TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: AUG 9
480 BC The Persian army defeats Leonidas and his Spartan army at the Battle Thermopylae, Persia.
48 BC Caesar’s civil war: Battle of Pharsalus – Julius Caesar decisively defeats Pompey at Pharsalus and Pompey flees to Egypt.
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.
1778 Capt Cook passes through Bering Strait
1790 Robert Gray’s Columbia Rediviva returns to Boston after 3 year journey, 1st American ship to circumnavigate the Globe
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 Publishes Walden
1859 The escalator is patented. However, the first working escalator appeared in 1900. Manufactured by the Otis Elevator Company for the Paris Exposition, it was installed in a Philadelphia office building the following year.
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.
1930 First appearance of the animated character Betty Boop (“Dizzy Dishes”).
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 neutral country.
1944 Fictional character Smokey Bear (“Only you can prevent forest fires”) created by US Forest Service and the Ad Council.
1945 The B-29 bomber Bock’s Car drops a second atomic bomb “Fat Man” on Nagasaki, Japan.
1969 Charles Manson’s followers kill actress Sharon Tate and her three guests in her Beverly Hills home.
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 The Diet of Japan establishes the country’s official national flag, the Hinomaru, and national anthem, “Kimi Ga Yo.”.
1999 Russian president Boris Yeltsin fires his prime minister and, for the fourth time, fires the entire cabinet.
2001 U.S. President George W. Bush announced he would support federal funding for limited medical research on embryonic stem cells.
2004 Trump Hotel and Casion Resorts announced plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
REFERENCE: HISTORY.NET, ONTHISDAY.COM, TIMEANDDATE.COM, INFOPLEASE.COM, FACTMONSTER.COM, SCOPESYS.COM, ON-THIS-DAY.COM, THEPEOPLEHISTORY.COM
