| On this date in: |
| 216 |
During the Second Punic War, Carthaginian forces led by Hannibal defeated the Roman army in the Battle of Cannae. |
| 1776 |
Members of the Continental Congress began signing the Declaration of Independence. |
| 1876 |
Frontiersman “Wild Bill” Hickok was shot and killed while playing poker at a saloon in Deadwood in present-day South Dakota. |
| 1923 |
President Warren G. Harding died of a heart attack in San Francisco at age 57. |
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| AP Photo |
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| 1934 |
German President Paul von Hindenburg died, paving the way for Adolf Hitler’s complete takeover. |
| 1939 |
Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program. |
| 1943 |
PT-109, a Navy patrol torpedo boat commanded by Lt. John F. Kennedy, sank after being sheared in two by a Japanese destroyer off the Solomon Islands. Kennedy was credited with saving members of the crew. |
| 1945 |
President Harry S. Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Clement Attlee concluded the Potsdam conference. |
| 1964 |
The Pentagon reported the first of two attacks on U.S. destroyers by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. |
| 1985 |
A Delta Air Lines jumbo jet crashed while attempting to land at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, killing 137 people. |
| 2000 |
Republicans nominated Texas Gov. George W. Bush for president and Dick Cheney for vice president at the party’s convention in Philadelphia. |
| 2007 |
Mattel recalled nearly a million Chinese-made toys from its Fisher-Price division that were found to have excessive amounts of lead. |
| 2011 |
The Senate passed, and President Barack Obama signed, legislation to avoid an unprecedented national default. |
