Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date
Monday, August 3, 2026
Today is the 215th day of 2026. There are 150 days left in this year.
Notable Events
1492
Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, on a voyage that would take him to the present-day Americas.
1852
Harvard University wins the first Boat Race between Yale University and Harvard. The race is also known as the first ever American intercollegiate athletic event.
1900
The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is founded.
1914
Germany declares war against France, while Romania declares its neutrality.
1921
Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis confirms the ban of the eight Chicago Black Sox, the day after they were acquitted by a Chicago court.
1923
Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as the 30th president of the United States, following the death of Warren G. Harding.
1936
Jesse Owens wins the 100 metre dash, defeating Ralph Metcalfe, at the Berlin Olympics.
1939
A fire wipes out Kursha-2 in the Meshchera Lowlands, Ryazan Oblast, Russia, killing 1,200 and leaving only 20 survivors.
1943
Gen. George S. Patton slapped a private at an army hospital in Sicily, accusing him of cowardice. Patton was later ordered by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to apologize for this and a second, similar episode.
1946
Santa Claus Land, the world's first themed amusement park, opens in Santa Claus, Indiana, United States.
1948
Whittaker Chambers, a former Communist, publicly accused former State Department official Alger Hiss of having been part of a Communist underground, a charge Hiss denied.
1949
The Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League finalize the merger that would create the National Basketball Association.
1958
The nuclear-powered submarine Nautilus became the first vessel to cross the North Pole underwater.
1959
Portugal's state police force PIDE fires upon striking workers in Bissau, Portuguese Guinea, killing over 50 people.
1975
A privately chartered Boeing 707 strikes a mountain peak and crashes near Agadir, Morocco, killing 188.
1977
Tandy Corporation announces the TRS-80, one of the world's first mass-produced personal computers.
1981
U.S. air traffic controllers went on strike, despite a warning from President Reagan they would be fired.
1988
The Iran-Contra congressional hearings ended, with none of the 29 witnesses tying President Reagan directly to the diversion of arms-sales profits to Nicaraguan rebels.
1988
The Soviet Union released Mathias Rust, the young West German pilot who had landed a light plane in Moscow's Red Square in May 1987.
1993
The Senate voted 96-3 to confirm Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
1994
Stephen G. Breyer was sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in a private ceremony at Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's Vermont summer home.
1997
The tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere, Sky Tower in downtown Auckland, New Zealand, opens after two-and-a-half years of construction.
2004
The pedestal of the Statue of Liberty reopens after being closed since the September 11 attacks.
2010
Widespread rioting erupts in Karachi, Pakistan, after the assassination of a local politician, leaving at least 85 dead and at least 17 billion Pakistani rupees (US$200 million) in damage.
2014
A 6.1 magnitude earthquake kills at least 617 people and injures more than 2,400 in Yunnan, China.
2018
Two burka-clad men kill 29 people and injure more than 80 in a suicide attack on a Shia mosque in eastern Afghanistan.
2019
Twenty-three people are killed and 22 injured in a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas.
2019
Six hundred protesters, including opposition leader Lyubov Sobol, are arrested in an election protest in Moscow, Russia.
Notable Births
1900
Ernie Pyle was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and war correspondent who is best known for his stories about ordinary American soldiers during World War II. (d. 1945)
1900
John T. Scopes was a teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, who was charged on May 5, 1925, with violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of human evolution in Tennessee schools. He was tried in a case known as the Scopes Trial. (d. 1970)
1902
David Buttolph was an American film composer who scored over 300 movies in his career. (d. 1983)
1904
Dolores del Rio, was a Mexican actress. With a career spanning more than 50 years, she is regarded as the first major female Latin American crossover star in Hollywood. (d. 1983)
1918
Sidney Gottlieb was an American chemist and spymaster who headed the Central Intelligence Agency's 1950s and 1960s assassination attempts and mind-control program, known as Project MKUltra. (d. 1999)
1918
Eddie Jefferson was an American jazz vocalist and lyricist. He is credited as an innovator of vocalese, a musical style in which lyrics are set to an instrumental composition or solo. (d. 1979)
1920
Charlie Shavers was an American jazz trumpeter who played with Dizzy Gillespie, Nat King Cole, Roy Eldridge, Johnny Dodds, Jimmie Noone, Sidney Bechet, Midge Williams, Tommy Dorsey, and Billie Holiday. (d. 1971)
1921
Marilyn Maxwell was an American actress and entertainer. She appeared in several films and radio programs, and entertained the troops during World War II and the Korean War on USO tours with Bob Hope. (d. 1972)
1922
John Eisenhower, American historian, general, and diplomat, 45th United States Ambassador to Belgium (d. 2013)
1923
Jean Hagen was an American actress best known for her role as Lina Lamont in Singin' in the Rain (1952), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. (d. 1977)
1926
Tony Bennett, was an American jazz and traditional pop singer. He received many accolades, including 20 Grammy Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. (d. 2023)
1926
Gordon Scott was an American film and television actor known for his portrayal of the fictional character Tarzan in five films of the Tarzan film series from 1955 to 1960. (d. 2007)
1930
James Komack was an American television producer, director, screenwriter, and actor. He is best known for producing several hit television series, including The Courtship of Eddie's Father, Chico and the Man, and Welcome Back, Kotter. (d. 1997)
1934
Haystacks Calhoun, American wrestler and actor (d. 1989)
1940
Martin Sheen, is an American actor. In a career spanning six decades he received numerous accolades including three Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and four Screen Actors Guild Award.
