August 3 - Definition and Overview

August 3 is the 215th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (216th in leap years), with 150 days remaining.

Events

1400-1899

• 1492 - Christopher Columbus sets sail from Palos de la Frontera, Spain.
• 1492 - The Jews were expelled from Spain by the Catholic Monarchs.
• 1645 - The Second Battle of Nördlingen, fought between the forces of France and the Holy Roman Empire.
• 1678 - Robert LaSalle builds the Griffon, the first known ship built in America.
• 1860 - Second Maori War begins in New Zealand.

1900-1999

• 1900 - Firestone Tire & Rubber Company founded.
• 1914 - First World War: Germany declares war against France.
• 1916 - First World War: Battle of Romani is fought between forces of the British Empire and the Ottoman Empire.
• 1923 - Calvin Coolidge is inaugurated as the 30th President of the United States.
• 1940 - Second World War: Italy invades British Somaliland.
• 1946 - National Basketball Association was founded in the United States.
• 1948 - Whittaker Chambers accuses Alger Hiss of being a communist and a spy for the Soviet Union.
• 1958 - Nuclear submarine USS Nautilus travels beneath the Arctic ice cap.
• 1960 - Niger gains independence from France.
• 1972 - U.S. Senate ratifies the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
• 1973 - R&B singer Stevie Wonder releases the classic album Innervisions.
• 1975 - A privately chartered Boeing 707 impacts the mountainside near Agadir, Morocco killing 188.
• 1981 - In the United States, Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization walks off the job. All 13,000 members will eventually be fired by President Ronald Reagan.
• 1983 - New York Yankee outfielder Dave Winfield accidentally killed a seagull during a baseball game and was charged by police for his "act of cruelty to animals". His manager Billy Martin quipped, "It's the first time he's hit the cutoff man."

2000-2099

• 2000 - George W. Bush accepted the Republican presidential nomination at the party's convention in Philadelphia.

Births

1500-1899

• 1509 - Étienne Dolet, scholar and printer (d. 1546)
• 1645 - August Kuhnel, composer
• 1692 - John Henley, clergyman (d. 1759)
• 1748 - Carl Ludwig Junker, composer
• 1753 - Charles Stanhope, inventor of the calculator
• 1770 - King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia (d. 1840)
• 1801 - Joseph Paxton, landscape gardener (d. 1865)
• 1808 - Hamilton Fish, politician (d. 1893)
• 1811 - Elisha Graves Otis, inventor (safe elevator)
• 1817 - Archduke Albert, Austrian general
• 1823 - Thomas F. Meagher, Irish rebel, convict and escapee in Australia, US Union general
• 1833 - Auguste Schmidt, feminist and teacher (d. 1902)
• 1856 - Alfred Deakin, second Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1919)
• 1867 - Stanley Baldwin, British Prime Minister (d. 1947)
• 1872 - King Haakon VII of Norway (d. 1957)
• 1887 - Rupert Brooke, poet (d. 1915)
• 1894 - Harry Heilmann, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1951)

1900-1999

• 1900 - Ernie Pyle, war correspondent (d. 1945)
• 1900 - John T. Scopes, defendant in the Monkey Trial (d. 1970)
• 1901 - Stefan Wyszynski, primate of Poland (d. 1981)
• 1904 - Clifford D. Simak, science fiction author, (d. 1988)
• 1918 - Les Elgart, musician, bandleader
• 1920 - P.D. James, novelist
• 1923 - Shenouda III of Alexandria, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church
• 1924 - Leon Uris, novelist (d. 2003)
• 1926 - Tony Bennett, singer
• 1935 - Georgi Shonin, cosmonaut (d. 1997)
• 1936 - Edward Petherbridge, actor
• 1937 - Diane Wakoski, poet
• 1937 - Steven Berkoff, actor
• 1938 - Terry Wogan, presenter
• 1940 - Martin Sheen, actor
• 1940 - Lance Alworth, professional football player
• 1941 - Beverly Lee, singer, member of the Shirelles
• 1941 - Martha Stewart, home economist
• 1946 - Jack Straw, British politician
• 1948 - Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Prime Minister of France
• 1950 - John Landis, film director
• 1951 - Marcel Dionne, professional ice hockey player
• 1951 - Jay North, actor
• 1952 - Osvaldo Ardiles, footballer
• 1959 - Martin Atkins, drummer
• 1963 - James Hetfield, rock and roll musician, member of Metallica
• 1970 - Gina G, Australian singer
• 1977 - Tom Brady, American footballer
• 1986 - Prince Louis Xavier Marie Guillaume, Prince of Luxembourg and of Nassau

Deaths

1100-1899

• 1181 - Pope Alexander III
• 1546 - Étienne Dolet, scholar and printer (b. 1509)
• 1667 - Francesco Borromini, Italian Baroque architect (b. 1599)
• 1721 - Grinling Gibbons, master wood-worker (b. 1648)
• 1761 - Johann Matthias Gesner, scholar (b. 1691)
• 1780 - Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, philosopher (b. 1715)
• 1792 - Richard Arkwright, industrialist, and inventor of the Water Frame (b. 1732)
• 1797 - Jeffrey Amherst, British military commander (b. 1717)
• 1867 - Philipp August Böckh, scholar and antiquarian (b. 1785)
• 1877 - William Butler Ogden, first mayor of Chicago (b.1805)
• 1879 - Joseph Severn, English painter (b. 1793)

1900-1999

• 1916 - Sir Roger Casement, hanged for his part in the Irish Easter Rising
• 1924 - Joseph Conrad, writer (b. 1857)
• 1929 - Emil Berliner, telephone and recording pioneer (b. 1851)
• 1929 - Thorstein Veblen, economist (b. 1857)
• 1954 - Colette, novelist, playwright (b. 1873)
• 1964 - Flannery O'Connor, novelist (b. 1925)
• 1966 - Lenny Bruce, comedian (b. 1925)
• 1973 - Richard Marshall, Major General (b. 1895)
• 1977 - Alfred Lunt, actor (b. 1892)
• 1977 - Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus (b. 1913)
• 1983 - Carolyn Jones, actress (b. 1929)
• 1995 - Ida Lupino, actress, director (b. 1914)
• 1995 - Edward Whittemore, writer (b. 1933)
• 1998 - Alfred Schnittke, Russian classical composer (b. 1934)

2000-2099

• 2001 - Christopher Hewett, British actor
• 2004 - Henri Cartier-Bresson, French photojournalist (b. 1908)

Holidays and observances

• Equatorial Guinea - Armed Forces Day
• Niger - Independence Day

August 2 - August 4 - July 3 - September 3 -- listing of all days