TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Saturday, Aug. 8, the 221st day of 2020. There are 145 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

On August 8, 1974, President Richard Nixon, facing damaging new revelations in the Watergate scandal, announced he would resign the following day.

ON THIS DATE

In 1814, during the War of 1812, peace talks between the United States and Britain began in Ghent, Belgium.

In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte set sail for

St. Helena to spend the remainder of his days in exile.

In 1911, President

William Howard Taft signed a measure raising the number of U.S. representatives from 391 to 433, effective with the next Congress, with a proviso to add two more when

New Mexico and Arizona became states.

In 1942, during World War

II, six Nazi saboteurs who were captured after landing in the U.S. were executed in Washington, D.C.; two others who cooperated with authorities were spared.

In 1945, President Harry S. Truman signed the U.S. instrument of ratification for the United Nations Charter. The Soviet Union declared war against Japan during World War II.

In 1973, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew branded as "damned lies" reports he had taken kickbacks from government contracts in Maryland, and vowed not to resign — which he ended up doing.

In 1994, Israel and Jordan opened the first road link between the two oncewarring countries.

In 2000, the wreckage of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, which sank in 1864 after attacking the Union ship Housatonic, was recovered off the

South Carolina coast and returned to port.

In 2003, the Boston Roman Catholic archdiocese offered $55 million to settle more than 500 lawsuits stemming from alleged sex abuse by priests. (The archdiocese later settled for $85 million.)

In 2006, Roger Goodell was chosen as the NFL's next commissioner.

In 2008, China opened the Summer Olympic Games with an extravaganza of fireworks and pageantry.

In 2009, Sonia Sotomayor was sworn in as the U.S. Supreme Court's first Hispanic and third female justice.

Ten years ago: Flooding in Gansu province in China resulted in mudslides that killed more than 1,400 people. Academy Awardwinning film star Patricia Neal died in Edgartown, Massachusetts, at 84.

Five years ago: Several rivals of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump criticized his treatment of a debate moderator; Trump refused to apologize for saying on CNN that Megyn Kelly, who had aggressively questioned him during the primary debate on

Fox News, had "blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever" when she asked him about his incendiary comments toward women. One year ago: Just days after a shooting at a

Texas Walmart killed 22 people, a man carrying a rifle and wearing body armor walked around a Walmart in Springfield, Missouri, causing panicked shoppers to flee; police said the man told them he was testing whether Walmart would honor his right to bear arms. (Dmitriy Andreychenko later pleaded guilty to making a false report after initially being charged with a more serious terrorism-related felony.)

— ASSOCIATED PRESS