Today in History for 9th August 2025

Historical Events

1930 – 113°F (45°C) recorded in Perryville, Tennessee (state record)
1987 – PGA Championship Men’s Golf, PGA National Palm Beach: Larry Nelson wins the second PGA C’ship in a playoff with fellow American Lanny Wadkins
2016 – Hungary’s Katinka Hosszú swims an Olympic record of 2:06.58 in the women’s 200 m individual medley, winning her third gold medal of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics
2018 – Saudi-led air coalition strikes a school bus in Saada Province, Yemen, killing 43 people, many of whom are children
2023 – Ecuadorian opposition presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio is assassinated at a campaign rally in Quito

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Famous Birthdays

1869 – Randle Ayrton, British actor (The Manxman, Nell Gwyn), born in Chester, Cheshire, England (d. 1940)
1903 – Tom Tyler [Vincent Markowski], American actor (Stagecoach; She Wore a Yellow Ribbon), born in Port Henry, New York (d. 1954)
1938 – Rod Laver, Australian tennis player (1962, 1969 Grand Slam; 11 x Grand Slam singles titles; 8 x Pro major titles), born in Rockhampton, Queensland
1957 – Melanie Griffith, American actress (Body Double, Working Girl), born in New York City
1963 – Whitney Houston, American singer (“I Will Always Love You”; “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”), actress (The Bodyguard), and film producer (The Princess Diaries), born in Newark, New Jersey (d. 2012)

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Famous Deaths

1420 – Pierre d’ailly [Peter de Alliaco], French theologist and cardinal, dies
1806 – Louis Ferdinand, Prussian prince and a soldier in the Napoleonic Wars, dies at 33
1888 – Charles Cros, French inventor and poet (Le Hareng Saur), dies at 45
1985 – Clive Churchill, Australian rugby league fullback (37 Tests; NSW 27 games; South Sydney; RL “Immortal”) and coach (Australia 29 Tests, South Sydney), dies at 58
2021 – Alex Cord [Alexander Viespi], American actor (Brotherhood; Fire; Street Asylum; Airwolf), dies at 88

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Famous Deaths for 8th August 2025

1555 – Oronce Finé, French mathematician (b. 1494)
1685 – Sassoferrato [Giovanni B Salvi], Italian painter (Madonna), dies at 75
1947 – Anton Ivanovich Denikin, Russian general, led anti-Bolshevik White forces during Russian Civil war, dies at 73
1980 – Aga Yahya Khan, Pakistani general and politician (President of Pakistan 1969-71, Bangladesh genocide during his regime), dies at 63
1991 – James Irwin, American air force officer and NASA astronaut (Apollo 15, 8th person to walk on the moon), dies at 61
1996 – Herbert Huncke, American writer and poet, dies at 80
2004 – Fay Wray, Canadian American actress (King Kong), dies at 96
2007 – Ma Lik, Chinese politician (b. 1952)
2007 – Joybubbles [Josef Carl Engressia Jr.], American notable phone phreak, dies at 58
2024 – Jorge Rodríguez, Mexican soccer midfielder (40 caps; CD Toluca 201 games), dies of Evans syndrome at 56

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Historical Events for 8th August 2025

1984 – Carl Lewis wins his third gold medal of the Los Angeles Olympics, joining Kirk Baptiste and Thomas Jefferson in an American sweep of the 200 m
1988 – Rap group N.W.A releases their debut studio album “Straight Outta Compton”
1992 – Spanish center forward Kiko scores twice as the home team wins the Olympic football gold medal with a 3-2 victory over Poland in front of 95,000 at Camp Nou, Barcelona
2008 – XXIX Summer Olympic Games open in Beijing, China
2013 – Retired Washington Post journalist and editor Ben Bradlee is named as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama 
2021 – Taliban forces capture three regional Afghan cities, including the key northern city of Kunduz
2022 – Beyoncé’s single “Break My Soul” is her first solo #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in 14 years, the same week her “Renaissance” album reaches No. 1 on Billboard’s 200 chart
2023 – Storm Hans brings widespread destruction to Scandinavia, with Norway warning of its highest rainfall in 25 years

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Today in History for 8th August 2025

Historical Events

1829 – French government of Polignac forms
1911 – Public Law 62-5 sets the number of representatives in the United States House of Representatives at 435 and comes into effect in 1913
1913 – Richard Corfield’s “Camel Corps” opens against the “Mad Mullah” in Burao, Somalia
2013 – Retired Washington Post journalist and editor Ben Bradlee is named as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama 
2018 – US State Department imposes new sanctions on Russia for nerve agent attack in Britain

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Famous Birthdays

1852 – Barend Barendse, Dutch actor and director (Heilig recht), born in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands (d. 1935)
1950 – Willie Hall, American drummer (Blues Brothers Band), born in Memphis, Tennessee
1960 – Cheyne Horan, Australian surfer (World C’ship runner-up 1978, 79, 81, 82), born in Sydney, Australia
1987 – Katie Leung, Scottish actress (Harry Potter love interest), born in Dundee, Scotland
1988 – Danilo Gallinari, Italian NBA basketball player (NY Knicks, Denver Nuggets), born in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, Italy

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Famous Deaths

1824 – Friedrich August Wolf, German philologist (Prolegomena), dies at 65
1911 – William P. Frye, American congressman and senator (1881-1911), dies at 80
1987 – Danilo Blanuša, Croatian mathematician, dies at 83
1993 – Lou van Rees, Dutch jazz and pop music impresario, dies at 77
1996 – Nevill Francis Mott, British physicist (1977 Nobel Prize for Physics for work on amorphous semiconductors), dies at 90

