On this date

In 1812,

the Battle of Fort Dearborn took place in what is now Chicago. Potawatomi warriors attacked a U.S. military garrison of about 100 people; Most of the garrison was killed, while those who remained were taken prisoner.

In 1914,

the Panama Canal officially opened as the SS Ancon crossed the just-completed waterway between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

In 1935,

humorist Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post were killed when their airplane crashed near Point Barrow in the Alaska Territory.

In 1947,

India became independent after some 200 years of British rule.

In 1965,

the Beatles played to a crowd of more than 55,000 at New York’s Shea Stadium.

In 1969,

the Woodstock Music and Art Fair opened in upstate New York.

In 1971,

President Richard Nixon announced a 90-day freeze on wages, prices and rents.

Ten years ago:

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili signed a U.S.backed truce with Russia, even as he denounced the Russians as invading barbarians and accused the West of all but encouraging them to overrun his country.

Five years ago:

President Barack Obama scrapped plans for joint military exercises with Egypt, where spiraling violence in and around Cairo were claiming hundreds of lives.

One year ago:

President Donald Trump, who had faced criticism for initially blaming the deadly weekend violence in Charlottesville, Va., on “many sides,” told reporters that there were “very fine people on both sides” of the confrontation and that groups protesting against the white supremacists were “also very violent.” (In between those statements, at aides’ urging, Trump had offered a more direct condemnation of white supremacists.)