August 1: Warsaw Uprising begins, MTV debuts on cable

August 2, 9:02 PMPortland History ExaminerNatalie Leavitt

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Maine Fast Fact: Delegates met in Portland in October 1819 for three weeks to create the State Constitution for Maine’s official statehood the next March.

Births:

• 1770: William Clark, American explorer, led the exploration of the Louisiana Purchase with Meriwether Lewis
• 1779: Francis Scott Key, American lawyer, writer of the “Star-Spangled Banner”
• 1819: Herman Melville, American writer, author of Moby Dick
• 1933: Dom DeLuise, American actor and comedian
• 1942: Jerry Garcia, American musician, part of the group The Grateful Dead
• 1959: Joe Elliott, English musician, part of the group Def Leppard
• 1963: Coolio, American rapper; John Carroll Lynch, American actor
• 1964: Adam Duritz, American musician, part of the group Counting Crows
• 1969: David Wain, American actor
• 1973: Tempestt Bledsoe, American actress, known for her part as Vanessa Huxtable on the television series The Cosby Show

Deaths:

• 1903: Calamity Jane, American frontierswoman

History:

• 1498: Christopher Columbus visits Venezuela, the first European to do so.
• 1619: The first African slaves arrive in Jamestown, Virginia.
• 1790: The first U.S. census is taken, showing nearly 4 million people.
• 1800: The Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merge into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
• 1834: The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 takes effect and abolishes slavery in the British Empire.
• 1838: Non-laborer slaves in the British Empire are emancipated.
• 1840: Laborer slaves in the British Empire are emancipated.
• 1876: Colorado becomes the 38th U.S. state.
• 1902: The U.S. buys the rights to the Panama Canal from France.
• 1914: Germany declares war on Russia, beginning World War I; the Swiss Army mobilizes because of the start of the war.
• 1936: Adolf Hitler is saluted by 100,000 people on his entrance at the opening of the Berlin Olympics.
• 1944: Anne Frank writes the last entry in her diary; the Warsaw Uprising, an uprising by the Polish Home Army, breaks out to end the Nazi occupation of Poland during World War II.
• 1948: Canada and the United States establish the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).
• 1964: The Belgian Congo is renamed the Republic of the Congo.
• 1967: Israel takes control of East Jerusalem.
• 1981: MTV begins broadcasting in the U.S. and airs “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles as its first music video.
• 1988: Rush Limbaugh starts hosting his national radio show.
• 1996: Michael Johnson breaks a world record at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia when he runs the 200m race in 19.32 seconds, beating the previous record by 0.30 seconds.
• 2007: The I-35W Mississippi River Bridge crossing the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota collapses during the afternoon rush hour.

August 1 is Colorado State Day, celebrating the day that Colorado became a state in 1876. It is also Emancipation Day in the Barbados, Bermuda, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. The first country in the world to declare a national holiday in commemoration of the abolition of slavery is Trinidad and Tobago.