On August 9th...

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1387 King Henry V of England was born.

1593 Author Izaak Walton was born.

1631 Poet and dramatist John Dryden was born.

1638 Jonas Bronck of Holland became the first European settler in wat is now The Bronx.

1803 Robert Fulton tested his steam paddle-boat on the River Seine, France.

1805 Zebulon Pike embarked on a journey to find the source of the Mississippi River.

1819 William T.G. Morton, one of the first men to use ether as an anesthetic, was born.

1830 Louis-Philippe formally accepted the crown of France.

1831 The first steam engine train in the United States began running between Albany and Schenectady, New York.

1842 The United States-Canada border was defined by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty.

1848 The Free Soil Party was organized in Buffalo, New York.

1854 Henry David Thoreau published Walden.

1892 James William Denver, American politician and Civil War general, died.

1896 Aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal was mortally injured when the glider he was piloting crashed; he died the following day

1898 Rudolf Diesel patented the diesel internal combustion engine.

1904 Libanus McLouth Todd patented a check-writing machine.

1910 Alva Fisher patented an electric washing machine.

1930 Betty Boop debuted in Max Fleischer's animated cartoon "Dizzy Dishes."

1942 Mohandas Gandhi and 50 others were arrested in Bombay, India, after the passing of a "quit India" campaign by the All-India Congress.

1944 The first Smokey Bear poster was released.
1944 Actor Sam Elliott was born.

1945 The United States dropped the world's second atomic bomb to be used in warfare on Nagasaki, Japan.
1945 Boxer Ken Norton was born.

1957 Actress Melanie Griffith was born.

1963 Singer Whitney Houston was born.

1965 Singapore gained independence from Malaysia.

1967 Football player Deion Sanders was born.

1968 Actress Gillian Anderson was born.

1974 U.S. President Richard Nixon resigned from office; he was succeeded by Vice-President Gerald Rudolph Ford.

1980 Aviator Jackie Cochran died.

1995 Jerry Garcia, founding member of the Grateful Dead, died.

2003 Dancer Gregory Hines died.

2006 Astronomer James Van Allen died.

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This page was last updated on August 09, 2018.