TODAY IN HISTORY
On Aug. 14, 1848, the Oregon Territory was established.
In 1900 an international force, including U.S. Marines, entered Beijing to put down the Boxer Rebellion, aimed at ridding China of foreigners.
In 1917 China declared war on Germany and Austria during World War I.
In 1935 the Social Security Act became law, creating unemployment insurance and pension plans for the elderly.
In 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter, a statement of principles that renounced aggression. Also
in 1941 rock singer David Crosby was born in Los Angeles.
In 1945 President Harry Truman announced that Japan had accepted the terms of unconditional surrender, that World War II was over and that he had proclaimed the following day to be V-J Day.
Also in 1945 actor Steve Martin was born in Waco, Texas.
In 1947 Pakistan became independent of British rule. Also in 1947 novelist Danielle Steel was born in New York.
In 1951 newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst died in Beverly Hills, Calif.; he was 88.
In 1962 robbers held up a U.S. mail truck in Plymouth, Mass., making off with more than $1.5 million.
In 1969 British troops arrived in Northern Ireland to intervene in sectarian violence between Protestants and Roman Catholics.
In 1973 the U.S. bombing of Cambodia came to a halt.
In 1980 actress-model Dorothy Stratten, 20, was shot to death by her estranged husband and manager, Paul Snider, who then killed himself.
In 1984 writer J.B. Priestley (“The Good Companions,” “An Inspector Calls”) died in Alveston, England; he was 89.
In 1994 eight children who were left alone died in an early-morning fire in a home in Carbondale, Ill.
In 1995 Shannon Faulkner became the first female cadet in the history of The Citadel, South Carolina’s state military college. (She would quit the school less than a week later.)
In 1996 Republican presidential and vice presidential candidates Bob Dole and Jack Kemp were formally nominated at the party’s convention in San Diego.
In 1997 Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death for the Oklahoma City bombing.
In 1999 former AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland died in Washington; he was 77. Also in 1999 baseball Hall of Famer Pee Wee Reese died in Louisville; he was 81.
In 2002 Mexican President Vicente Fox angrily canceled a scheduled meeting with President George Bush hours after Texas executed a Mexican national for killing a Dallas police officer.
In 2003 the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore, said he would not remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building, defying a federal court order to remove the granite monument.
In 2006 Israel halted its offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas as a U.N.-imposed cease-fire went into effect after a month of warfare that killed more than 900 people. Also in
2006 actor Bruno Kirby died in Los Angeles; he was 57.
In 2013 Egyptian security forces killed hundreds of protesters and injured thousands more during raids at sit-ins staged by supporters of deposed President Mohammed Morsi. Also in 2013 a UPS cargo plane crashed in Birmingham, Ala., killing the pilot and co-pilot. Also
in 2013 actress Lisa Robin Kelly, known as the promiscuous older sister on the sitcom “That ’70s Show,” died at a rehab facility in California; she was 43.
In 2014 Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon dispatched the state Highway Patrol to take over security in Ferguson to curb aggressive tactics of local police against demonstrators protesting the police shooting of an unarmed black teenager. Also in
2014 Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki resigned.
In 2016, at the Rio Olympics, U.S. swimmer Ryan Lochte and three teammates reported being robbed at gunpoint; police later said the men were not robbed, and instead vandalized a gas station bathroom. (Lochte was charged with filing a false robbery report, but a Brazilian court dismissed the case.)