By The Associated Press

Today in History

Today is Monday, Aug. 2, the 214th day of 2021. There are 151 days left in the year.

Todayís Highlight in History:

On August 2, 1939, Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program.

On this date:

In 1610, during his fourth voyage to the Western Hemisphere, English explorer Henry Hudson sailed into what is now known as Hudson Bay.

In 1776, members of the Second Continental Congress began attaching their signatures to the Declaration of Independence.

In 1862, the Ambulance Corps for the Army of the Potomac was created at the order of Maj. Gen. George McClellan during the Civil War.

In 1873, inventor Andrew S. Hallidie (HAHí-lih-day) successfully tested a cable car he had designed for the city of San Francisco.

In 1921, a jury in Chicago acquitted several former members of the Chicago White Sox baseball team and two others of conspiring to defraud the public in the notorious ìBlack Soxî scandal. Opera singer Enrico Caruso, 48, died in Naples, Italy.

In 1922, Alexander Graham Bell, generally regarded as the inventor of the telephone, died in Nova Scotia, Canada, at age 75.

In 1923, the 29th president of the United States, Warren G. Harding, died in San Francisco; Vice President Calvin Coolidge became president.

In 1934, German President Paul von Hindenburg died, paving the way for Adolf Hitlerís complete takeover.

In 1945, President Harry S. Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and Britainís new prime minister, Clement Attlee, concluded the Potsdam conference.

In 1980, 85 people were killed when a bomb exploded at the train station in Bologna, Italy.

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