Today in history
On August 15, 1945, in a pre-recorded radio address, Japan's Emperor Hirohito announced that his country had accepted terms of surrender for ending World War II.
In 1483, the Sistine Chapel was consecrated by Pope Sixtus IV.
In 1812, the Battle of Fort Dearborn took place as 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 1944, during World War II, Allied forces landed in southern France in Operation Dragoon.
In 1947, India became independent after some 200 years of British rule.
In 1961, as workers began constructing a Berlin Wall made of concrete, East German soldier Conrad Schumann leapt to freedom over a tangle of barbed wire in a scene captured in a famous photograph.
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.
In 1974, a gunman attempted to shoot South Korean President Park Chung-hee during a speech; although Park was unhurt, his wife, Yuk Young-soo, was struck and killed, along with a teenage girl. (The gunman was later executed.)
In 1989, F.W. de Klerk was sworn in as acting president of South Africa, one day after P.W. Botha resigned as the result of a power struggle within the National Party.
Ten years ago: Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili grudgingly 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. Michael Phelps won his sixth gold medal with his sixth world record, in the 200-meter individual medley at the Summer Olympics. American Nastia Liukin won the gold in women's individual all-around gymnastics; friend and teammate Shawn Johnson was second. Record producer Jerry Wexler, who coined the term "rhythm and blues," died in Sarasota, Fla. at age 91.
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. A powerful car bomb ripped through a crowded southern Beirut stronghold of Hezbollah, killing at least 27 people.
One year ago: President Donald Trump, who'd faced harsh criticism for initially blaming the deadly weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia 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 the urging of aides, Trump had offered a more direct condemnation of white supremacists.) An Army Black Hawk helicopter with five soldiers aboard crashed during offshore training in Hawaii; all five were declared dead after a lengthy search. Sen. Luther Strange and former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore advanced to a Republican primary runoff to fill the U.S. Senate seat previously held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. (Moore won the September runoff, but was defeated in the December special election by Democrat Doug Jones.)