomsa in Bihar state.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 2, More than 1,000
Sunni Arabs and Turkomen staged a demonstration to protest calls by
Kurds to annex the oil-rich city of Kirkuk to their autonomous
region as Iraqi officials met in Baghdad to defuse tension over the
disputed city. The U.S. military said it has released more than
10,000 detainees in Iraq so far this year, more than in all of 2007,
as it continues to try phase out its running of Iraqi prisons. A
roadside bomb in Baghdad killed one member of the US-allied Sunni
fighters and wounded two others. An American soldier died and
another was injured in a vehicle accident southwest of Baghdad.
(AP, 8/2/08)(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 2, In Nigeria gunmen
seized 2 French oil workers from a bar in Onne near the oil hub of
Port Harcourt. The 2 were released on Sep 5.
(AFP, 9/5/08)
2008 Aug 2, In Pakistan a bomb
exploded at a bridge, killing at least nine security forces in the
Swat valley, where Pakistani troops are battling Islamic militants.
(AP, 8/2/08)
2008 Aug 2, In Pakistan 22
climbers, mostly foreigners, reached the summit of K-2, the world's
second-highest mountain, but an ice avalanche struck them during
their descent. At least 11 of the mountaineers were killed.
(AP, 8/3/08)(AFP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 2, Hamas security
forces battled fighters in a tribal stronghold where they say
suspects in a deadly bombing last week were hiding. Three Hamas men
were killed, along with six Fatah supporters, and nearly 90 were
wounded. Some 180 Fatah supporters fled into Israel from a deadly
Hamas crackdown.
(AP, 8/2/08)(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 2, In Sri Lanka a
two-day summit of leaders of the 15th South Asian Association for
Regional Cooperation (SAARC), opened amid extraordinary security.
Leaders of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, The Maldives,
Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka attended the summit. Government troops
captured rebel-held Vellankulam village in Mannar, the last rebel
stronghold in the area. Fresh fighting between Sri Lankan troops and
Tamil Tiger separatists killed 14 rebels and two soldiers across the
embattled northern region.
(AP, 8/2/08)(AP, 8/3/08)
2009 Aug 2, In eastern
Afghanistan 3 American soldiers died in a complex militant ambush,
raising NATO's two-day August death toll to nine and continuing the
bloodiest period of the eight-year war for US and allied troops.
(AP, 8/2/09)
2009 Aug 2, In Austria
researchers unveiled two piano pieces recently identified as
childhood creations by the revered composer.
(AP, 8/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, Austrian
authorities arrested British-born Julius Meinl V (b.1959), head of
Meinl Bank, for suspected breach of trust and deception of
investors. He had spun much of his family’s property portfolio into
Meinl European Land (MEL). By 2007 MEL had lost €1.8 billion in an
attempt to support its share price. He was released after posting a
€100 million bail.
(Econ, 8/1/09, p.60)
2009 Aug 2, China reported that
police in the northwest region of Xinjiang have arrested hundreds of
people in connection with disturbances that left at least 197 people
dead.
(AFP, 8/2/09)
2009 Aug 2, In Dagestan
militants shot and killed a police officer. In Ingushetia militants
killed three government workers.
(AP, 8/2/09)
2009 Aug 2, In eastern
Indonesia a plane carrying 16 people disappeared over a jungle-clad
and mountainous region of Papua. All aboard were killed.
(AP, 8/2/09)(AP, 8/5/09)
2009 Aug 2, In Iraq Tariq Aziz,
one of Saddam Hussein's best-known lieutenants, was convicted of
helping to plan the forced displacement of Kurds from northeastern
Iraq and sentenced to seven years in jail. The ruling came more than
four months after Aziz was sentenced to 15 years in prison for
crimes against humanity in the 1992 execution of Iraqi merchants.
Rania Ibrahim, a teenage Iraqi girl, was sentenced to seven and a
half years in prison for attempting to blow herself up at a
checkpoint in Baqouba in August, 2008. She claimed her husband's
female relatives strapped explosives on her. An explosives-laden car
exploded near an outdoor market in a mainly Sunni area of Haditha,
killing at least 5 people and wounding 34, raising concern that
sectarian violence could resurge.
(AP, 8/2/09)(SFC, 8/4/09, p.A2)(AP, 8/6/09)
2009 Aug 2, Mexican police
raided a church service in Apatzingan, Michoacan state, and arrested
Miguel Angel Beraza, a man known as "The Truck," and another
suspect. Beraza was suspected of moving a half ton of crystal
methamphetamine into the US each month and was said to be a
high-ranking lieutenant in the drug cartel known as La Familia.
