On This Day for August 2 - Kuwait invaded, Peter O'Toole is featured, and more

Created: 2020-08-02 10:02 Updated: 2020-08-02 10:02 Notebook: On this Day in History

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August 02

FEATURED BIOGRAPHY

Peter O'Toole

Persian Gulf War: U.S. Navy F-14A Tomcat

FEATURED EVENT

1990

Kuwait invaded

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MORE EVENTS ON THIS DAY

2016: Chemist Ahmed H. Zewail, who in 1999 became the first Egyptian and the first Arab to win a Nobel Prize in a science category (chemistry), died in Pasadena, California. [ Take our quiz about the Nobel Prize.]

1997: American writer William S. Burroughs—whose sexual explicitness and the frankness with which he dealt with his experiences as a drug addict won him a following among writers of the Beat movement—died in Kansas. [ Test your knowledge of American writers.]

1992: At the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, American athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee, considered by many to be the greatest female athlete ever, won the heptathlon , becoming the first person to win the event in consecutive Games. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about the Olympics.]

1924: American essayist, novelist, and playwright James Baldwin, who wrote with eloquence and passion on the subject of racism in the United States, was born. [Test your knowledge of African American writers.]

1876: Wild Bill Hickok—a frontiersman, marksman, gambler, and legend of the American West—was murdered in the city of Deadwood, in what is now South Dakota.

1943: PT-109, a U.S. Navy torpedo boat under John F. Kennedy's command, was sunk by a Japanese destroyer during World War II. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about World War II.]

SEE ALL EVENTS ON THIS DAY

ALSO BORN ON THIS DAY

1964

Mary-Louise Parker
American actress

1932

Peter O'Toole
Irish actor

1939

Wes Craven
American director and screenwriter

1924

James Baldwin
American author

1905

Myrna Loy
American actress