TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS SUNDAY, AUG. 9, the 222nd day of 2020. There are 144 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 2014, Michael Brown Jr., an unarmed 18-year-old Black man, was shot to death by a police officer following an altercation in Ferguson, Missouri; Brown’s death led to sometimes-violent protests in Ferguson and other U.S. cities, spawning a national “Black Lives Matter” movement.
In 1814, the Treaty of Fort Jackson, which ended the Creek War, was signed in Alabama.
In 1842, the United States and Canada resolved a border dispute by signing the Webster-Ashburton Treaty.
In 1910, the U.S. Patent Office granted Alva J. Fisher of the Hurley Machine Co. a patent for an electrically powered washing machine.
In 1936, Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal at the Berlin Olympics as the United States took first place in the 400-meter relay.
In 1942, British authorities in India arrested nationalist Mohandas K. Gandhi; he was released in 1944.
In 1944, 258 African American sailors based at Port Chicago, California, refused to load a munitions ship following a cargo vessel explosion that killed 320 men, many of them Black. (Fifty of the sailors were convicted of mutiny, fined and imprisoned.)
In 1945, three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, a U.S. B-29 Superfortress code-named Bockscar dropped a nuclear device (“Fat Man”) over Nagasaki, killing an estimated 74,000 people.
In 1969, actor Sharon Tate and four other people were found brutally slain at Tate’s Los Angeles home; cult leader Charles
Manson and a group of his followers were later convicted of the crime.
In 1974, Vice President Gerald R. Ford became the nation’s 38th chief executive as President Richard Nixon’s resignation took effect.
In 1985, a federal judge in Norfolk, Virginia, found retired Navy officer Arthur J. Walker guilty of seven counts of spying for the Soviet Union. (Walker, who was sentenced to life, died in prison in 2014 at the age of 79.)
In 2004, Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, addressing a court for the first time, asked victims of the blast for forgiveness as a judge sentenced him to 161 consecutive life sentences.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Basketball Hall-of-Famer Bob Cousy is 92. Actor Cynthia Harris is 86. Tennis Hall-ofFamer Rod Laver is 82. Jazz musician Jack DeJohnette and comedian-director David Steinberg are 78. Actor Sam Elliott is 76. Singer Barbara Mason is
73. College Football Hall-of-Famer and former NFL player Doug Williams is
65. Actor Melanie Griffith is 63. Rapper Kurtis Blow is 61. Hockey Hall-of-Famer Brett Hull and TV host Hoda Kotb are
56. Pro and College Football Hallof-Famer Deion Sanders is 53. Actor Gillian Anderson, actor Eric Bana and producer-director McG (aka Joseph McGinty Nichol) are 52. NHL playerturned-coach Rod Brind’Amour, TV anchor Chris Cuomo, actor Thomas Lennon and rock musician Arion Salazar are 50. Actor Kevin McKidd is 47. Actor Rhona Mitra is 45. Actor Ashley Johnson is 37. Actor Anna Kendrick is 35.