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Today in history: Aug. 3
- Updated
A gunman opened fire at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, leaving 22 people dead, and more events that happened on this day in history.
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1863: Saratoga Race Course
In 1863, the first thoroughbred horse races took place at the Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York.
AP1936: Jesse Owens
In 1936, Jesse Owens of the United States won the first of his four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics as he took the 100-meter sprint.
AP1949: The National Basketball Association
In 1949, the National Basketball Association was formed as a merger of the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League.
AP1958: USS Nautilus
In 1958, the nuclear-powered submarine USS Nautilus became the first vessel to cross the North Pole underwater.
AP1981: U.S. Air Traffic Controllers
In 1981, U.S. air traffic controllers went on strike, despite a warning from President Ronald Reagan they would be fired, which they were.
AP1993: Ruth Bader Ginsburg
In 1993, the Senate voted 96-to-three to confirm Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
AP1994: Stephen G. Breyer
In 1994, Stephen G. Breyer was sworn in as the Supreme Court’s newest justice in a private ceremony at Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist’s Vermont summer home.
AP2010: Manchester, Connecticut
Ten years ago: A warehouse driver killed eight co-workers and himself in a shooting rampage at a Manchester, Connecticut, beer distributorship.
AP2010: The Gulf of Mexico
Ten years ago: Engineers began pumping heavy drilling mud into the blown-out Gulf of Mexico oil well in an attempt to permanently plug the leak.
AP2015: Barack Obama
Five years ago: Seeking to clamp down on power plant emissions, President Barack Obama unveiled a federal plan that would attempt to slow global warming by dramatically shifting the way Americans get and use electricity; opponents denounced the proposal as an egregious federal overreach that would send power prices surging, and vowed lawsuits and legislation to try to stop it.
AP2019: El Paso, Texas
One year ago: A gunman opened fire at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, leaving 22 people dead; prosecutors said Patrick Crusius targeted Mexicans in hopes of scaring Latinos into leaving the U.S., and that he had outlined the plot in a screed published online shortly before the attack. (Crusius has pleaded not guilty to state murder charges; he also faces federal hate crime and gun charges.)
AP