History of 3 August
1900 – Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. was founded.
1914 – Germany declared war on France. The next day World War I began when Britain declared war on Germany.
1922 – WGY radio in Schenectady, NY, presented the first full-length melodrama on the radio. The work was “The Wolf”, written by Eugene Walter.
1923 – Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as the 30th president of the U.S. after the sudden death of President Harding.
1933 – The Mickey Mouse Watch was introduced for the price of $2.75.
1936 – The U.S. State Department advised Americans to leave Spain due to the Spanish Civil War.
1936 – Jesse Owens won the first of his four Olympic gold medals.
1943 – Gen. George S. Patton verbally abused and slapped a private. Later, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered him to apologize for the incident.
1949 – The National Basketball Association (NBA) was formed. The league was formed by the merger between the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League.
1956 – Bedloe’s Island had its name changed to Liberty Island.
1958 – The Nautilus became the first vessel to cross the North Pole underwater. The mission was known as “Operation Sunshine.”
1979 – “More American Graffiti” was released.
1979 – Johnny Carson, the “Tonight Show” host, was on the cover of the Burbank, CA, telephone directory.
1981 – U.S. traffic controllers with PATCO, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, went on strike. They were fired just as U.S. President Reagan had warned.
1984 – Mary Lou Retton won a gold medal at the Los Angeles Summer Olympics.
1985 – Mail service returned to a nudist colony in Paradise Lake, FL. Residents promised that they’d wear clothes or stay out of sight when the mailperson came to deliver.
1988 – The Iran-Contra hearings ended. No ties were made between U.S. President Reagan and the Nicaraguan Rebels.
1988 – The Soviet Union released Mathias Rust. He had been taken into custody on May 28, 1987, for landing a plane in Moscow’s Red Square.
1989 – Hashemi Rafsanjani was sworn in as the president of Iran.
1990 – Thousands of Iraqi troops pushed within a few miles of the border of Saudi Arabia. This heightened world concerns that the invasion of Kuwait could spread.
1992 – The U.S. Senate voted to restrict and eventually end the testing of nuclear weapons.
1992 – Russia and Ukraine agreed to put the Black Sea Fleet under joint command. The agreement was to last for three years.
1995 – Eyad Ismoil was flown from Jordan to the U.S. to face charges that he had driven the van that blew up in New York’s World Trade Center.
2004 – In New York, the Statue of Liberty re-opened to the public. The site had been closed since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001.
2004 – NASA launched the spacecraft Messenger. The 6 1/2 year journey was planned to arrive at the planet Mercury in March 2011. On April 30, 2015, Messenger crashed into the surface of Mercury after sending back more than 270,000 pictures.
2009 – Bolivia became the first South American country to declare the right of indigenous people to govern themselves.
2010 – Widespread rioting erupts in Karachi, Pakistan, after the assassination of a local politician, leaving at least 85 dead and at least 17 billion Pakistani rupees (US$200 million) in damage.
2014 – A 6.1 magnitude earthquake kills at least 617 people and injures more than 2,400 in Yunnan, China.
2018 – Two burka-clad men have killed 29 people and injured more than 80 in a suicide attack on a Shia mosque in eastern Afghanistan.
Celebrating Birthday Today
- 1981 – Fikirte Addis, Ethiopian fashion designer
- 1981 – Travis Bowyer, American baseball player
- 1981 – Pablo Ibáñez, Spanish footballer
- 1982 – Kaspar Kokk, Estonian skier
- 1982 – Jesse Lumsden, Canadian bobsledder and football player
- 1982 – Damien Sandow, American wrestler
- 1983 – Ryan Carter, American ice hockey player
- 1983 – Mark Reynolds, American baseball player
- 1984 – Yasin Avcı, Turkish footballer
- 1984 – Sunil Chhetri, Indian footballer
- 1984 – Matt Joyce, American baseball player
- 1984 – Ryan Lochte, American swimmer
- 1984 – Chris Maurer, American singer, and bass player
- 1985 – Georgina Haig, Australian actress
- 1985 – Brent Kutzle, American bass player and producer
- 1985 – Ats Purje, Estonian footballer
- 1985 – Sonny Bill Williams, New Zealand rugby player, and boxer
- 1986 – Charlotte Casiraghi, Monégasque journalist, co-founded Ever Manifesto
- 1986 – Darya Domracheva, Belarusian biathlete
- 1987 – Kim Hyung-jun, South Korean singer and dancer
- 1987 – Chris McQueen, Australian-English rugby league player
- 1988 – Denny Cardin, Italian footballer
- 1988 – Leigh Tiffin, American football player
- 1988 – Sven Ulreich, German footballer
- 1989 – Jules Bianchi, French race car driver (d. 2015)
- 1989 – Sam Hutchinson, English footballer
- 1989 – Tyrod Taylor, American football player
- 1989 – Nick Viergever, Dutch footballer
- 1990 – Jourdan Dunn, English model
- 1990 – Kang Min-Kyung, South Korean singer, member of duo group Davichi
- 1992 – Gamze Bulut, Turkish runner
- 1992 – Gesa Felicitas Krause, German runner
- 1992 – Diāna Marcinkēviča, a Latvian tennis player
- 1992 – Aljon Mariano, Filipino basketball player
- 1992 – Lum Rexhepi, Finnish footballer
- 1993 – Ola Abidogun, English sprinter
- 1993 – Yurina Kumai, Japanese singer
- 1994 – Manaia Cherrington, New Zealand rugby league player
- 1994 – Todd Gurley, American football player
- 1995 – Victoria Kan, a Russian tennis player
- 1999 – Yoo Yeon-Jung, South Korean singer