August 1

From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.

[edit] Births

• 10 BC - Claudius, Roman emperor (d. AD 54)
• 126 - Pertinax, Roman Emperor (d. 193)
• 1630 - Thomas Clifford, 1st Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, English statesman (d. 1673)
• 1744 - Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, scientist (d. 1829)
• 1770 - William Clark, explorer (d. 1838)
• 1779 - Francis Scott Key, American lawyer and lyricist (d. 1843)
• 1815 - Richard Henry Dana, Jr., lawyer, politician, and author (d. 1882)
• 1818 - Maria Mitchell, astronomer (d. 1889)
• 1819 - Herman Melville, writer (d. 1891)
• 1858 - Hans Rott, composer (d. 1884)
• 1885 - George de Hevesy, Hungarian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1966)
• 1891 - Karl Kobelt, Swiss politician (d. 1968)
• 1921 - Jack Kramer, American tennis player
• 1922 - Arthur Hill, actor
• 1922 - Pat McDonald, actress (d. 1990)
• 1924 - Georges Charpak, Ukrainian-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1925 - Ernst Jandl, writer (d. 2000)
• 1927 - Raymond Leppard, English conductor
• 1930 - Pierre Bourdieu, French sociologist (d. 2002)
• 1931 - Tom Wilson, cartoonist
• 1932 - Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League (d. 1990)
• 1933 - Dom DeLuise, actor, comedian
• 1936 - Yves Saint Laurent, French fashion designer
• 1937 - Al D'Amato, U.S. Senator from New York
• 1942 - Jerry Garcia, guitarist, lyricist, singer (The Grateful Dead) (d. 1995)
• 1942 - Sjoukje Dijkstra, Dutch figure skater
• 1945 - Douglas D. Osheroff, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate.
• 1946 - Fiona Stanley, Australian epidemiologist
• 1950 - Jim Carroll, poet, actor
• 1952 - Zoran Đinđić, Prime Minister of Serbia (d. 2003)
• 1953 - Robert Cray, blues singer
• 1955 - Trevor Berbick, Jamaican boxer
• 1956 - Tom Leykis, radio personality
• 1959 - Joe Elliott, musician (Def Leppard)
• 1960 - Chuck D, rapper (Public Enemy)
• 1960 - Richard Roeper, newspaper columnist and film critic
• 1963 - Coolio, rapper
• 1965 - Sam Mendes, British stage and film director
• 1973 - Tempestt Bledsoe, actress
• 1978 - Edgerrin James, American football player
• 1981 - Taylor Fry, actress

[edit] Deaths

• 371 - St Eusebius of Vercelli, Italian bishop
• 1137 - King Louis VI of France (b. 1081)
• 1227 - Shimazu Tadahisa, Japanese warlord (b. 1179)
• 1402 - Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York, son of Edward III of England (b. 1341)
• 1457 - Lorenzo Valla, Italian humanist
• 1464 - Cosimo de' Medici, ruler of Florence (b. 1386)
• 1541 - Simon Grynaeus, German theologian (b. 1493)
• 1546 - Peter Faber, French Jesuit theologian (b. 1506)
• 1557 - Olaus Magnus, Swedish writer (b. 1490)
• 1580 - Albrecht Giese IV, German politician and diplomat (b. 1524)
• 1589 - Jacques Clément, French assassin of Henry III of France (b. 1567)
• 1598 - Abraham Ortelius, Belgian cartographer (b. 1527)
• 1714 - Queen Anne of Great Britain (b. 1665)
• 1787 - Alphonsus Liguori, Italian founder of the Redemptionist order (b. 1696)
• 1798 - François-Paul Brueys D'Aigalliers, French admiral (killed in battle) (b. 1853)
• 1851 - William Joseph Behr, German writer (b. 1775)
• 1917 - Frank Little, American labor organizer (lynched) (b. 1879)
• 1918 - John Riley Banister, American cowboy and Texas Ranger (b. 1854)
• 1920 - Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Indian nationalist leader (b. 1856)
• 1964 - Johnny Burnette, American singer (b. 1934)
• 1967 - Richard Kuhn, Austrian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1900)
• 1970 - Frances Farmer, American actress (b. 1913)
• 1973 - Gian Francesco Malipiero, Italian composer (b. 1882)
• 1977 - Gary Powers, American spy plane pilot (b. 1929)
• 1981 - Paddy Chayefsky, American writer (b. 1923)
• 1989 - John Ogdon, English pianist (b. 1937)
• 1990 - Graham Young, British serial killer (b. 1947)
• 1990 - Norbert Elias, German sociologist (b. 1897)
• 1996 - Frida Boccara, French singer (b. 1940)
• 1996 - Tadeus Reichstein, Polish chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1897)
• 1999 - Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Anglo-Indian writer (b. 1897)
• 2001 - Korey Stringer, American football player (b. 1974)
• 2003 - Guy Thys, Belgian football coach (b. 1922)
• 2003 - Marie Trintignant, French actress (b. 1962)
• 2004 - Philip Hauge Abelson American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1913)
• 2005 - Al Aronowitz, American music journalist (b. 1928)
• 2005 - King Fahd of Saudi Arabia (b. 1923)
• 2005 - Constant Nieuwenhuys, Dutch painter (b. 1920)
• 2005 - Wibo, Dutch cartoonist (b. 1918)

