TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS FRIDAY, AUGUST 3, 2018

On this day in history:

1492 - Christopher Columbus left Palos, Spain with three ships. The voyage led him to what is now known as the Americas. He reached the Bahamas on October 12. 1914 World War I: Germany declares war against France, Romania declares its neutrality. 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 radio, The Wolf, written by Eugene Walter.

1933 - The Mickey Mouse Watch was introduced for the price of $2.75.

1936 A firestorm wipes out the woodcutters village Kursha-2 in Russia, killing 1200 and leaving just 20 survivors.

1936 Jesse Owens wins the 100m dash, defeating Ralph Metcalfe, at the Berlin Olympics – the first of his four Olympic gold medals. 1940 World War II: Italian forces begin the invasion of British Somaliland.

1946 Santa Claus Land, the world’s first themed amusement park, opens in Santa Claus, Indiana, United States.

1958 The world’s first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus, became the first vessel to cross the North Pole underwater. The mission was known as “Operation Sunshine.”

1975 A privately chartered Boeing 707 strikes a mountain peak and crashes near Agadir, Morocco, killing 188.

1977 Tandy Corporation announces the TRS-80, one of the world’s first mass-produced personal computers.

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. 1985 - Mail service returned to a nudist colony in Paradise Lake, Florida. Residents promised they’d wear clothes or stay out of sight when the mailperson came to deliver. 1992 - The U.S. Senate voted to restrict and eventually end the testing of nuclear weapons. 2014 A 6.1 magnitude earthquake kills at least 617 people and injures more than 2400 in Yunnan, China.