First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - AUGUST 2nd

Herman Melville, Quote

“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts”...

~ William Shakespeare

Wikiquote (William Shakespeare (April 26, 1564 (baptised) – April 23, 1616) an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.)

This Day in History

August 2nd, 338 BC

Greece satellite image, credit NASA; Acrocorinth, looking north towards the Gulf of Corinth; Temple of Apollo Ancient Corinth; Early morning lightning illuminates the sky over the 2,500-year-old Ancient Parthenon temple, at the Acropolis hill during a heavy rainfall in Athens

Greek War of Independence:
338 BC - Battle of Chaeronea: a Macedonian army led by Philip II defeated the combined forces of Athens and Thebes, securing Macedonian hegemony in Greece and Aegean.

Wikipedia  Image: Greece satellite image, credit NASA; Acrocorinth, looking north towards the Gulf of Corinth; The Acrocorinth in the background, behind the Temple of Apollo; Temple of Apollo Ancient Corinth; Early morning lightning illuminates the sky over the 2,500-year-old Ancient Parthenon temple, at the Acropolis hill during a heavy rainfall in Athens.

August 2nd, 216 BC

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that began growing on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to become one of the largest empires in the ancient world Roman Empire Decline and Fall of Rome

Roman Empire:
216 BC - Second Punic War, Battle of Cannae: Carthaginian army led by Hannibal defeats a numerically superior Roman army under command of consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro.
461 - Majorian is arrested near Tortona (Northern Italy) and deposed by the Suebian general Ricimer as puppet emperor.

Wikipedia  Photo: ● Ancient roman statue ● Detail of Head from Roman Statue of Antinous, credit Corbis ● Statue of Neptune, Trevi Fountain, Rome ● International Sand Sculpture Festival, FIESA 7 ancient Rome.
Relief from a 3rd-century sarcophagus depicting a battle between Romans and Germanic warriors; the central figure is perhaps the emperor Hostilian / Depiction of the Menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome.

August 2nd, 1790

George Washington, 1st President of the United States, Gilbert Stuart Williamstown Portrait; George Washington at Valley Forge, John Trumbull Portrait

The first U.S, Census is conducted.

Wikipedia  Painting: George Washington, 1st President of the United States, Gilbert Stuart Williamstown Portrait.

August 2nd, 1798

Napoleonic Wars: (1803–15) were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions French Revolutionary Wars, Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay): Battle begins when a British fleet engages the French Revolutionary Navy fleet in an unusual night action

French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1798 - Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay): Battle concludes when a British fleet engages the French Revolutionary Navy fleet in an unusual night action in a British victory.

Wikipedia  Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar; Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806; Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet; Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani); Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo; Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807; Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars; Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen; Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford; Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay).

August 2nd, 1897

Anglo-Afghan wars: one of the first major conflicts during the Great Game, the 19th century competition for power and influence in Asia between the United Kingdom and Russia

Anglo-Afghan wars: Siege of Malakand; ends when a relief column is able to reach the British garrison in the Malakand states adjacent to India's North West Frontier Province.

Wikipedia  Image: Anglo-Afghan wars; Remnants of an Army by Elizabeth Butler depicting William Brydon who was the sole Briton to complete the catastrophic retreat from Kabul; Massacre of Elphinstone's Army (1842 retreat from Kabul), The last stand of the survivors of Her Majesty's 44th Foot at Gandamak, painted by William Barnes Wollen in 1898; Siege of Malakand, Pashtun troops in the area around Malakand South

August 2nd, 1903

Byzantine Empire Collage

Ottoman Empire (Turkish Empire or Turkey):
1903 - Fall of the Ottoman Empire; an unsuccessful uprising led by the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization against Ottoman Turkey, also known as the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising .

Wikipedia  Image: Ottoman Empire Maximal extent with the vassal states of the Ottoman Empire in AD 1590s; Battle of Kosovo (1389); Fall of Constantinople (1453); Sultan Mehmed I Ottoman miniature, 1413-1421; Fall of Constantinople (1453); Siege of Rhodes (1522); Battle of Kosovo (1389); Battle of Mohács (1526).

August 2nd, 1922

In meteorology, a cyclone is an area of closed, circular fluid motion rotating in the same direction as the Earth (This is usually characterized by inward spiraling winds that rotate counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere of the Earth)

Cyclone:
1922 - Typhoon hits Shantou, Republic of China (Taiwan) killing more than 50,000 people.

Wikipedia  Image: In meteorology, a cyclone is an area of closed, circular fluid motion rotating in the same direction as the Earth (This is usually characterized by inward spiraling winds that rotate counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere of the Earth) ● Emergency Management, Australian Government. ● Global tropical cyclone tracks. ● Emergency Information, Burdenkin Shire.

August 2nd, 1939

Albert Einstein Collage: (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the general theory of relativity, effecting a revolution in physics

World War II, Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd write a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear weapon.

Wikipedia  Picture: Albert Einstein Nobel Prize in Physics; Einstein at the age of three in 1882; The mathematician, physicist 1947; Einstein's theory of special relativity; Albert and Elsa Einstein in 1933; Conrad Habicht, Olympia Academy founders, Maurice Solovine and Einstein.

August 2nd, 1943

World War II, The Holocaust

World War II: Holocaust;
1943 - Rebellion in the Nazi death camp of Treblinka.

