Aug. 4
1936 — American athlete Jesse Owens wins his 2nd gold medal at the Berlin Olympics; beats German Luz Long in the long jump final with an Olympic record.
1945 — Byron Nelson wins his 11th consecutive PGA Tour event, beating Herman Barron by four strokes. Nelson finishes the year with a record for most tournament wins (18) in a season.
1982 — Joel Youngblood becomes the only player in major league history to play and get hits for two different teams in two different cities on the same day. In the afternoon, his hit drives in the winning run for the New York Mets in a 7-4 victory at Chicago. After the game, he’s traded to the Montreal Expos and plays that night in Philadelphia. He enters the game in right field in the fourth inning and later gets a single.
1984 — Carl Lewis wins the 100-meter dash in 9.99 seconds at the Los Angeles Summer Games. US teammate Sam Graddy wins the silver in 10.19 and Canada’s Ben Johnson gets the bronze with a time of 10.22.
1985 — Tom Seaver, 40, becomes the 17th 300-game winner in major league history with a six-hitter — all singles — as the Chicago White Sox beat the New York Yankees 4-1.
1985 — Rod Carew of the California Angels gets his 3,000th hit in a 6-5 win over the Minnesota Twins, his first major league team.
1996 — Laura Davies shoots a 6-under 66 for a two-stroke victory over Nancy Lopez and Karrie Webb in the du Maurier Classic.
1996 — The Atlanta Olympic Games end with U.S. boxer David Reid’s stunning gold-medal knockout, and the women Dream Team’s romp over Brazil. Reid captures America’s only boxing gold, knocking down Cuban Alfredo Duvergel, while the U.S. women roll to a 111-87 victory behind Lisa Leslie’s 29 points. A record 11,000 athletes from 197 countries make it the biggest Olympics.
2007 — 32-year-old Alex Rodriguez becomes the youngest player in MLB history to hit 500 home runs.
2011 — Cappie Pondexter scores 15 points to lead New York past Chicago 59-49, and the Liberty hold the Sky to a WNBA-record one point in the fourth quarter.
2012 — Michael Phelps wins another gold medal as the United States wins the medley relay at the London Olympics. Phelps leaves the sport with a record 18 golds and 22 medals overall. At these games, he wins four golds and two silvers.
2012 — Serena Williams beats Maria Sharapova 6-0, 6-1 to join Steffi Graf as the only women to complete the Golden Slam — winning the Olympics and the four majors. In a men’s semifinal match, Roger Federer outlasts Juan Martin del Potro in a 19-17 final set and clinches his first Olympic singles medal. Canadian equestrian Ian Millar rides into Olympic history by competing in his 10th games — the most of any athlete.
2013 — Missy Franklin claims her record sixth gold medal on the final day of the world championships in Barcelona, becoming the most successful female swimmer ever at a world meet. Franklin eclipses the record shared by Tracy Caulkins — who won five times in 1978 — and Libby Trickett, who did it in 2007.
2013 — Stacy Lewis wins the Women’s British Open after a marathon final day. Lewis finishes with a pair of birdies on the Old Course at St. Andrews and closes with an even-par 72. It’s her second major on the LPGA Tour, and it ends a record streak of 10 straight majors won by Asian players. Forced to play 36 holes, Lewis is the only player at par or better from the last 21 groups that tee off.
2018 — British swimmer Adam Peaty improves his own world record in the 100-meter breaststroke to 57.1 seconds at the European Championships in Glasgow, Scotland.
2021 — Sydney McLaughlin sets a world record in in the women’s 400m hurdles, 51.46s, for a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
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Aug. 5
1921 — Radio station KDKA and announcer Harold Arlin provide the first broadcast of a major league game as the Pirates beat the Phillies 8-5 at Pittsburgh.
1936 — At the Berlin Olympics, Jesse Owens wins his third of four gold medals, winning the 200-meter race in an Olympic-record 20.7 seconds.
1954 — The first election for the Boxing Hall of Fame is held. Twenty-four fighters are elected, with the most noteworthy from the modern era Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis and Henry Armstrong. Fifteen are selected from the pioneer era including John L. Sullivan, Gentleman Jim Corbett and Jack Johnson.
1967 — The Denver Broncos beat the Detroit Lions, 13-7, in a preseason game, for the first AFL victory over an NFL team.
1984 — American Joan Benoit wins the first Olympic marathon for women in 2:24:52, finishing 400 meters ahead of Norway’s Grete Waitz.
