On this day...

August 2: Day of the Republic in the Republic of Macedonia

338 BC – A Macedonian army defeated the combined forces of Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea, securing Macedonian hegemony over the majority of Ancient Greece.

1870 – Tower Subway (pictured), the world's first underground tube railway, opened beneath the River Thames in London.

1903 – The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization started the Ilinden Uprising against the Ottoman Empire in Macedonia.

1923 – Calvin Coolidge became the 30th President of the United States after Warren G. Harding suffered a fatal heart attack.

1947 – A British South American Airways airliner crashed into Mount Tupungato in the Argentine Andes, the wreckage from which was not found until 1998.

1989 – Sri Lankan Civil War: The Indian Peace Keeping Force began killing 64 minority Sri Lankan Tamil civilians over a two-day period in Valvettithurai, Sri Lanka.