(AP, 8/3/09)
2009 Aug 2, It was reported
that illegal blast fishing had become rampant in Nicaragua and was
spreading across Central America’s Pacific coast.
(SSFC, 8/2/09, p.A8)
2009 Aug 2, Red Cross and
Nigerian defense officials said more than 700 people were killed
during a 5-day uprising by a radical Islamic sect in the north. Over
700 dead bodies were given mass burial in Maiduguri town alone, as a
search for bodies continued.
(Reuters, 8/2/09)
2009 Aug 2, In Pakistan two
policemen were shot and killed by men who fled from a checkpoint in
the northwestern city of Peshawar. The military said that four
militants were killed and another 27, including a suspected local
commander, were arrested in several search-and-clearance operations
in Swat and nearby areas.
(AP, 8/2/09)
2009 Aug 2, In Peru attackers
believed to be Shining Path rebels killed three police officers and
two women in an assault on a remote police post in San Jose de Secce
in Ayacucho province, a coca-growing region.
(AP, 8/3/09)
2009 Aug 2, Stanley Robertson
(69), the last of Scotland’s traveling storytellers, died. He had
spent 47 years filleting fish for a living.
(Econ, 9/5/09, p.94)
2009 Aug 2, On the Spanish
Canary Island of La Palma strong winds fanned forest fires for a 2nd
day, and firefighters were forced to retreat as flames raged out of
control near two towns.
(AP, 8/2/09)
2009 Aug 2, In southeast Sudan
armed tribesmen attacked a fishing village where hundreds of
displaced people were camped near a river, leaving at least 185
people, most of them women and children, dead in the worst violence
in three months.
(AP, 8/3/09)
2009 Aug 2, In Zimbabwe 40
people were killed and 30 others injured when a bus overturned after
colliding with a lorry south of Harare.
(AP, 8/2/09)(AP, 8/3/09)
2010 Aug 2, President Barack
Obama said the United States will end its combat mission in Iraq as
scheduled on August 31 despite a recent flare-up in violence.
(AFP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Robert Einhorn, the
State Department's special adviser for nonproliferation and arms
control, said new US sanctions against North Korea will seek to
strangle the narcotics trafficking, counterfeiting of U.S. dollars
and other "illicit and deceptive" activities that provide the regime
with the hard currency used for its nuclear weapons program.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, US Rep. Howard
Berman, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee,
suspended assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces, saying he cannot
be sure the country's armed forces are not working with Hezbollah.
(AP, 8/10/10)
2010 Aug 2, The US government
said BP's ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico gushed an estimated
4.9 million barrels of oil, making it the largest accidental oil
spill of all time.
(AFP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 2, The US House ethics
committee said California Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, will
face a trial for her 2009 role in steering federal funds to a bank
she is personally connected.
(SFC, 8/3/10, p.A6)
2010 Aug 2, In Louisiana 6
Shreveport teenagers wading in the shallows of the Red River drowned
in front of their horrified families after falling into deep water.
None of the teens or nearby adults could swim.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 2, In southern
Afghanistan a suicide car bomber blew himself up next to a police
truck bringing an official to work, killing six children nearby.
Militants attacked a second government official in the east the same
day. In eastern Nuristan province, NATO and Afghan troops attacked
two villages that had been held by Taliban fighters, killing more
than 30 insurgents as they secured the Bachancha and Badmuk
villages. Two Afghan soldiers were killed. In northern Balkh
province 6 Afghan private security guards were poisoned and fatally
stabbed during a bank robbery.
(AP, 8/2/10)(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 2, In Australia
publicist Kristy Fraser-Kirk (25) sued Australia's poshest
department store and its former head, Mark McInnes, for 33 million
US dollars over alleged sexual misconduct that led to the disgraced
chief executive's resignation. McInnes abruptly quit in June after
claims of inappropriate behavior were made.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Bolivia’s deputy
land minister Juan Manuel Pinto said that a local court has upheld a
government decision to seize a ranch from US cattleman Ronal Larsen
(65) and his family on the grounds they treated workers as virtual
slaves. Larsen has owned the 58-square-mile (15,000-hectare) ranch
nearly four decades. Pinto said the ranch and an adjacent
15-square-mile (3,790-hectare) spread owned by an unrelated family,
the Chavezes, would be cleared by authorities and divided among
2,000 Guarani families.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Brazilian
authorities said police have dismantled a kidnapping ring that
scoured social networking sites for victims.
