TODAY IN HISTORY 1610

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT August 2, 1990

Iraq invaded Kuwait, seizing control of the oil-rich emirate.

ALSO ON THIS DATE

During his fourth voyage to the Western Hemisphere, English explorer Henry Hudson sailed into what is now known as Hudson Bay.

1776

Members of the Second Continental Congress began attaching their signatures to the Declaration of Independence.

1876

Frontiersman “Wild Bill” Hickok was shot and killed while playing poker at a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, by Jack McCall, who was later hanged.

1921

A jury in Chicago acquitted several former members of the Chicago White Sox baseball team and two others of conspiring to defraud the public in the notorious “Black Sox” scandal. Opera singer Enrico Caruso, 48, died in Naples, Italy.

1922

Alexander Graham Bell, generally regarded as the inventor of the telephone, died in Nova Scotia, Canada, at age 75.

1923

The 29th president of the United States, Warren G. Harding, died in San Francisco; Vice President Calvin Coolidge became president.

1934

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

1939

Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program. President Roosevelt signed the Hatch Act, which prohibited civil service employees from taking an active part in political campaigns.

1974

Former White House counsel John W. Dean III was sentenced to one to four years in prison for obstruction of justice in the Watergate cover-up.