1991 — Sergei Bubka becomes the first to clear 20 feet outdoors in the pole vault, breaking his own world record by a half-inch at the Galan track meet in Malmo, Sweden.
1997 — Michael Johnson wins his third straight 400-meter title at the world championships in Athens, Greece, capturing the gold medal in 44.12 seconds.
2005 — Jason Gore shoots a 12-under 59 in the second round of the Nationwide Tour’s Cox Classic in Omaha, Nebraska.
2006 — Warren Moon becomes the first black quarterback to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio; joined by Troy Aikman, John Madden, Rayfield Wright, Harry Carson and Reggie White.
2007 — Tom Glavine earns his 300th victory in an 8-3 victory over the Chicago Cubs.
2007 — Lorena Ochoa wins the Women’s British Open — the first women’s professional tournament played at venerable St. Andrews — for her first major title.
2012 — Jamaica’s Usain Bolt claims consecutive gold medals in the marquee track and field event at the Summer Games in London. Only about fifth-fastest of the eight runners to the halfway mark, Bolt erases that deficit and overtakes a star-studded field to win the 100-meter dash final in 9.63 seconds, an Olympic record that lets him join Carl Lewis as the only men to win the event twice.
2012 — Britain’s Andy Murray cruises past Roger Federer 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 in the Olympic tennis singles final at Wimbledon. Serena and Venus Williams win the doubles title, as Serena becomes tennis’ first double-gold medalist at an Olympics since Venus won singles and doubles at the 2000 Sydney Games. Ben Ainslie earns another gold medal in the Finn class to become the most successful sailor in Olympic history.
2013 — Alex Rodriguez is suspended through 2014 (211 games) and All-Stars Nelson Cruz, Jhonny Peralta and Everth Cabrera are banned 50 games apiece when Major League Baseball disciplines 13 players in a drug case.
2014 — The San Antonio Spurs hire WNBA star Becky Hammon as an assistant coach, making her the first woman to join an NBA coaching staff.
2017 — Justin Gatlin spoils Usain Bolt’s farewell beating him in the 100 meters at the world track championships in London. Bolt gets off to a slow start and Gatlin holds him off at the line in 9.92 seconds. American sprinter Christian Coleman takes silver in 9.94 seconds and Bolt took bronze in 9.95.
2018 — The Springfield Lasers win their first World TeamTennis title edging the Philadelphia Freedoms 19-18. The Lasers were 0-5 in WTT championship finals and winless in three meetings with the Freedoms during the 2018 regular season.
2018 — Georgia Hall of England catches Pornanong Phatlum in a final-round duel at Royal Lytham & St. Annes to win the Women’s British Open for her first major title.
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Aug. 6
1958 — Glen Davis of Columbus, Ohio, sets a world record in the 400 hurdles with a time of 49.2 in Budapest, Hungary.
1966 — Muhammad Ali knocks out Brian London in the third round to retain his world heavyweight title.
1972 — South African Gary Player wins his second PGA golf championship with a two-stroke victory over Jim Jamieson and Tommy Aaron.
1978 — John Mahaffey beats Tom Watson and Jerry Pate on the second playoff hole to win the PGA Championship.
1984 — American athlete Carl Lewis wins long jump (8.54m), his second of 4 gold medals at Los Angeles Olympics.
1991 — Debbie Doom of the U.S. pitches her second consecutive perfect game in women’s softball at the Pan American Games. Doom threw a perfect game at the Netherlands Antilles in the opener and matches that performance against Nicaragua, winning 8-0.
1992 — Carl Lewis leads a U.S. sweep in the long jump in the Olympics with a mark of 28 feet, 5 1-2 inches on his first attempt. Mike Powell takes the silver and Joe Greene the bronze. Kevin Young demolishes one of track’s oldest records with a time of 46.78 seconds in the 400 hurdles. Bruce Baumgartner becomes the first American wrestler to win medals in three straight Olympics, taking the gold in the 286-pound freestyle division.
1994 — Jeff Gordon wins the Brickyard 400, the first stock car race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
1995 — Canada’s Donovan Bailey wins the 100 meters at World Track and Field Championships in Goteborg, Sweden, marking the first time since 1976 an American fails to win a medal in the event at a major meet.
1999 — Tony Gwynn goes 4-for-5, singling in his first at-bat to become the 22nd major leaguer to reach 3,000 hits, as the San Diego Padres beat the Montreal Expos 12-10.
