TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – AUG 9
48 BC Caesar’s civil war: Battle of Pharsalus – Julius Caesar decisively defeats Pompey at Pharsalus and Pompey flees to Egypt.
0480 The Persian army defeats Leonidas and his Spartan army at the Battle Thermopylae, Persia.
1483 Pope Sixtus IV celebrates the first mass in the Sistine Chapel, which is named in his honor.
1645 Settlers in New Amsterdam gain peace with the Indians after conducting talks with the Mohawks.
1814 Andrew Jackson and the Creek Indians sign the Treaty of Fort Jackson, giving the whites 23 million acres of Creek territory.
1842 The Webster-Ashburton treaty fixes the border between Maine and Canada’s New Brunswick.
1848 Barnburners (anti-slavery) party merges with the Free Soil Party nominating Martin Van Buren for president
1854 Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, recounting his experiment in solitary life on the shores of Massachusetts’ Walden Pond, was published.
1898 Rudolf Diesel of Germany obtains patent #608,845 for his internal combustion engine, later known as the diesel engine
1910 The first complete, self-contained electric washing machine is patented.
1936 Jesse Owens wins four gold medals in track and field events at the Berlin Olympics.
1941 President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill meet at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. The meeting produces the Atlantic Charter, an agreement between the two countries on war aims, even though the United States is still a
1945 US drops 2nd atomic bomb “Fat Man” on Japan destroys part of Nagasaki
1960 Race riot in Jacksonville Florida
1974 Richard Nixon resigns as President of the United States and Vice President Gerald Ford swears the oath of office to take his place as the 38th US President
1999 Russian president Boris Yeltsin fires his prime minister and, for the fourth time, fires the entire cabinet.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
