THIS DATE IN HISTORY
Today is Saturday, Aug. 3, the 216th day of 2024. There are 150 days left in the year. On this date in:
1492: Columbus sailed the ocean blue, launching from the port of Palos in Spain with the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. The explorer hoped to find a western sea route to the spice-rich countries of Asia.
1888: Rubber baron Benjamin Franklin Goodrich died at age 46. Goodrich served as an Army surgeon in the Civil War, then bought Hudson River Rubber for $5,000 with Charles Goodyear. Both this and his next company failed, but not the third, Goodrich, Tew and Co., in Akron, Ohio, which made products like fire hoses and bicycle tires.
1905: Senior rights activist Maggie Kuhn was born. She founded the Gray Panthers after being forced to retire due to her age.
1908: Two young clergymen discovered a nearly complete Neanderthal skeleton in a cave in La Chapelle-auxSaints, France. The “Old Man” died at about 40 from a blow to the head. A paleontologist depicted the man as bow-legged and hunched – a stereotype that persists to this day; in fact, the skeleton was arthritic.
1914: Two days after declaring war on Russia, Germany declared war on France, which had refused to promise neutrality. France had a total military manpower of 1.3 million soldiers compared with Germany’s 1.9 million, according to Britannica. That night, Germany invaded Belgium.
1921: Eight Chicago White Sox players were barred for life from baseball due to accusations that they took bribes to lose the 1919 World Series. They had been acquitted at trial the day before, but baseball commissioner Kenesaw
Mountain Landis said that even just meeting with gamblers irrevocably tainted the players.
1923: Vice President Calvin Coolidge became president after the unexpected death of President Warren Harding. He swore the oath of office on the family Bible to his father, a notary public. A Vermonter, Coolidge was known for his Yankee frugality and taciturnity.
1936: American Jesse Owens won the 100-meter dash, the first of his four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics. As a Black athlete, his success was a slap in the face to Hitler’s racist policies.
1948: Victoria Manalo Draves became the first Asian American to win Olympic gold, in 3-meter springboard diving. Her first coach required the Filipino American athlete to train by herself, not with white divers, and to use her white mother’s last name.
1958: The USS Nautilus, the Navy’s first atomic-powered submarine, became the first submarine to travel under the 10- to 15-foot ice of the North Pole. The sailors created a post office and made a North Pole stamp to cancel their letters.
1960: The Republic of Niger gained independence from France. U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent his congratulations to Prime Minister Hamani Diori.
1982: Michael Hardwick of Georgia was arrested and jailed for “sodomy” after police found him having sex at home with another man. Hardwick challenged the constitutionality of the law in a 1986 Supreme Court case, Bowers v. Hardwick, and won.
1996: Ayyyy, Macarena! The catchy rumba remix topped the Billboard Hot 100, where it stayed for 14 weeks.