Today in History, August 1

Every day is flush with history. August 1^st is certainly no exception.

1498 - Christopher Columbus lands at Venezuela (then "Isle Santa")

1588 - English Admiral Howard van Effingham defeats the Spanish Armada

1589 - Attempted murder of French King Hendrik III by the monk Jacques Clement

1619 - In Jamestown, Virginia, the first black Americans land, totaling twenty

1628 - Emperor Ferdinand II demands that Austria Protestants convert to Catholicism

1711 - Czar Peter the Great flees Azov

1714 - Monarch Georg Ludwig becomes King George I of England

1732 - The Bank of England's foundation is laid

1774 - Oxygen is discovered by Joseph Priestly

1780 - Sweden declares neutrality

1781 - English army under General Cornwallis occupies Yorktown, Virginia

1785 - The first woman to discover a comet is Caroline Herschel

1789 - The United States Customs begins to enforce the Tariff Act

1790 - The first U.S. census is conducted and reveals a population of 3,939,214

1793 - France becomes the first country to use the metric system

1794 - The beginning of the Whiskey Rebellion

1812 - Westchester County, New York is hit by a rare tornado

1831 - London Bridge opens to traffic

1834 - Slavery is abolished in all of the British Empire

1836 - Charles Darwin returns with the HMS Beagle to Bahia Brazil

1855 - In New York City Castle Clinton, the first receiving station for immigrants in the United States, opens

1869 - The first voyage on the Colorado River

1876 - Colorado becomes the 38th state

1881 - U.S. Quarantine Station authorized for Angel Island, San Francisco Bay

1886 - Kermadec-Island near New Zealand is annexed by Great Britain

1893 - Shredded wheat is patented by Henry Perky and William Ford

1914 - Germany declares war on Russia (Germany has ally in Austria-Hungary) - Germany demands that Russia's ally, France remains neutral - France refuses and mobilizes

1916 - Hawaii National Park forms

1933 - It is declared that anti fascists in Germany receive the death penalty

1936 - Adolph Hitler opens the 11th Olympic Games in Berlin

1942 - Race riots in Harlem, New York

1944 - The date of Anne Frank's last diary entry; she is arrested three days later