1779 – John Adams was elected to negotiate with the British over the American Revolutionary War peace terms.
1825 – George Stephenson operated the first locomotive that hauled a passenger train.
1894 – The Aqueduct Race Track opened in New York City, NY.
1928 – The U.S. announced that it would recognize the Nationalist Chinese Government.
1938 – The League of Nations branded the Japanese as aggressors in China.
1939 – After 19 days of resistance, Warsaw, Poland, surrendered to the Germans after being invaded by the Nazis and the Soviet Union during World War II.
1940 – The Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis was set up. The military and economic pact was for 10 years between Germany, Italy and Japan.
1954 – The “Tonight!” show made its debut on NBC-TV with Steve Allen as host.
1962 – The U.S. sold Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Israel.
1968 – The U.K.’s entry into the European Common Market was barred by France.
1970 – “The Original Amateur Hour” aired for the last time on CBS. It had been on television for 22 years.
1973 – U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew said he would not resign after he pled “no contest” to a charge of tax evasion. He did resign on October 10th.
1979 – The Department of Education became the 13th Cabinet in U.S. history after the final approval from Congress.
1982 – Italian and French soldiers entered the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in Beirut. The move was made by the members of a multinational force due to hundreds of Palestinians being massacred by Christian militiamen.
1983 – Larry Bird signed a seven-year contract with the Boston Celtics worth $15 million. The contract made him the highest paid Celtic in history.
1986 – The U.S. Senate approved federal tax code changes that were the most sweeping since World War II.
1989 – Columbia Pictures Entertainment agreed to buyout Sony Corporation for $3.4 billion.
1989 – Two men went over the 176-foot-high Niagara Falls in a barrel. Jeffrey Petkovich and Peter Debernardi were the first to ever survive the Horshoe Falls.
1990 – The deposed emir of Kuwait addressed the U.N. General Assembly and denounced the “rape, destruction and terror” that Iraq had inflicted upon his country.
1991 – U.S. President George H.W. Bush eliminated all land-based tactical nuclear arms and removed all short-range nuclear arms from ships and submarines around the world. Bush then called on the Soviet Union to do the same.
1994 – More than 350 Republican congressional candidates signed the Contract with America. It was a 10-point platform they pledged to enact if voters sent a GOP majority to the House.
1995 – The U.S. government unveiled the redesigned $100 bill. The bill featured a larger, off-center portrait of Benjamin Franklin.
1998 – In Germany, Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder was elected chancellor. The election ended 16 years of conservative rule.
1998 – Mark McGwire (St. Louis Cardinals) set a major league baseball record when he hit his 70th home run of the season.
2004 – North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon announced that North Korea had turned plutonium from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into nuclear weapons. He also said that the weapons were to serve as a deterrent against increasing U.S. nuclear threats and to prevent nuclear war in northeast Asia. The U.S. State Department noted that the U.S. has repeatedly said that the U.S. has no plans to attack North Korea.
8/2 1939 – U.S. President Roosevelt signed the Hatch Act. The act prohibited civil service employees from taking an active part in political campaigns.
1777 – Philadelphia was occupied by British troops during the American Revolutionary War.
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