Daily Calendar for Friday, August 2, 2024

Died

  • King William II of England
  • Wild Bill Hickok (frontiersman)
  • Alexander Graham Bell (inventor)
  • Warren G. Harding (29th U.S. president)
  • Shari Lewis (actress and puppeteer, best known for Lamb Chop)
  • Francis "Frank" Gouin (plant physiologist)

Born

  • Pierre-Charles L'Enfant (architect)
  • Leopold Gmelin (chemist)
  • Jack Warner (the man behind the development of Warner Brothers Studios)
  • James Baldwin (author)
  • Caroll O'Connor (actor)
  • Peter O'Toole (actor)
  • Mary Louise Parker (actress)
  • Tim Wakefield (baseball player)
  • Jacinda Barrett (model & actress)
  • Hallie Kate Eisenberg (actress)

Events

  • Official signing of enlarged copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence
  • Street letter boxes installed in Boston and N.Y.C., first in U.S.
  • In San Francisco, California, at four o’clock in the morning, Andrew Smith Hallidie successfully tested the world’s first cable car
  • The Oleomargarine Act established the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) laboratory system
  • The Lincoln Cent was issued to replace the Indian Head Cent
  • Adolf Hitler appointed himself dictator of Germany
  • Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President FDR explaining the possibility of an atomic bomb, thus marking the beginning of atomic weaponry
  • Olivia Newton-John’s “Magic” topped charts
  • Iraq invaded Kuwait
  • Viking ship replica Gaia arrived at L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland
  • Library of Congress announced Charles Simic to be the 15th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry
  • Yasmin Fudakowska-Gow began 32-hour yoga marathon in Quebec

Weather

  • Offshore hurricane battered fishing fleet and lightship near Nantucket, Massachusetts
  • It was 107 degrees F in Massachusetts, 105 degrees in Maine and New Hampshire, and 104 degrees in Rhode Island
  • Both New Bedford and Chester, Massachusetts, reported a high temperature of 107F (42C), setting a new state record.
  • During a heat wave, Sandi Fontaine successfully baked cookies on her vehicle’s dashboard in Bedford, New Hampshire