[edit] Events

• 527 - Justinian I becomes Byzantine Emperor.
• 607 - Ono no Imoko is dispatched as envoy to the Sui court in China (Traditional Japanese date: July 3, 607).
• 1291 - The Swiss Confederation is formed.
• 1492 - Ferdinand and Isabella drive the Jews out of Spain.
• 1461 - Edward IV is crowned king of England.
• 1498 - Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to visit Venezuela.
• 1619 - First African slaves arrive in Jamestown, Virginia.
• 1664 - The Ottoman Empire is defeated in the Battle of Saint Gotthard by an Austrian army led by Raimondo Montecuccoli, resulting in the Peace of Vasvár.
• 1774 - The element oxygen is discovered by Carl Wilhelm and Joseph Priestley.
• 1776 - Formal signing of the United States Declaration of Independence.
• 1798 - Battle of the Nile starts between French and British fleets.
• 1820 - London's Regent's Canal opens.
• 1831 - London Bridge opens.
• 1832 - The Black Hawk War ends.
• 1834 - Slavery is abolished in the British Empire.
• 1838 - Slaves in Trinidad and Tobago are emancipated.
• 1864 - The Elgin Watch Company is founded in Elgin, Illinois
• 1876 - Colorado is admitted as the 38th U.S. state.
• 1894 - The First Sino-Japanese War erupts between Japan and China over Korea.
• 1902 - The United States buys the rights to the Panama Canal from France.
• 1907 - First Scout camp opens on Brownsea Island.
• 1914 - Germany declares war on Russia at the opening of World War I.
• 1927 - The Nanchang Uprising marks the first significant battle in the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang and Communist Party of China. This day is commemorated as the anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army.
• 1936 - The Berlin Olympic Games open.
• 1937 - Tito reads the resolution "Manifesto of constitutional congress of KPH" to the constitutive congress of KPH (Croatian Communist Party) in woods near Samobor.
• 1941 - The first Jeep is produced.
• 1944 - Anne Frank makes the last entry in her diary.
• 1944 - Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi occupation breaks out in Warsaw, Poland.
• 1945 - Mel Ott becomes the third member of the 500 home run club with a home run at the Polo Grounds in New York, New York.
• 1946 - The Japanese Federation of Trade Unions is formed.
• 1948 - The U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations is founded.
• 1957 - The United States and Canada form the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).
• 1960 - Dahomey (later renamed Benin) declares independence from France
• 1960 - Communist PAI is banned in Senegal.
• 1961 - Six Flags Over Texas, the first Six Flags park, opens.
• 1965 - Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands announces her engagement to Claus von Amsberg.
• 1966 - Charles Whitman kills 15 people shooting from a tower at the University of Texas in Austin, in the United States, before being killed by the police.
• 1966 - Purges of intellectuals and imperialists becomes official People's Republic of China policy at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
• 1967 - Israel annexes East Jerusalem.
• 1970 - Powder Ridge Rock Festival
• 1971 - George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh in New York City features, among others, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr and Leon Russell.
• 1981 - First broadcasts by MTV. The first video played was "Video Killed The Radio Star" by the Buggles.
• 1994 - Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley confirm rumors that they had married eleven weeks earlier.
• 1996 - Olympic Games: Michael Johnson wins the 200 meters in 19.32 seconds, beating the old world record by over 0.3 seconds.
• 2001 - An agreement is reached on the position of the minority Albanian language in the Republic of Macedonia.
• 2001 - Bulgaria, Cyprus, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia and Slovakia join the European Environment Agency.
• 2001 - Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore has a 2-1/2 ton Ten Commandments monument installed in the rotunda of the judiciary building, leading to a lawsuit to have it removed and his own removal from office.
• 2004 - A supermarket fire kills 215 people and injures 300 in Asunción, Paraguay.
• 2005 - German spelling reform of 1996 to be formally implemented
• 2005 - Disneyland Resort Line of the Hong Kong MTR opens to public.