Today is Tuesday, Aug. 3, the 215th day of 2021. There are 150 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On August 3, 1936, Jesse Owens of the United States won the first of his four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics as he took the 100-meter sprint.

On this date:

In 1914, Germany declared war on France at the onset of World War I.

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

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

In 1993, the Senate voted 96-to-three to confirm Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

In 2004, the Statue of Liberty pedestal in New York City reopened to the public for the first time since the 9/11 attacks.

In 2005, fourteen Marines from a Reserve unit in Ohio were killed in a roadside bombing in Iraq.

In 2018, Las Vegas police said they were closing their investigation into the Oct. 1 shooting that left 58 people dead at a country music festival without a definitive answer for why Stephen Paddock unleashed gunfire from a hotel suite onto the concert crowd.

In 2019, a gunman opened fire at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, leaving 22 people dead; prosecutors said Patrick Crusius targeted Mexicans in hopes of scaring Latinos into leaving the U.S., and that he had outlined the plot in a screed published online shortly before the attack. (A man who was wounded in the shooting died in April 2020 after months in the hospital, raising the death toll to 23. Crusius has pleaded not guilty to state murder charges; he also faces federal hate crime and gun charges.)

Today’s Birthdays: Football Hall of Fame coach Marv Levy is 96. Singer Tony Bennett is 95. Actor Martin Sheen is 81. College and Pro Football Hall of Famer Lance Alworth is 81. Lifestyle guru Martha Stewart is 80. Actor Jay North (TV: “Dennis the Menace”) is 70. Hockey Hall-of-Famer Marcel Dionne is 70. Actor John C. McGinley is 62. Rock singer James Hetfield (Metallica) is 58. NFL quarterback Tom Brady is 44. Olympic gold medal swimmer Ryan Lochte is 37.