On This Day: Tuesday August 2, 2005 This is the 214th day of the year, with 151 days remaining in 2005. Fact of the Day: census The first U.S. census in 1790 revealed that there were 3,939,326 citizens in the 16 states and Ohio Territory. The U.S. Census has been taken every 10 years since then; the next one is in 2010. The United States made history when it took its first census in 1790, not only because of the size of the area enumerated and the effort to obtain data on characteristics of the population but also because of the political purpose for which it was undertaken - namely, representation in Congress on the basis of population. England took its first census in 1801. Holidays Feast day of St. Theodota and her Three Sons, St. Eusebius of Vercelli, St. Plegmund, St. Stephen I, pope, St. Syagrius of Autun, and St. Sidwell or Sativola. Costa Rica: Feast of Our Lady of the Angels. Macedonia: National Day. Events 1776 - Members of the Continental Congress began signing the Declaration of Independence. 1824 - Fifth Avenue was opened in New York City. 1858 - The rule of the East India Company was transferred to the British government. 1887 - Barbed wire was patented by Rowell Hodge. 1921 - A jury in Chicago acquitted several former members of the Chicago White Sox baseball team and two others of conspiring to defraud the public in the notorious "Black Sox" Scandal. 1934 - With the death of German President Paul von Hindenburg, Chancellor Adolf Hitler became absolute dictator of Germany under the title of Führer. 1939 - Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program. 1943 - A Navy patrol torpedo boat, PT-109, commanded by Lt. John F. Kennedy, sank after being cut in half by a Japanese destroyer off the Solomon Islands. 1990 - Iraq invaded Kuwait, seizing control of the oil-rich emirate; the Iraqis were later driven out in Operation Desert Storm. Births 1754 - Pierre Charles L'Enfant, French-born American architect and engineer who designed the plan for city of Washington, D.C. 1820 - John Tyndall, Irish-born English physicist. 1835 - Elisha Gray, American inventor who invented the telephone at about the same time as did Alexander Graham Bell. 1892 - Jack Leonard Warner, American movie mogul. 1924 - Carroll O'Connor, American Emmy Award-winning actor. 1924 - James Baldwin, American essayist, novelist, and playwright. Deaths 1799 - Jacques Étienne Montgolfier, French pioneer developer, along with his brother, Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, of the hot-air balloon. 1997 - William S. Burroughs, American Beat movement writer.