TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT 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.

1814

The Treaty of Fort Jackson, which ended the Creek War, was signed in Alabama.

1842

The United States and Canada resolved a border dispute by signing the Webster-ashburton Treaty.

1910

The U.S. Patent Office granted Alva J. Fisher of the Hurley Machine Co. a patent for an electrically powered washing machine.

1936

Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal at the Berlin Olympics as the United States took first place in the 400-meter relay.

1942

British authorities in India arrested nationalist Mohandas K. Gandhi; he was released in 1944.

1945

Three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, a U.S. B-29 Superfortress code-named Bockscar dropped a nuclear device over Nagasaki, killing an estimated 74,000 people.

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.

1974

Vice President Gerald R. Ford became the nation’s 38th chief executive as President Richard Nixon’s resignation took effect.

1982

A federal judge in Washington ordered John W. Hinckley Jr., who’d been acquitted of shooting President Ronald Reagan and three others by reason of insanity, committed to a mental hospital.

1985

A federal judge in Norfolk, Virginia, found retired Navy officer Arthur J. Walker guilty of seven counts of spying for the Soviet Union.