2001 — Two-time champion Marion Jones is disqualified and has her string of 42 consecutive 100m final victories snapped by Zhanna Pintusevich-Block of Ukraine at the World Athletics Championships in Edmonton, Canada.
2006 — Tiger Woods (30) becomes the youngest player to compile 50 PGA Tour wins with a 3 stroke victory over Jim Furyk in the Buick Open.
2006 — Floyd Landis is fired by his team and the Tour de France no longer considers him its champion after his second doping sample tested positive for higher-than-allowable levels of testosterone.
2006 — Sherri Steinhauer wins the Women’s British Open for the third time, and the first since it became a major.
2008 — Sammy Villegas, a former University of Toledo basketball player, is charged with point shaving. Villegas is accused of shaving points during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons.
2008 — Kim Terrell-Kearney wins the first professional championship match featuring two black bowlers, beating Trisha Reid 216-189 in the U.S. Bowling Congress’ U.S. Women’s Open. Terrell-Kearney collects her second U.S. Women’s Open title and third career major title.
2010 — Tyson Gay upsets the defending world and Olympic champion Usain Bolt in a race between the two fastest runners in history. Gay beats the Jamaican at the DN Galan meet in 9.84 seconds at the same stadium where Bolt last lost a race two years ago. Bolt finishes second in 9.97.
2015 — Ryan Lochte becomes the first man to win the 200-meter individual medley four consecutive times at the world swimming championships. Lochte comes home strong on the freestyle lap and touches first in 1:55.81 in Kazan, Russia.
2017 — I.K. Kim won the Women’s British Open, hanging on with a 1-under 71 for a two-shot victory over Jodi Ewart Shadoff and her first major championship.
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Aug. 7
1907 — Walter Johnson wins the first of his 417 victories, leading the Washington Senators past the Cleveland Indians 7-2.
1952 — Bion Shively, 74, drives Sharp Note to victory in the third heat of the Hambletonian Stakes.
1982 — Speed Bowl wins the Hambletonian Stakes in straight heats with 25-year-old Tom Haughton in the sulky, the youngest to win the Hambletonian.
1983 — Norway’s Grete Waitz takes the women’s marathon in the first world track and field championships at Helsinki, Finland.
1992 — Sergei Bubka, the world record-holder and defending Olympic champion, fails to clear a height in the pole vault.
1999 — Wade Boggs becomes the first player to homer for his 3,000th hit, connecting with a two-run shot in Tampa Bay’s 15-10 loss to Cleveland.
2004 — Greg Maddux becomes the 22nd pitcher in major league history to reach 300 victories, leading the Chicago Cubs to an 8-4 victory over San Francisco.
2005 — Justin Gatlin dominates the 100 meters at the track and field championships in Helsinki. The Olympic champion wins in 9.88 seconds, finishing 0.17 seconds ahead of Michael Frater of Jamaica. The margin of victory is the largest in the 10 world championships held since the meet’s inception in 1983.
2007 — San Francisco’s Barry Bonds hits home run No. 756 to break Hank Aaron’s storied record. Noticeably absent are Commissioner Bud Selig and Aaron.
2012 — Aly Raisman becomes the first U.S. woman to win Olympic gold on floor. She picks up a bronze on balance beam on the final day of gymnastics at the London Olympics and just misses a medal in the all-around.
2016 — Jim Furyk becomes the first golfer to shoot a 58 in PGA Tour history. Three years after Furyk became the sixth player on tour with a 59, he takes it even lower in the Travelers Championship with a 12-under 58 in the final round.
2016 — Ichiro Suzuki triples off the wall for his 3,000th hit in the major leagues, becoming the 30th player to reach the milestone as the Miami Marlins beat the Colorado Rockies 10-7.
2016 — Manny Machado becomes the second player in major league history to homer in the first, second and third innings, driving in a career-high seven runs in a 10-2 victory over the Chicago White Sox.
2016 — American swimmer Katie Ledecky sets a new world record with a time of 3:56.46 to win the gold medal in the women’s 400m freestyle at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
2021 — Kevin Durant with 29 points leads USA to his third and the team’s 4th consecutive Olympic men’s basketball gold medal with an 87-82 win over France in Tokyo.
2021 — Indian javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra wins his country’s first-ever Olympic gold medal in Tokyo.
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