12 History Lessons + 7 Births & 7 Deaths for September 2, 2025
Today’s History:
- 31 BCE – Battle of Actium: Octavian defeats Mark Antony and Cleopatra.
- 1666 – Great Fire of London begins on Pudding Lane.
- 1752 – Britain and its colonies adopt the Gregorian calendar; Sept 2 is followed by Sept 14.
- 1789 – The U.S. Department of the Treasury is established by Congress.
- 1864 – Union General William T. Sherman captures Atlanta.
- 1901 – Theodore Roosevelt uses the maxim “Speak softly and carry a big stick” at the Minnesota State Fair.
- 1935 – Catastrophic Labor Day Hurricane devastates the Florida Keys.
- 1945 – Japan signs the Instrument of Surrender aboard USS Missouri, ending WWII.
- 1963 – CBS Evening News expands to 30 minutes with Walter Cronkite.
- 1998 – Swissair Flight 111 crashes off Nova Scotia; 229 perish.
- 2008 – Google launches the Chrome web browser (beta).
- 2019 – Dive boat Conception fire near Santa Cruz Island, California, kills 34.
Today’s Birthdays:
- 1948 – Terry Bradshaw, American NFL quarterback & broadcaster (77).
- 1951 – Mark Harmon, American actor (NCIS) (74).
- 1952 – Jimmy Connors, American tennis champion (73).
- 1964 – Keanu Reeves, Canadian actor (The Matrix, John Wick) (61).
- 1965 – Lennox Lewis, British-Canadian heavyweight boxing champion (60).
- 1966 – Salma Hayek, Mexican-American actress/producer (Frida) (59).
- 1971 – Katt Williams, American stand-up comedian and actor (54).
Today’s Deaths:
- 1937 – Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games (74).
- 1969 – Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese revolutionary leader and president (79).
- 1973 – J. R. R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings (81).
- 1992 – Barbara McClintock, Nobel Prize–winning geneticist (90).
- 2001 – Christiaan Barnard, surgeon who performed the first human heart transplant (78).
- 2001 – Troy Donahue, American film/TV actor (65).
- 2005 – Bob Denver, American actor (“Gilligan” on Gilligan’s Island) (70).
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