03 August History
- 1347 - Six burghers of the surrounded French city of Calais surrender to Edward III of England in hopes of relieving the siege.
- 1492 - Christopher Columbus leaves Spain on his voyage to the new world.
- 1546 - French printer Etienne Dolet, accused of heresy, blasphemy and sedition, is hanged and burned at the stake for printing reformist literature.
- 1553 - Mary Tudor, the new Queen of England, enters London.
- 1610 - Henry Hudson of England discovers a great bay on the east coast of Canada and names it for himself.
- 1692 - French forces under Marshal Luxembourg defeat the English at the Battle of Steenkerke in the Netherlands.
- 1805 - Mohammed Ali becomes the new ruler of Egypt.
- 1807 - The trial of Aaron Burr begins. He is accused of plotting the secession of New England.
- 1864 - Federal gunboats attack but do not capture Fort Gains, at the mouth of Mobile Bay, Alabama.
- 1882 - Congress passes the Immigration Act, banning Chinese immigration for ten years.
- 1908 - Allan Allensworth files the site plan for the first African-American town, Allensworth, California.
- 1911 - Airplanes are used for the first time in a military capacity when Italian planes reconnoiter Turkish lines near Tripoli.
- 1914 - Germany declares war on France.
- 1916 - Sir Roger Casement is hanged for treason in England.
- 1945 - Chinese troops under American General Joseph Stilwell take the town of Myitkyina from the Japanese.
- 1958 - The first nuclear submarine USS Nautilus passes under the North Pole.
- 1967 - President Lyndon B. Johnson announces plans to send 45,000 more troops to Vietnam.
03 August Birthdays
- 1867 - Stanley Baldwin, British Prime Minister during the general strike of 1926.
- 1887 - Rupert Brooke, English poet who mainly wrote about World War I.
- 1900 - Ernie Pyle, World War II correspondent who wrote about the common soldier.
- 1905 - Maggie Kuhn, social activist and founder of "The Gray Panthers."
- 1909 - Walter Van Tilberg, Western novelist who wrote The Ox-Bow Incident.
- 1920 - P.D. James (Phyllis Dorothy James), British mystery writer.
- 1924 - Leon Uris, writer whose works include Battle Cry and Exodus.