On this day in History - Aug 9

48 B - Roman Civil War: Battle of Pharsalus - Julius Caesar decisively defeats Pompey at Pharsalus and Pompey flees to Egypt.
0117 - Trajan dies. Roman emperor
0378 - Valens dies. Roman emperor (killed in battle)
0378 - Battle of Adrianople: A large Roman army led by Emperor Valens is defeated by the Visigoths in present-day Turkey. Valens is killed along with 2/3 of his army.
0681 - Bulgaria is founded as a Khanate on the south bank of the Danube, after defeating the Byzantine armies of Emperor Constantine IV south of the Danube delta.
0803 - Byzantine Empress Irene dies.
1048 - Pope Damasus II dies.
1173 - Construction of the (Leaning) Tower of Pisa begins, and it takes two centuries to complete.
1250 - King Eric IV of Denmark dies.
1387 - Henrique de Monmouth, was born (d. 31 Ago 1422). Future King Henry V of England.

1401 - Tamerlão (1336-1405), ou Timour Lang, restaurador do império mongol de Gengis Khan, conquista Bagdade.

1471 - Início do pontificado do Papa Sixto IV
1483 - Opening of the Sistine Chapel
1593 - Izaak Walton was born (d. 1683). English angler.

1631 - John Dryden was born at Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire († 1 May 1700). English poet and critic. With his comedies he is regarded as a founder of the "Comedy of Manners"
1648 - Johann Michael Bach was born (d. 1694). German composer.

1653 - John Oldham was born (d. 1683). English poet.

1672 - Jose Ximenez (70), Spanish composer, died.
1674 - František Maxmilián Kaňka was born (d. 1766). Czech architect.

1698 - O português Pedro Vaz de Sequeira assume o governo de Macau
1720 - Simon Ockley dies (b. 1678). English orientalist.
1744 - James Brydges dies (b. 1673). 1st Duke of Chandos, English patron of the arts.
1757 - Thomas Telford was born (d.1834). Civil engineneer.
1776 - Amedeo Avogadro was born (d. 1856). Italian chemist.
1797 - Charles Robert Malden was born (d. 1855). British naval officer.
1805 - Joseph Locke was born (d. 1860). Railway and civil engineer.
1842 - Webster-Ashburton Treaty is signed, establishing the United States-Canada border east of the Rocky Mountains.
1845 - Brother Andre was born (d. 1937). Canadian religious figure.

1848 -The Free-Soil Party nominated Martin Van Buren for president at its convention in Buffalo, N.Y.
1854 - Henry David Thoreau's Walden, recounting his experiment in solitary life on the shores of Massachusetts' Walden Pond, was published.
1862 - American Civil War: Battle of Cedar Mountain - At Cedar Mountain, Virginia, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson narrowly defeats Union forces under General John Pope.
1871 - Leonid Andreiev was born (d. 1919). Writer.
1875 - Reynaldo Hahn was born (d. 1947). Composer.
1877 - Indian Wars: Battle of Big Hole - Near Big Hole River in Montana, a small band of Nez Percé Indians who refused government orders to move to a reservation, clash with the United States Army. The army lost 29 soldiers and Indians lost 89 warriors in a US Army win.

1884 - Maiden voyage of the La France. La France was the first steerable airship in the world. With its 9 horsepower electric motor, it successfully completed its maiden voyage, an eight-kilometer round trip over Chalais-Meudon, France. The designers were Charles Renard and A.C. Krebs.
1886 - Samuel Ferguson dies. Irish poet.
1892 - Thomas Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph.
1896 - Jean Piaget was born (d. 1980). Swiss psychologist known for his research in developmental psychology. Biology and Knowledge (1971), The Child's Conception of the World (tr. 1929), The Moral Judgment of the Child (tr. 1932), The Language and Thought of the Child (tr. of 3d ed. 1962), Genetic Epistemology (tr. 1970), and The Development of Thought (tr. 1977).
1896 - Lev Vygotsky was born (d. 1934). Russian psychologist.
1899 - P. L. Travers was born (d. 1966). Author.
1899 - Francisco Martins Sarmento dies in Guimarães (b. 1833). Portuguese archeologist.
1902 - Zino Francescatti was born (d. 1991). French violinist.
1902 - Edward VII is crowned king of England following the death of his mother, Queen Victoria.

1903 - Início do pontificado do Papa Pio X (Giuseppe Sarto)
1911 - William Alfred Fowler was born (d. 1996). American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate.
1914 - Tove Jansson was born (d. 2001). Swedish author.

1914 - Morte de Roque Saenz Peña. Presidente da Argentina (1910-1914)
1919 - Joop den Uyl was born (d. 1987). Prime Minister of the Netherlands
1919 - Ralph Houk was born. Baseball player and manager .

1919 - Ernst Haeckel dies. German biologist who separated the animal kingdom into unicellar and multicellular organisms, and was an enthusiastic supporter of Darwin's theories.
1919 - Ruggiero Leoncavallo dies. Composer.
1921 - J. James Exon was born. Nebraska Senator and Governor
1922 - Philip Larkin was born (d. 1985). English poet.
1927 - Daniel Keyes was born. Author
1927 - Robert Shaw was born (d. 1978). Actor.
1928 - Bob Cousy was born. Hall of fame basketball player and coach of the Boston Celtics

1931 - Nascimento de Mário Jorge Lobo Zagallo . Treinador de futebol brasileiro.

