01 August History
- 902 - The Aghlabid rulers of Ifriqiyah (modern day Tunisia) capture Taormina, Sicily.
- 1096 - The crusaders under Peter the Hermit reach Constantinople.
- 1464 - Piero de Medici succeeds his father, Cosimo, as ruler of Florence.
- 1664 - The Turkish army is defeated by French and German troops at St. Gotthard, Hungary.
- 1689 - James II's 15-week siege of Londonderry, Ireland, ends in failure.It was a shaken and demoralized English column that returned to its northern Irish base at Newry on the evening of May 28, 1595.
- 1740 - Thomas Arne's song "Rule Britannia" is performed for the first time.
- 1759 - British and Hanoverian armies defeat the French at the Battle of Minden, Germany.
- 1790 - The first enumeration by the U.S. Census Bureau is completed. It shows a population of 3,939,326 located in 16 states and the Ohio territory. Virginia is the most populous state with 747,610 inhabitants. The census compilation cost $44,377.
- 1791 - Robert Carter III, a Virginia plantation owner, frees all 500 of his slaves in the largest private emancipation in U.S. history.An 1839 mutiny aboard a Spanish ship in Cuban waters raised basic questions about freedom and slavery in the United States.
- 1798 - Admiral Horatio Nelson routs the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile at Aboukir Bay, Egypt.
- 1801 - The American schooner Enterprise captures the Barbary cruiser Tripoli.Often venturing into harm's way, America's most famous sailing ship, the Constitution, twice came close to oblivion.
- 1834 - Slavery is abolished throughout the British Empire.
- 1864 - Union General Ulysses S. Grant gives general Philip H. Sheridan the mission of clearing the Shenandoah Valley of Confederate forces.After nearly 10 months of trench warfare, Confederate resistance at Petersburg, Virginia, suddenly collapsed.
- 1872 - The first long-distance gas pipeline in the U.S. is completed. Designed for natural gas, the two-inch pipe ran five miles from Newton Wells to Titusville, Pennsylvania.
- 1873 - San Francisco's first cable cars begin running, operated by Hallidie's Clay Street Hill Railroad Company.
- 1880 - Sir Frederick Roberts frees the British Afghanistan garrison of Kandahar from Afghan rebels.
- 1893 - A machine for making shredded wheat breakfast cereal is patented.
- 1914 - Germany declares war on Russia.
- 1937 - The Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany becomes operational.The Nuremberg Trial brought high-ranking Nazis to justice.
- 1939 - Synthetic vitamin K is produced for the first time.
- 1941 - The Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo plane makes its first flight.
- 1942 - Ensign Henry C. White, while flying a J4F Widgeon plane, sinks U-166 as it approaches the Mississippi River, the first U-boat sunk by the U.S. Coast Guard.
- 1943 - Over 177 B-24 Liberator bombers attack the oil fields in Ploesti, Rumania, for a second time.
- 1944 - The Polish underground begins an uprising against the occupying German army, as the Red Army approaches Warsaw.
- 1950 - Lead elements of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division arrive in Korea from the United States.
- 1954 - The Geneva Accords divide Vietnam into two countries at the 17th parallel.
- 1964 - Arthur Ashe becomes the first African-American to play on the U.S. Davis Cup tennis team.
01 August Birthdays
- 10 BC - Claudius, Roman Emperor
- 1770 - William Clark, American explorer, led the Corps of Discovery with Meriwether Lewis.
- 1779 - Francis Scott Key, author of the "Star Spangled Banner."
- 1818 - Maria Mitchell, the first female astronomer in the U.S.
- 1819 - Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick
- 1942 - Jerry Garcia, lead singer of the Grateful Dead.
- 1951 - Jim Carroll, musician and writer of The Basketball Diaries.