Aug. 2
1864 — The first Travers Stakes at Saratoga is won by Kentucky, a horse that scores 20 consecutive victories.
1912 — John McDermott wins the U.S. Open golf championship for the second straight year with a 294 total.
1952 — Five American boxers win gold medals at the Olympics, marking the first time the U.S. wins the unofficial team title. The five medalists are flyweight Nate Brooks; light welterweight Charley Adkins; middleweight Floyd Patterson; light heavyweight Norvell Lee and heavyweight Eddie Sanders.
1967 — The New Orleans Saints play their first preseason game and lose to the Los Angeles Rams, 77-16.
1979 — New York Yankees catcher Thurman Munson is killed in a plane crash practicing takeoffs and landings near his Ohio home.
1982 — Oakland outfielder Rickey Henderson steals his 100th MLB base of the season in 6-5 win vs. Seattle, first to steal 100 twice in modern era.
1986 — Jackie Joyner sets the world record in the heptathlon at the U.S. Olympic Festival in Houston with 7,158 points.
1992 — Vitaly Scherbo of the Unified Team wins gold medals in the vault, rings, pommel horse and parallel bars to give him a total of six gold, the most won by a gymnast in a single Olympic Games.
1996 — The star-studded United States men’s basketball team, Dream Team III, beat Yugoslavia 95-69 to win the gold medal at the Atlanta Olympics.
1996 — Down to her final long jump attempt and fighting an injured hamstring, Jackie Joyner-Kersee leaps out of sixth place and ends her Olympic career with a bronze medal. Joyner Kersee jumps 22 feet, 11 3-4 inches for her sixth Olympic medal.
1998 — Brandie Burton closes with an even-par 72 for a tournament-record 18-under 270 to win the du Maurier Classic by one stroke over Annika Sorenstam. It’s the lowest score in relation to par at a women’s major, breaking Betsy King’s 17-under 267 in the 1992 LPGA Championship.
2005 — In the largest trade in NBA history, Antoine Walker is dealt from Boston to Miami in a transaction involving five teams and 13 players. The Heat acquire point guard Jason Williams and small forward James Posey from Memphis, while the Grizzlies receive guard Eddie Jones from the Heat. The New Orleans Hornets and Utah Jazz also are involved in the deal.
2009 — Catriona Matthew wins the Women’s British Open for her first major title, beating Karrie Webb by three strokes just 10 weeks after giving birth to her second child.
2012 — Carmelo Anthony and the U.S. men’s Olympic basketball team rewrite the record books in a 156-73 romp over Nigeria. Anthony scores 37 points, including 10 of 12 3-pointers, to break the U.S. single-game scoring record in less than three quarters. When Andre Iguodala hits a 3-pointer with 4:37 left, the Americans surpass the previous Olympic record of 138 points set by Brazil against Egypt in 1988.
2012 — Gabby Douglas becomes the third straight American to win gymnastics’ biggest prize when she wins the all-around Olympic title.
2012 — Michael Phelps wins his first individual gold medal of the London Games in the 200-meter individual medley. The U.S. star becomes the first male swimmer to win the same individual event at three straight Olympics, capturing his 20th career medal — and 16th gold.
2015 — American Pharoah delivers an encore performance in his first race since winning the Triple Crown, by cruising to a 2 1/4-length victory in the Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park.
2015 — Inbee Park rallies to win the Women’s British Open to become the seventh women to win four different major championships.
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Aug. 3
1852 — The first intercollegiate rowing race is held on Lake Winnipesaukee, N.H., where Harvard beats Yale by four lengths on the 2-mile course.
1936 — American sprinter Jesse Owens wins the 100m (10.3 seconds) in front of Adolf Hitler in a famous race at the Berlin Olympics, first of 4 gold medals at the Games.
1949 — The National Basketball Association is formed by the merger of the National Basketball League and the Basketball Association of America.
1955 — Scott Frost, driven by Joe O’Brien, wins the Hambletonian at Good Time Park in Goshen, N.Y. He goes on to become the first trotting Triple Crown winner.
1985 — France’s Lutin D’Isigny becomes the first trotter to sweep the International Trot and Challenge Cup in consecutive years with a 3:03.1 time in the 1½-mile test.
1990 — The Professional Golfers Association Tour announces it will not hold tournaments at golf clubs that have all-white memberships or show any other signs of discrimination.
1996 — Andre Agassi, the Dream Team and the U.S. women’s 400-meter relay team win Olympic gold medals, while the American men’s 400 relay settles for silver. With Carl Lewis idled by a coach’s decision and Leroy Burrell injured, the men’s 400 team is shocked by Canada — the first time the U.S. lost the event at the Olympics.
2003 — Annika Sorenstam completes a career Grand Slam at the Women’s British Open, beating Se Ri Pak by a stroke in a thrilling head-to-head showdown.
2006 — Champ Car driver Cristiano da Matta needs surgery to remove a ruptured blood vessel in his head after his race car collides with a deer that wandered onto the track during a test session at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis.
2012 — Michael Phelps rallies to win the 100-meter butterfly for his third gold of the London Games and No. 17 of his career. It’s Phelps’ third consecutive win in the event at the Olympics, and his 21st career medal. Missy Franklin sets a world record in the 200 backstroke for the 17-year-old’s third gold in London.
2013 — Sixteen-year-old Katie Ledecky wraps up a brilliant performance at the world swimming championships with her fourth gold medal and second world record. The youngster turns it on over the final four laps of the 800 freestyle to win in 8 minutes, 13.86 seconds and take down the mark of 8:14.10 set by Britain’s Rebecca Adlington at the 2008 Olympics.
2016 — The International Olympic Committee approves baseball/softball, karate, sport climbing, surfing and skateboarding to be included in the 2020 Tokyo Games.
2016 — Elaine Thompson Herah of Jamaica wins the 200m gold in Tokyo to become the first female to win the 100/200 double in consecutive games.
2017 — Brazilian soccer forward Neymar transfers from FC Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain for a world-record transfer fee of $222M on a 5-year deal.
2023 — Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi becomes first WNBA player to reach 10,000 points as she drops 42 points in a 91-71 win over the Atlanta Dream.
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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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