August 2

August 2

Events

• 216 BC – The Carthaginian army led by Hannibal defeats a numerically superior Roman army at the Battle of Cannae.

• 1274 – Edward I of England returns from the Ninth Crusade and is crowned King seventeen days later.

• 1377 – Russian troops are defeated by forces of the Blue Horde Khan Arapsha in the Battle on Pyana River.

• 1858 – The Government of India Act 1858 replaces Company rule in India with that of the British Raj.

• 1897 – Anglo-Afghan War: The Siege of Malakand ends when a relief column is able to reach the British garrison in the Malakand states.
• 1903 – The Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising against the Ottoman Empire begins.

• 1989 – Pakistan is re-admitted to the Commonwealth of Nations after having restored democracy for the first time since 1972.

• 1989 – A massacre is carried out by an Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka killing 64 ethnic Tamil civilians.
• 1990 – Iraq invades Kuwait, eventually leading to the Gulf War.
• 1999 – The Gaisal train disaster claims 285 lives in Assam, India.

Births

• 1696 – Mahmud I, Ottoman sultan (d. 1754)

• 1868 – Constantine I of Greece (d. 1923)

• 1963 – Uğur Tütüneker, Turkish footballer and manager

• 1972 – Mohamed Al-Deayea, Saudi Arabian footballer

• 1976 – Mohammad Zahid, Pakistani cricketer

Deaths

• 216 BC – Gnaeus Servilius Geminus, Roman consul
• 216 BC – Lucius Aemilius Paullus, Roman consul and general
• 216 BC – Marcus Minucius Rufus, Roman consul

• 855 – Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Arab theologian and jurist (b. 780)
• 1277 – Mu'in al-Din Sulaiman Pervane, Chancellor and Regent of the Sultanate of Rum

• 1849 – Muhammad Ali of Egypt, Ottoman Albanian commander (b. 1769)

• 1996 – Mohamed Farrah Aidid, Somalian general and politician, 5th President of Somalia (b. 1934)^[21]

• 1997 – Fela Kuti, Nigerian singer-songwriter and activist (b. 1938)

• 2016 – Ahmed Zewail, Egyptian-American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1946)

Holidays and Observances