This day in history
Today is Tuesday, Aug. 9, the 221st day of 2022. There are 144 days left in the year.
Birthdays: Basketball Hall of Famer Bob Cousy is 94. Tennis Hall of Famer Rod Laver is 84. Jazz drummer Jack DeJohnette is 80. Comedian-director David Steinberg is 80. Actor Sam Elliott is 78. Singer Barbara Mason is 75. Actor Melanie Griffith is 65. Actor Amanda Bearse is 64. Senator Roger Marshall, Republican of Kansas, is 62. Hockey Hall of Famer Brett Hull is 58. Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders is 55. Actor Gillian Anderson is 54. Former TV journalist Chris Cuomo is 52. Actor Kevin McKidd is 49. Actor Anna Kendrick is 37.
▶ In 1854, Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden,” which described Thoreau’s experiences while living near Walden Pond in Concord, was first published.
▶ In 1936, Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal at the Berlin Olympics as the United States took first place in the 400-meter relay.
▶ In 1945, three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, a US B-29 Superfortress code-named Bockscar dropped a nuclear device over Nagasaki, killing an estimated 74,000 people.
▶ In 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 followers were convicted of the crime.
▶ In 1974, Vice President Gerald R. Ford became the nation’s 38th chief executive as President Richard Nixon’s resignation took effect.
▶ In 1982, a federal judge ordered John W. Hinckley Jr., who’d been acquitted of shooting President Reagan and three others by reason of insanity, committed to a mental hospital.
▶ In 1988, President Reagan nominated Lauro Cavazos to be secretary of education; Cavazos became the first Hispanic to serve in the Cabinet.
▶ In 1995, Jerry Garcia, lead singer of the Grateful Dead, died in Forest Knolls, Calif., of a heart attack at age 53.
▶ In 2004, Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols was sentenced to 161 consecutive life sentences.
▶ In 2014, Michael Brown Jr., a Black 18-year-old, was shot to death by a police officer following an altercation in Ferguson, Mo.; Brown’s death led to sometimes-violent protests in Ferguson and other US cities, spawning a national “Black Lives Matter” movement.
▶ In 2016, at the Rio Games, Michael Phelps earned the 20th and 21st Olympic gold medals of his career as he won the 200-meter butterfly and anchored the United States to victory in the 4x200 freestyle relay. Katie Ledecky earned her second gold in Rio by winning the 200-meter freestyle.
▶ Last year, officials said the Taliban had taken control of two more provincial capitals in Afghanistan, as US and NATO forces finalized their pullout from the country. The authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that Earth was getting so hot that temperatures within about a decade would probably blow past a level of warming that world leaders had sought to prevent.