1932 - John Charles Fields dies (b. 14 May 1863). American mathematician who originated the idea, postumously given his name - for the Fields Medal. It became the most prestigious award for mathematicians, often referred to as the equivalent of a Nobel Prize for mathematicians

1933 - Tetsuko Kuroyanagi was born. Japanese television personality and children's author
1936 - 1936 Summer Olympics: Jesse Owens wins his fourth gold medal at the games becoming the first American to win four medals in one Olympics as the United States took first place in the 400-meter relay.
1938 - Rod Laver was born. Tennis player
1942 - Indian leader, Mohandas Gandhi is arrested in Bombay by British forces.
1942 - Edith Stein dies. (St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) at Auschwitz .

1942 - David Steinberg was born. Comedian
1944 - The United States Forest Service and the Wartime Advertising Council release posters featuring Smokey the Bear for the first time.
1944 - Sam Elliott was born. Actor
1945 - Ken Norton was born. Boxer
1945 - Posy Simmonds was born. Cartoonist
1945 - World War II: An atomic bomb nicknamed "Fat Man", with an energy of 92 terajoules (22,000 tons of TNT), is dropped by the B-29 Bockscar on the city of Nagasaki, Japan at 11:02 AM (local time) after the primary objective of Kokura was passed due to visibility problems. An estimated 60,000-80,000 are killed and 60,000 more are injured.
1945 - Harry Hillman dies. American athlete .
1949 - Jonathan Kellerman was born. Mystery writer
1957 - Melanie Griffith was born. American actress
1962 - Kevin Mack was born. American football player
1962 - Hermann Hesse dies (b. 1877). German author. Nobel Prize in Literature (1946)
1963 - Whitney Houston was born. American singer and actress.

1963 - Manuela Machado was born in Viana do Castelo. Portuguese marathon runner. Worlds: 1993 silver 1995 Gold 1997 silver; European: 1994 & 1998 Gold Marathon.

1964 - Brett Hull was born. Hockey player
1965 - Singapore becomes an independent country.
1965 - Space disasters: A fire at a Titan missile base near Little Rock, Arkansas kills 53 construction workers.
1967 - Vietnam War: Operation Cochise initiated - United States Marines begin a new operation in the Que Son Valley.
1967 - Deion Sanders was born. American football player
1967 - Joe Orton dies (d. 1933). English writer.
1968 - Gillian Anderson was born. Actress (''The X Files'')
1968 - Eric Bana was born. Actor
1969 - Troy Percival was born. Baseball player
1969 - Members of a cult led by Charles Manson murder five people,Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, Steven Parent, and Abigail Folger.
1969 - Sharon Tate, dies murdered (b. 24 Jan 1943). Sharon Tate and several of her house guests were brutally murdered by members of cult leader Charlie Manson's "family." American actress.
1969 - Jay Sebring dies. Hollywood hair stylist
1969 - Abigail Folger dies. Coffee heiress
1969 - Wojciech Frykowski dies. Polish writer
1969 - Cecil Frank Powell dies (b. 5 Dec 1903). British physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1950for his development of the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and for the resulting discovery of the pion (pi-meson), a heavy subatomic particle

1970 - Peruvian Airlines jet carrying 45 US exchange students explodes
1972 - Juanes was born. Colombian singer.

1972 - Liz Vassey was born. Actress
1974 - Jeremy Castle was born. Country music singer
1974 - Matt Morris was born. American baseball player
1974 - Richard Nixon becomes the first President of the United States to resign from office, an action reportedly taken to prevent time from being wasted in impeachment proceedings in response to his role in the Watergate scandal. His Vice President, Gerald Ford, takes the oath of office and becomes the 38th president.
1975 - Dmitri Shostakovich dies. Russian composer
1976 - Jessica Capshaw was born. Actress
1976 - Rhona Mitra, was born. Actress
1977 - Chamique Holdsclaw was born. Basketball player
1977 - Mikael Silvestre was born. Footballer
1978 - Audrey Tautou was born. French actress.

1978 - James G. Cozzens dies at 74. US Pulitzer laureate writer (Guard of Honor).
1982 - Karol Bancerz was born. Polish journalist.
1986 - The Headington Shark is erected in Oxford.
1988 - Wayne Gretzky is traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings in one of the most controversial transactions in hockey history.
1989 - Kaifu Toshiki becomes Prime Minister of Japan.

1992 - 25th Olympic Summer games close in Barcelona, Spain
1993 - The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan loses a 38-year hold on national leadership as Hosokawa Morihiro becomes the first non-LDP Prime Minister of Japan since 1955.
1993 - King Albert II of Belgium is sworn into office nine days after the death of his brother, King Baudouin.
1995 - Jerry Garcia dies. Guitarist (Grateful Dead) .

1995 - A Boeing 737 belonging to Guatemala’s Aviateca airline hit the Chichontepec volcano in El Salvador on a flight from Miami and killed all 65 on board.

1996 - Boris Yeltsin was sworn into his second term as president of Russia .

1997 - Morre o sociólogo brasileiro Betinho (Herbert de Sousa) , que liderou campanhas contra a fome no Brasil.

1998 - Morre Francisco Zúñiga, pintor e escultor mexicano.

1999 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin fires his Prime Minister, Sergei Stepashin, and for the fourth time fires his entire cabinet.

1999 - The Diet of Japan enacts a law establishing the Hinomaru and Kimi Ga Yo as the official national flag and national anthem.
2000 - A Piper Navajo and a Piper Seminole collide in mid-air over a housing development in Burlington, New Jersey, killing 11
2001 - US President George W. Bush announces his support for federal funding of limited research on embryonic stem cells.
2001 - In Jerusalem, 15 people die and 130 wounded in the Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing.
2002 - Peter Neville dies. Anarchist, sociologist and peace activist .

2003 - Ray Harford dies. Football manager
2003 - Gregory Hines dies in Los Angeles (b. 1946). American actor and dancer.
Feast day of Saint Romanus Ostiarius
South Africa: National Women's Day
Singapore: National Day
India Quit India Day