TODAY IN HISTORY

ON AUG. 2 ... In 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 was born in Radersburg, Mont.

In 1921 opera singer Enrico

Caruso was 48. died in Naples, Italy; he In Warren 1923, Harding, while still the 29th in office, 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 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 Dallas-Ft. 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.

In 1998 ventriloquist Shari Lewis died in Los Angeles; she was 65.

In 2000, at their national convention in Philadelphia, Republicans awarded Texas Gov. George W. Bush the party’s presidential nomination and ratified Dick Cheney as his running mate.

In 2003 Liberian President Charles Taylor agreed to cede power.

In 2004 President George W. Bush urged creation of a national intelligence director to coordinate the war on terrorism but

without the sweeping powers for hiring, firing and spending recommended by the Sept. 11 commission.

In 2005 President George W. Bush signed a free trade pact with five Central American nations and the Dominican Republic.

In 2011 a protracted debate on raising the U.S. debt ceiling came to an end when the Senate voted 74-26 to approve a compromise bill that was then signed by President Barack Obama.

In 2013 the State Department issued a worldwide travel alert for U.S. citizens and decided to temporarily close 28 embassies, consulates and smaller diplomatic posts in the Middle East and North Africa after intercepting al-Qaida messages.

In 2014 Dr. Kent Brantly, 33, believed to be the first person treated for the Ebola virus in the United States, began receiving care at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.