Key historical events in Greece on August 3

On 3 August 1844 the first parliamentary elections were held in the newly independent Greek state under King Otto. The vote, which began in May, stretched into August, exceeding the legal eight‑day limit and drawing accusations of fraud.

In 1923 the Athens Refugee Hospital, later known as the Hippocratic Hospital, was founded to treat displaced persons. The United Democratic Left (EDA) was created in 1951 by Ioannis Passalidis, Dimitris Marialos, Stamatios Hatzibeis and Michael Kyrou.

The United States saw its air‑traffic controllers begin a prolonged strike on 3 August 1981, leading to the dismissal of 13,000 union members by President Ronald Reagan. A Shorts 330 aircraft of Olympic Airways crashed near Samos on 3 August 1989, killing all 34 aboard. Greek high‑jumper Niki Bakoyanni won a silver medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics with a 2.02 m jump.

Other notable occurrences on this date include the 1811 invention of the safety elevator by American Elisha Otis, the 1940 death of Greek folk singer Antonis Kalogianis, and the 1975 death of surrealist poet Andreas Empirikos.