Today in History.....August 3

On this day in …

1492, Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, on a voyage that took him to the present-day Americas

1914, Germany declared war on France

1923, Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as the 30th president of the United States, following the death of Warren G. Harding

1936, the State Department urged Americans in Spain to leave because of that country's civil war

1941, though the U.S. had not yet entered World War II at this time, gasoline rationing began in parts of the eastern United States on this day in 1941. The rationing would spread to the rest of the country as soon as the U.S. joined the Allied forces, and the production of cars for private use halted completely in 1942. Measures of a similar sort had already taken place in most European countries

1943, Gen. George S. Patton slapped a private at an army hospital in Sicily, accusing him of cowardice. (Patton was later ordered by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to apologize for this and a second, similar episode.)

1949, the National Basketball Association was formed as a merger of the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League

1958, the nuclear-powered submarine Nautilus became the first vessel to cross the North Pole underwater
1980, closing ceremonies were held in Moscow for the Summer Olympic Games, which had been boycotted by dozens of countries, including the United States

1981, U.S. air traffic controllers went on strike, despite a warning from President Reagan they would be fired, which they were

1988, Soviet authorities free Mathias Rust, the daring young West German pilot who landed a rented Cessna on Moscow's Red Square in 1987. Rust was serving a four-year sentence at a labor camp when the Soviets approved his extradition as a goodwill gesture to the West