TODAY in HISTORY

Today is Friday, August 3, the 215th day of 2018. There are 150 days left in the year.

881 Battle of Saucourt- en-Vimeu: Louis III of France defeats the Vikings, an event celebrated in the poem Ludwigslied.

908 Battle of Eisenach: An invading Hungarian force defeats an East Frankish army under Duke Burchard of Thuringia.

1031 Olaf II of Norway is canonized as Saint Olaf by Grimketel, the English Bishop of Selsey.

1057 Frederik van Lotharingen elected as first Belgian Pope Stephen IX.

1492 Christopher Columbus sets sail from Palos de la Frontera, Spain.

1527 The first known letter from North America is sent by John Rut while at St. John’s, Newfoundland.

1601 Long War: Austria captures Transylvania in the Battle of Goroszló.

1645 Thirty Years’ War: The Second Battle of Nördlingen sees French forces defeating those of the Holy Roman Empire.

1678 Robert LaSalle builds the Le Griffon, the first known ship built on the Great Lakes.

1778 The theatre La Scala in Milan is inaugurated with the premiere of Antonio Salieri’s Europa riconosciuta.

1795 Treaty of Greenville is signed, ending the Northwest Indian War in the Ohio Country.

1811 First ascent of Jungfrau, third highest summit in the Bernese Alps by brothers Johann Rudolf and Hieronymus Meyer.

1859 The American Dental Association is founded in Niagara Falls, New York.

1900 The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is founded.

1936 Jesse Owens wins the 100 metre dash, defeating Ralph Metcalfe, at the Berlin Olympics. 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. 1948 Whittaker Chambers accuses Alger Hiss of being a communist and a spy for the Soviet Union.

1958 The world’s first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus, became the first vessel to complete a submerged transit of the geographical North Pole.

1972 The United States Senate ratifies the Anti- Ballistic Missile Treaty.

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

1981 Senegalese opposition parties, under the leadership of Mamadou Dia, launch the Antiimperialist Action Front – Suxxali Reew Mi.

2004 The pedestal of the Statue of Liberty reopens after being closed since the September 11 attacks.