1898 – Carl Gustav Witt discovers 433 Eros, the first asteroid to be found near Earth. Eros, the temporary designation 1898 DQ, is a stony and elongated asteroid of the Amor group and the first discovered object and the second largest near Earth with an average diameter of approximately 16.8 kilometers. He was titled Eros.
1913 – Born in Paphos, Makarios III. Makarios, was a Greek Cypriot clergyman and politician who served as Archbishop and Primate of the Autocephalous Church of Cyprus (1950-1977) and as the first President of Cyprus (1960-1977). In his three terms as president he survived four assassination attempts as well as a coup.
1944 – During World War II, German troops begin looting and destroying Anogenia in Crete that would continue until September 5th. This was the third time that Anogeneia was destroyed, after the Ottomans had destroyed it twice, first in July 1822 and again in November 1867, during the Great Cretan Revolution.
1946 – Herbert George Wells dies at the age of 79. Wells, was an English writer. Prolitic in many genres, he wrote dozens of novels, short stories and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography and autobiography. Wells is best remembered for his science fiction novels and is often referred to as the “father of science fiction”.
1961 – East Germany closes the border between the eastern and western sectors of Berlin to quell its inhabitants’ attempts to escape to the West, and in the meantime, the construction of the Berlin Wall begins. The Berlin Wall was a concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989.
1964 – Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans are hanged for the murder of John Alan West becoming the last people executed in the UK. West was a 53-year-old van driver who was killed by Gwynne Evans and Peter Allen who had gone to rob him at his home in Seaton, Cumberland.
1978 – Nearly 200 Palestinians are killed in Beirut in a terrorist attack during the second phase of the Lebanese Civil War. The siege was carried out by Lebanese Christian militias led by the Lebanese Front as part of a wider campaign to oust the Palestinians, especially those linked to the radical wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