1941
Martha Stewart, American businesswoman, publisher, and author, founded Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.
1946
John York is an American bassist and guitarist. He is best known for his work with the Byrds.
1950
John Landis is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. He is best known for the comedy films that he has directed.
1951
Jay North is an American actor. His career as a child actor began in the late 1950s. He became a household name for his role as the well-meaning but mischievous Dennis Mitchell on the CBS situation comedy Dennis the Menace.
1959
Martin Atkins is an English drummer, best known for his work in post-punk and industrial groups including Public Image Ltd, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Pigface, and Killing Joke.
1961
Lee Rocker is an American musician. He is a member of the rockabilly revival band Stray Cats.
1963
James Hetfield is an American musician. He is the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, co-founder and a primary songwriter of heavy metal band Metallica.
1963
Ed Roland is an American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as the lead vocalist and primary songwriter of the rock band Collective Soul, along with his brother Dean.
1963
Isaiah Washington is an American actor and film producer. Following a series of film appearances, he came to prominence for portraying Dr. Preston Burke in the first three seasons of the series Grey's Anatomy from 2005 to 2007.
1967
Creme Puff was a cat. She was the oldest cat ever recorded according to the 2010 edition of Guinness World Records, when she died aged 38 years and 3 days. (d. 2005)
1970
Stephen Carpenter is an American musician, known as the co-founder and a guitarist of the alternative metal band Deftones.
1970
Masahiro Sakurai is a Japanese video game director and game designer best known as the creator of the Kirby and Super Smash Bros. series.
1971
DJ Spinderella or simply Spinderella, is an American DJ, rapper and producer. She is best known as a member of the hip-hop group Salt-N-Pepa.
1973
Jay Cutler is a retired American professional bodybuilder. An IFBB pro, Cutler is a four-time Mr. Olympia winner, having won in 2006, 2007, 2009, and 2010.
1977
Tom Brady is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 23 seasons.
1984
Ryan Lochte is an American professional swimmer and 12-time Olympic medalist.
Notable Deaths
1877
William Ogden was an American politician and railroad executive who served as the first Mayor of Chicago. (b. 1805)
1929
Emile Berliner, was a German-American inventor. He is best known for inventing the lateral-cut flat disc record used with a gramophone. He founded the United States Gramophone Company in 1894. (b. 1851)
1966
Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-wheeling, and critical style of comedy which contained satire, politics, religion, sex, and vulgarity. (b. 1925)
1995
Ida Lupino was a British actress, director, writer, and producer. Throughout her 48-year career, she appeared in 59 films and directed eight, working primarily in the United States. (b. 1918)
2001
Christopher Hewett was an English actor and theatre director best known for his role as Lynn Aloysius Belvedere on the ABC sitcom Mr. Belvedere. (b. 1922)
2007
John Gardner was an English spy and thriller novelist, best known for his James Bond continuation novels, and series of Boysie Oakes books. (b. 1926)
2008
Erik Darling was an American singer-songwriter and a folk music artist. He was an important influence on the folk scene in the late 1950s and early 1960s. (b. 1933)
2008
Skip Caray was an American sportscaster, best known for his long career as a radio and television play-by-play announcer for the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball. He was the son of baseball announcer Harry Caray (b. 1939)
2010
Boffy Hebb was an American R&B and soul singer, musician, songwriter, recording artist, and performer known for his 1966 hit entitled "Sunny". (b. 1938)
2011
Bubba Smith, American football player and actor (b. 1945)
2014
Kenny Drew Jr. was an American jazz pianist. His music is known for its hard-swinging bluesy sound and large, two-handed rooty chords contrasting with fast runs. (b. 1958)
2015
Robert Conquest, English-American historian, poet, and academic (b. 1917)
2015
Jef Murray was an American fantasy artist and author best known for his illustrations of works by J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. (b. 1960)
2015
Johanna Quandt was a German billionaire businesswoman and the widow of industrialist Herbert Quandt, who resurrected BMW from bankruptcy. (b. 1926)
2015
Margot Loyola Palacios was a musician, folk singer and researcher of the folklore of Chile and Latin America in general. (b. 1918)
2015
Coleen Gray was an American actress. She was best known for her roles in the films Nightmare Alley (1947), Red River (1948), and Stanley Kubrick's The Killing (1956). (b. 1922)
2020
John Hume was an Irish nationalist politician from Northern Ireland, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the recent political history of Ireland. (b. 1937)
2022
Jackie Walorski was an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for Indiana's 2nd congressional district from 2013 until her death in 2022. (b. 1963)
2023
Bram Moolenaar, Dutch software engineer and activist who was the creator, maintainer, and benevolent dictator for life of Vim, a vi-derivative text editor. (b. 1961)
2023
Mark Margolis, American actor, best known for his portrayal of the character Hector Salamanca in Breaking Bad (2009-2011) and Better Call Saul (2016-2022). His performance in Breaking Bad was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2012. (b. 1939)
2025
Loni Anderson was an American actress best known for her role as Jennifer Marlowe on the CBS sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati from 1978–1982. Her performance earned her two Emmy and three Golden Globe nominations. (b. 1945)