(SFC, 8/3/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 2, China’s state media
said thousands of tons of garbage washed down by recent torrential
rain are threatening to jam the locks of the massive Three Gorges
Dam, and is in places so thick people can stand on it.
(Reuters, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Chinese
plainclothes officers detained Ye Haiyan, an activist for sex
workers' rights, a few days after she publicly called for
prostitution to be legalized.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, In China
lethal gas leaked into a coal mine at the Sanyuandong Coal Mine in
Dengfeng city, Henan province. No survivors were found among the 16
miners trapped by the lethal gas leak.
(AP, 8/3/10)(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 2, In Iraq 2 bombings
and a drive-by shooting killed eight people.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, A string of
rockets was fired toward the Israeli resort city Eilat, and one hit
in neighboring Jordan, killing one person and wounding four. On Aug
3 Jordan said it has evidence that the rocket attack originated from
neighboring Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. After days of denials an
Egyptian official said the deadly rocket attacks were carried out by
the militant Palestinian Hamas group operating from Egypt.
(AP, 8/2/10)(AP, 8/3/10)(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 2, Omar Abdullah, the
chief minister of Indian Kashmir, held crisis talks on the "cycle of
violence" afflicting the region, as five more protesters died,
taking the death toll to 37 in two months.
(AFP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Malaysia set itself
a historic precedent as 2 female sharia judges began working for the
first time.
(Econ, 8/7/10, p.39)
2010 Aug 2, Compania Mexicana
de Aviacion filed for bankruptcy.
(Econ, 8/14/10, p.53)
2010 Aug 2, North Korea opened
this year's massive dance and gymnastics performance known as the
Arirang Festival, turning to propaganda to unite its people amid new
US sanctions on the isolated country to squeeze its nuclear program.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Pakistani lawmaker
Raza Haider (35) was killed in a drive-by shooting in downtown
Karachi, where political and ethnic assassinations have fanned
increasing tensions. Haider was a member of the Muttahida Qaumi
Movement, the political party that runs the city and represents
mainly descendants of Urdu-speaking migrants from India who settled
in Pakistan when it was created in 1947.
(AFP, 8/2/10)(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 2, In Pakistan fears
were growing for up to 2.5 million people affected by the worst
floods in 80 years amid outbreaks of disease after monsoon rains
killed up to 1,500 people.
(AFP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, In the Philippines
the 2010 winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards were announced.
Winners included Tadatoshi Akiba, the three-term mayor of Hiroshima,
who spearheaded a global campaign for nuclear disarmament, and
photographer Huo Daishan (56), who documented river pollution in his
native China. The awards are considered Asia's equivalent of the
Nobel Prize. Other awardees were physicists Christopher Bernido and
wife Maria Victoria Carpio-Bernido of the Philippines, who
introduced a novel way of teaching science, and Bangladeshi A.H.M.
Noman Khan, who set up service-and-training centers for helping
persons with disabilities.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, Romania's central
bank issued a special coin commemorating Miron Cristea, a prime
minister (1938-1939) and religious leader, who stripped Jews of
their citizenship before World War II. The move prompted protest
from Romanian Jews as well as a director at the US Holocaust
Memorial Museum.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 2, Russia declared a
state of emergency in seven regions after wildfires killed at least
34 people and left thousands homeless in the worst heatwave since
records began 130 years ago. Officials said wildfires were also
destroying what was left of wheat crops, decimated by severe
drought. Expectations of slashed exports sent wheat prices soaring.
(AP, 8/2/10)(SFC, 8/3/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 2, In southern Somalia
Islamist rebels ordered business people to donate cash and jewelry
for a holy war against African Union peacekeeping troops and the
Somali government.
(Reuters, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 2, Somali pirates
hijacked the MV Suez, a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship with 23 crew
onboard, during an early morning raid.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, A cattle raid in
Southern Sudan possibly sparked by the region's high bride price,
100 cows or more, left 21 people dead.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 2, UN chief Ban
Ki-moon announced a four-member panel, including an Israeli and a
Turk, to probe Israel's deadly raid in May on a Gaza-bound aid
flotilla.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 2, UNESCO added 6
sites located in Brazil, China, Mexico, France's Reunion Island and
the South Pacific nation of Kiribati to World Heritage status.
(AP, 8/2/10)
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