On This Day August 9

1988
First night game at Wrigley Field: The Chicago Cubs defeat the New York Mets 6-4 at Chicago's 74-year-old ballpark.

1974
U.S. Presidency: Richard Nixon resigns. He had admitted his complicity in the Watergate cover-up four days earlier. Vice President Gerald Ford is then appointed President. This is the first and only time in U.S. history that the someone became President without having been elected either President or Vice President.

1969
Charles Manson: Several of the cult leader's followers murder actress Sharon Tate and four others.

1965
Missile explosion: A Titan II missile explodes near Searcy, Arkansas, killing 53.

1936
Jesse Owens: The black American track star upsets Hitler's theory of Aryan superiority by winning his fourth gold medal, for the 4 x 100-meter relay race.

1930
Betty Boop debuts as a curvaceous cabaret singer in the Max Fleischer cartoon Dizzy Dishes. (Download Free Cartoons)

1842
Webster-Ashburton Treaty settling the U.S.-Canada border in Maine and Minnesota.

1963
Whitney Houston, American singer. Music: I Wanna Dance With Somebody (1987) and Where Do Broken Hearts Go (1988, her 7th consecutive #1 American hit).

1957
Melanie Griffith, American actress. Film: The Drowning Pool (1976), Working Girl (1988) and Bonfire of the Vanities (1990).

1945
Ken Norton, American boxing Hall of Famer. He is the only heavyweight boxing champion who never won a heavyweight championship fight.

1938
Rod Laver, Australian tennis player, the only player to win the Grand Slam twice (1962, 69), four-time Wimbledon champ, and the first to win a $1,000,000 in prize money.

1929
Fred Fredericks (Harold Fredericks Jr.), cartoonist, artist for Mandrake the Magician (1964-).

1927 d. 1978
Robert Shaw, British actor, author. Film: From Russia with Love (1963, SPECTRE agent Red Grant). He wrote The Man in the Glass Booth (1967), which described the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann.

1920 d. 1980
Allen Clayton Hoskins Jr., American actor, Farina of The Little Rascals. He appeared in 105 Our Gang films - more than any one else in the series.

1819 d. 1868
Dr. William T. G. Morton (William Thomas Green Morton), American dentist. He performed the first tooth extraction under anesthesia, using ether (Sep 30, 1846).

1631 d. 1700
John Dryden, English poet, essayist. He instigated the rule of not ending a sentence with a preposition.

1593 d. 1683
Izaak Walton, English author, called the "Father of Angling." His book The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation (1653) is one of the monuments of English literature.

2003 b. 1946
Gregory Hines, American actor, dancer. Film: History of the World Part I (1981), The Cotton Club (1984), White Nights (1985), and Tap (1989). He made his Broadway debut at age 8.

1980 b. 1906
Jacqueline Cochran (Bessie Lee Pittman), American aviator. She was the first civilian awarded the U.S. Distinguished Service Medal, the first woman to break the sound barrier (1953), and the first woman to break Mach 2 (1960), the first woman to pilot a bomber across the North Atlantic (1941), the first woman inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame, the first pilot to make an instrument landing, the first woman President of the Federation Aeronautique lnt'l (58-61), and the first pilot to fly above 20,000 feet with an oxygen mask. She was the first woman to compete in the famous Bendix Trophy Transcontinental Race across the U.S. (1934) and was the first woman to win it (1938). The Associated Press named her "Woman of the Year in Business." for her cosmetics business (1953, 1954). (See Biography)

1969 b. 1943
Sharon Tate, American actress. She was murdered by followers of Charles Manson.

1896 b. 1848
Otto Lilienthal, German aviation pioneer, inventor of the first successful gliders. He died in a gliding accident.

1048 b. ????
Damasus II, Bavarian-born religious leader, 151st Pope (July - Aug. 1048).

August 9

Events

Birthdays

Deaths