1. In 1930, the notorious bank robber John Dillinger was shot and killed by FBI agents outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago. Dillinger, a native of Indianapolis, Indiana, had been on the run from the law for over a year and was known as Public Enemy No. 1.
2. On August 2, 1826, a group of settlers led by Samuel and John Hanna established the town of Fort Wayne in northeastern Indiana. The town was named after General Anthony Wayne, a Revolutionary War hero who had defeated the British in the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794.
3. The Indiana State Fair, one of the largest state fairs in the country, normally begins on August 2 or shortly thereafter. The fair features a wide variety of attractions, including concerts, carnival rides, livestock competitions, and agricultural exhibits.
4. In 1945, the USS Indianapolis, a Portland-class heavy cruiser, was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine in the Philippine Sea. Of the 1,196 sailors and Marines on board, only 316 survived the sinking and the subsequent five-day ordeal in the water. The tragedy was one of the worst naval disasters in U.S. history.
5. On August 2, 2005, American astronaut Charles Camarda, a native of Queens, New York, made his first spaceflight aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. Camarda, who had previously worked for NASA as a materials scientist, was a mission specialist on the STS-114 mission, which was the first shuttle flight after the Columbia disaster in 2003.
5 Fun Facts About August 2 In Indiana History
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