TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

1945

Americans received word of Japan’s formal surrender that ended World War II.

1894

The Great Hinckley Fire destroyed Hinckley, Minnesota, and five other communities, killing more than 400 people.

1923

The Japanese cities of Tokyo and Yokohama were devastated by an earthquake that claimed some 140,000 lives.

1939

World War II began as Nazi Germany invaded Poland.

1941

The first municipally owned parking building in the United States opened in Welch, W. Va.

1942

U.S. District Court Judge Martin I. Welsh, ruling from Sacramento, Calif., on a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Fred Korematsu, upheld the wartime detention of Japanese-americans as well as Japanese nationals.

1969

A coup in Libya brought Moammar Gadhafi to power.

1972

American Bobby Fischer won the international chess crown in Reykjavik, Iceland, as Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union resigned before the resumption of Game 21. An arson fire at the Blue Bird Cafe in Montreal, Canada, claimed 37 lives.

1983

269 people were killed when a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 was shot down by a Soviet jet fighter after the airliner entered Soviet airspace.

1985

A U.s.-french expedition located the wreckage of the Titanic on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean roughly 400 miles off Newfoundland.

2005

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin issued a “desperate SOS” as his city descended into anarchy amid the flooding left by Hurricane Katrina.

2009

Vermont’s law allowing same-sex marriage went into effect.