Wikipedia  Photo: World War II, The Holocaust. Sources: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum USHMM, History 1900s, Internet Masters of Education Technology IMET, Techno Friends, Veterans Today, Concern.

August 2nd, 1943

World War II: Second firestorm raid on Germany, the Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless World War II: Battle of Leyte Gulf; Battle of Leyte Gulf; The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200-kilogram (440 lb) bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island World War II: German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944) World War II: Eastern Front (World War II); was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945

World War II:
1943 - The Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 is rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri and sinks. Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, future U.S. President, saves all but two of his crew.
1944 - Convoy HX 300; The largest trade convoy of the world wars arrives safely in the Western Approaches.

Wikipedia  Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945.
USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.

Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.

August 2nd, 1947

Airliners Crash: ● Pan AM 747 ● U.S. Airways flight 1549 also known as the 'Miracle on the Hudson' navigates an exit ramp near Burlington, New Jersey, June 5, 2011 ● Passengers stand on the wings of a U.S. Airways plane as a ferry pulls up to it after it landed in the Hudson River in New York, Reuters ● US Airways plane crashes into New York Hudson River, Photo: AP

Aviation accidents and incidents:
1947 - BSAA Star Dust accident; British South American Airways Avro Lancastrian airliner crashes into a mountain during a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Santiago, Chile. The wreckage would not be found for over 50 years.
1985 - Delta Air Lines Flight 191; a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar crashes at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport killing 137.
2005 - Air France Flight 358; lands at Toronto Pearson International Airport, and runs off the runway causing the plane to burst into flames leaving 12 injuries and no fatalities.

Wikipedia  Photo: ● Pan AM 747 ● U.S. Airways flight 1549 also known as the "Miracle on the Hudson" navigates an exit ramp near Burlington, New Jersey, June 5, 2011 ● Passengers stand on the wings of a U.S. Airways plane as a ferry pulls up to it after it landed in the Hudson River in New York, Reuters ● US Airways plane crashes into New York Hudson River, Photo: AP

August 2nd, 1964

Vietnam War: Operation Swift; U.S. Marines engage the North Vietnamese in battle in the Que Son Valley Vietnam War, Gulf of Tonkin incident: North Vietnamese gunboats allegedly fire on the U.S. destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy

Vietnam War:
1964 - Gulf of Tonkin incident; North Vietnamese gunboats allegedly fire on the U.S. destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy.

Wikipedia  Photo: Vietnam_War; Side view of an HH-53 helicopter of the 40th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron as seen from the gunner's position on an A-1 of the 21st Specialist Operations Squadron. (USAF Photo by Ken Hackman), Boston Globe;
● Gulf of Tonkin Incident Documentary ● Political Cartoon.
Vietnam War: The Big Picture / Boston Globe.

August 2nd, 1968

Global Earthquake epicenters

Earthquake:
1968 - An earthquake hits Casiguran, Aurora, Philippines killing more than 270 people and wounding 261.

Wikipedia  Image: Preliminary Determination of Epicenters / Aleppo Syria; Anchorage, Alaska - March 28, 1964 Prince William Sound USA earthquake and tsunami; 8.9 Mega Earthquake Strikes Japan; Tsunami Swirls Japan's Ibaraki Prefecture March 12 2011. credit NOAA / NGDC, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, USGS, National Geographics.

August 2nd, 1980

List of modern conflicts in the Middle East

Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
1980 - Bologna massacre; A bomb explodes at the railway station in Bologna, Italy, killing 85 people and wounding more than 200.
1989 - Valvettiturai massacre; A massacre is carried out by an Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka killing 64 ethnic Tamil civilians.

Wikipedia  Photo: Middle East satellite image, NASA. ● Camels are seen early morning on a beach in the Marina area of Dubai October 16, 2008. (Steve Crisp, Reuters) ● A portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad burns during clashes between rebels and Syrian troops in Selehattin, near Aleppo, on July 23, 2012. (Bulent Kilic, AFP / GettyImages) ● Egyptians gather in their thousands in Tahrir Square to mark the one year anniversary of the revolution on Jan. 25, 2012 in Cairo Egypt. Tens of thousands have gathered in the square on the first anniversary of the Arab uprising which toppled President Hosni Mubarak. (Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images) ● Black smoke rises above the Tehran skyline as supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi burn tires and other material in the streets as they fight running battles with police to protest the declared results of the Iranian presidential election in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 13, 2009. (Ben Curtis, AP) ● The Iron Dome defense system fires to interecpt incoming missiles from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov, AP)

August 2nd, 1990

Iraq War: The Persian Gulf War (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991), codenamed Operation Desert Storm (17 January 1991 – 28 February 1991) commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a UN-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait

Gulf War - Iraq War:
1990 - Iraq invades Kuwait.

Wikipedia  Photo: USAF F-15Es, F-16s, and a USAF F-15 flying over burning Kuwaiti oil wells; Iraqi Army T-72 main battle tanks. The T-72 tank was a common Iraqi battle tank used in the Gulf War; F-15Es parked during Operation Desert Shield; The oil fires caused were a result of the scorched earth policy of Iraqi military forces retreating from Kuwait; Aerial view of destroyed Iraqi T-72 tank, BMP-1 and Type 63 armored personnel carriers and trucks on Highway 8 in March 1991.