Today in history

On Aug. 2, 1754, architect Pierre-Charles L’Enfant, who designed the basic plan for Washington, D.C., was born in Paris.

In 1776 members of the Continental Congress began signing the Declaration of Independence.

In 1790 the enumeration for the first U.S. census began; the final total was 3,929,214.

In 1876 “Wild Bill” Hickok was fatally shot from behind while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory. Hickok was holding two aces and two eights, a combination that became known as the “dead man’s hand.”

In 1892 movie executive Jack Warner was born in London, Ontario.

In 1905 actress Myrna Loy, above, was born in Radersburg, Mont.

In 1921 after two hours of deliberation, the jury in the “Black Sox” trial of eight White Sox players returned a verdict of not guilty in the plot to fix the 1919 World Series. (However, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned for life the players involved.)

Also in 1921 opera singer Enrico Caruso died in Naples, Italy; he was 48.

In 1923 , while still in office, Warren Harding, the 29th president, died in San Francisco; he was 58.

In 1924 African-American novelist, essayist and playwright James Baldwin was born in New York.

In 1932 actor Peter O’Toole was born in Connemara, Ireland.

In 1934 German President Paul von Hindenburg died, paving the way for Adolf Hitler’s complete takeover.

In 1939 Albert Einstein, above, signed a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt urging the U.S. to create an atomic weapons research program. In 1942 author Isabel Allende (“The House of the Spirits,” “The Stories of Eva Luna”) was born in Lima, Peru. In 1943, during World War II, a Navy patrol torpedo boat, PT-109, commanded by Lt. John F. Kennedy, sank after being rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri off the Solomon Islands. (The future president was credited with saving members of the crew, and he was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism and the Purple Heart.) In 1945 President Harry Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Clement Atlee concluded the Potsdam conference.

In 1957 rock singer Mojo Nixon was born Neil Kirby McMillan in Chapel Hill, N.C.

In 1964 the Pentagon reported the first of two attacks on U.S. destroyers by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. In 1979 New York Yankees catcher Thurman Munson died in the crash of his private plane in Canton, Ohio. In 1980 85 people were killed when a bomb exploded at the train station in Bologna, Italy. In 1985 a Delta Air Lines jumbo jet crashed while attempting to land at DallasFt. Worth International Airport, killing 137 people.

In 1986 attorney Roy Cohn died at Bethesda Naval Hospital of cardiac arrest and complications from AIDS.

In 1988 writer and poet Raymond Carver died in Port Angeles, Wash.; he was 52.

In 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait, seizing control of the oil-rich emirate and igniting the Persian Gulf war; the Iraqis later were driven out in Operation Desert Storm.

In 1995 Hurricane Erin came ashore near Vero Beach, Fla.; the storm was blamed for 11 deaths. Also in 1995 China ordered the expulsion of two U.S. Air Force officers it said were caught spying on military sites. In 1997 William S. Burroughs, the author of several experimental novels such as “Naked Lunch” who was a friend and muse to many of the younger Beat generation artists, died in Lawrence, Kan.; he was 83.

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