Today’s Highlight in History:
On Aug. 9, 1945, three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, a U.S. B-29 Superfortress code-named Bockscar dropped a nuclear device (“Fat Man”) over Nagasaki, killing an estimated 74,000 people.
On this date:
In 1854, Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden,” which described Thoreau’s experiences while living near Walden Pond in Massachusetts, was first published.
In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order nationalizing silver.
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 1944, 258 African-American sailors based at Port Chicago, California, refused to load a munitions ship following a cargo vessel explosion that killed 320 men, many of them Black. (Fifty of the sailors were convicted of mutiny, fined and imprisoned.)
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 his followers were later 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 in Washington ordered John W. Hinckley Jr., who’d been acquitted of shooting President Ronald Reagan and three others by reason of insanity, committed to a mental hospital.
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan nominated Lauro Cavazos (kah-VAH’-zohs) 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, California, of a heart attack at age 53.
In 2004, Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, addressing a court for the first time, asked victims of the blast for forgiveness as a judge sentenced him 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, Missouri; Brown’s death led to sometimes-violent protests in Ferguson and other U.S. 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. The U.S. women’s gymnastics team won gold for a second consecutive Olympics.
Celebrity Birthdays: Aug. 9: Jazz drummer Jack DeJohnette is 81. Comedian David Steinberg is 81. Actor Sam Elliott is 79. Singer Barbara Mason is 76. Actor Melanie Griffith is 66. Actor Amanda Bearse (“Married...With Children”) is 65. Rapper Kurtis Blow is 64. “Today” co-host Hoda Kotb is 59. Actor Pat Petersen (“Knots Landing”) is 57. Actor Gillian Anderson (“The X-Files”) is 55. Actor Eric Bana (“Star Trek,” ″The Hulk”) is 55. Actor Thomas Lennon (″Reno 911!”) is 53. Bassist Arion Salazar (Third Eye Blind) is 53. Rapper Mack 10 is 52. Singer Juanes is 51. Actor Liz Vassey (“CSI,” ″All My Children”) is 51. Actor Kevin McKidd (“Grey’s Anatomy”) is 50. Actor Rhona Mitra (“Nip/Tuck,” “Boston Legal”) is 48. Actor Jessica Capshaw (“Grey’s Anatomy,” “The Practice”) is 47. Actor Ashley Johnson (“The Help”) is 40. Actor Anna Kendrick (“Pitch Perfect,” ″Twilight”) is 38.