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 trans Atlantic Cable
being laid by SS Great Eastern snapped and was lost.
(MC, 8/2/02
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)
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, 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)
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).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Carver)
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.
(AP, 8/3/05)
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 U.S. 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.
(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)
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