Today In History - August 2

257 St. Stephen I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
640 Severinus ends his reign as Catholic Pope
686 John V ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1375 The first roller skating rink opens: London, England
1492 The Jews are expelled from Spain by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella
1776 The formal signing of the Declaration of Independence
1798 The British beat the French at Battle of Nile
1819 The first parachute jump in US
1832 1,300 Illinois militia defeat Sac and Fox Indians and end the Black Hawk War
1832 Whites massacre Indians in Battle of Bad Axe River Wisconsin
1858 The first street mailboxes appear in the US: Boston
1873 The first trial run of San Francisco cable car: Clay Street between Kearny and Jones
1876 Wild Bill Hickok is shot dead from behind by 'the cowardly' Jack McCall while playing poker. He held a pair of Aces and a pair of 8's – now called the 'dead man's hand.'
1877 The San Francisco Public Library opens with 5,000 volumes
1903 Unsuccessful uprising of Macedonians against Turkey
1909 The first Lincoln-head pennies are minted
1909 Army Air Corps is formed as the Army takes its first delivery from Wright Brothers
1939 Hatch Act prohibits political activity by federal workers
1941 The Jews are expelled from Hungarian Ruthenia
1943 PT-109 is rammed and sunk
1961 The Beatles first gig as the house band of Liverpool's Cavern Club
1964 North Vietnam fires on a US destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin
1965 Morley Safer's sends first Vietnam report indicating that we are losing
1972 Gold hits record $70 an ounce in London
1985 Five people die in a train crash in Westminster, CO
1985 NASA launches space vehicle S-209
1987 Michael Andretti runs fastest the Indy car race in history: 171.49 MPH
1990 Iraq invades and occupies Kuwait
1991 Funk singer Rick James is arrested on sexual torture charges
1991 Actress Hedy Lamaar is arrested for shoplifting in LA at age 77
1991 Space shuttle STS 43 (Atlantis 9) is launched

1696 Mahmud I, the Ottoman sultan
1754 Pierre Charles L'Enfant (the French architect who designed Washington, DC)
1832 Henry Steel Olcott
1878 Princess Ingeborg of Sweden
1891 Sir Arthur Bliss
1892 John Kieran
1905 Myrna Loy
1910 Lou Zara
1914 Gary Merrill
1916 Beatrice Straight
1922 Carroll O'Connor
1922 Paul Laxalt
1924 James Baldwin
1926 Betsy Bloomingdale
1932 Lamar Hunt
1932 Peter O'Toole
1934 Albert W. Hall
1934 Valery Bykovsky
1937 William Cannon
1938 Brunhilde Hendrix
1939 Edward Pattern
1940 Doris Kenner
1942 Garth Hudson
1944 Joanna Cassidy
1946 Bob Beamon
1949 Bertalan Farkas
1951 Andrew Gold
1952 Paul David Crews
1955 Roberta Wallach
1956 Isabel Pantoja
1959 Britt Helfer
1967 Derek Wells
1973 Kia Goodwin
1977 Edward Furlong
1991 Gabriel Anthony Cohen