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Famous Deaths for 7th August 2025

1033 – Frederick II, duke of Upper Lorraine
1106 – Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor (1084–1105), dies at 54
1485 – Alexander Stewart, 1st Duke of Albany, Scottish prince
1547 – Cajetan of Thiene, Italian priest and saint who founded Catholic order of Theatines, dies at 66
1639 – Martin van den Hove, Dutch scientist (b. 1605)
1661 – Jin Shengtan, Chinese editor, writer and critic (b. 1608)
1821 – Caroline of Brunswick, Queen Consort of King George IV (1820-21), dies at 53
2008 – Bernie Brillstein, American talent agent, manager and producer (The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd), dies of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at 77
2017 – Janet Seidel, Australian jazz pianist, vocalist, arranger, and educator, dies of ovarian cancer at 62
2021 – Dennis “Dee Tee” Thomas, American funk saxophonist (Kool and The Gang – “Who’s Gonna Take The Weight”), dies at 70

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Historical Events for 7th August 2025

1914 – Russia invades East Prussia
1926 – George S. Kaufman and Irving Berlin’s musical “The Cocoanuts,” starring the Marx Brothers, closes at the Lyric Theatre, NYC, after 276 performances and is later adapted as a film
1936 – Twenty-two nations line up as the first basketball competition in the Olympic Games begins in Berlin; Estonia beats France 34-29 in the first game
1944 – Anton de Kom is arrested as a Surinamese resistance fighter
1960 – Students stage kneel-in demonstrations in Atlanta churches
1992 – Taking advantage of six months of training on their hometown Terrassa pitch, Spain wins its first hockey gold medal by beating Germany 2-1 in the women’s final at the Barcelona Olympics
1992 – The Orlando Magic signs NBA No. 1 draft pick Shaquille O’Neal
2021 – Kevin Durant, with 29 points, leads the USA to his third and the team’s fourth consecutive Olympic men’s basketball gold medal with an 87-82 win over France in Tokyo

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Today in History for 7th August 2025

Historical Events

626 – Battle at Constantinople: Slavic, Persians and Avar siege of Constantinople fails, keeping the Byzantine Empire intact
1900 – Diamond workers in Amsterdam strike
1930 – Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s Liberal Party loses the election to Richard Bedford Bennett of the Conservative Party
2008 – Russo-Georgian War: Georgia moves troops into the Russian-supported self-proclaimed republic of South Ossetia in response to aggression; first European war of the 21st century
2012 – Heavy rain forces 20,000 people to flee their homes in Manila, Philippines

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Famous Birthdays

1844 – Auguste Michel-Lévy, French geologist and petrologist, born in Paris (d. 1911)
1872 – Andries Cornelis Dirk de Graeff, Dutch politician (Governor-General of Dutch East Indies 1926-31), born in The Hague, Netherlands (d. 1957)
1973 – Kevin Muscat, Australian soccer defender (Olyroos, Olympics 1996), born in Crawley, United Kingdom
1976 – Cathy Park Hong, American Korean poet (Dance Dance Revolution), born in Los Angeles, California
1977 – Samantha Ronson, British DJ, born in Camden, London

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Famous Deaths

1821 – Caroline of Brunswick, Queen Consort of King George IV (1820-21), dies at 53
1942 – Richard Gott, British general (commandant of 8th Army), dies in battle at 43
1970 – Jonathan Jackson, US African American activist, shot dead in a shootout at 17
2004 – Red Adair, American oil field firefighter, dies at 89
2023 – DJ Casper [William Perry Jr.], American club DJ and songwriter (“Cha Cha Slide”), dies of cancer at 58

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Famous Deaths for 6th August 2025

1657 – Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Polish-Lithuanian military leader of Zaporozhian Cossacks (organized rebellion of Ukrainian Cossacks against the Polish), dies (b. c. 1595)
1821 – Antonio Bartolomeo Bruni, Italian composer and conductor, dies at 64
1828 – Konstantin von Benckendorff, Russian general and statesman, dies of a fever at 43
1881 – James Springer White, American theologian (co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church), dies at 60
1900 – Wilhelm Liebknecht, German socialist (Social Democratic Party), dies at 74
1946 – Benny Lynch, Scottish boxer (World flyweight title 1937-38), dies of malnutrition-induced respiratory failure at 33
1996 – Muhammad al-Badr, magnate of Northern Yemen (1962), dies
2012 – Robert Hughes, Australian art critic and writer (Barcelona), dies at 74
2016 – Helen Delich Bentley, American politician (Rep-R-MD, 1985-950), dies at 92
2023 – David LaFlamme, American electric rock violinist (It’s A Beautiful Day – “White Bird”), dies at 82

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Historical Events for 6th August 2025

1675 – Russian Tsar Alexis bans foreign hair styles for those below the nobility
1921 – The municipal ferry system connecting Clason Point, Bronx to College Point, Queens begins
1937 – MLB overturns New York Yankees’ 7-6 win over Cleveland Indians due to umpire error
1956 – After going bankrupt in 1955, the American national broadcaster DuMont Television Network airs its final broadcast, a boxing match from St. Nicholas Arena
1994 – Algerian Muslim fundamentalists threaten schools and universities
2015 – American comedian Jon Stewart hosts late-night talk and satirical news program “The Daily Show” for the last time
2019 – Lawyer representing 800 boy scouts identify 350 sex abusers within Boy Scouts of America saying, “It’s the largest paedophile ring on earth”
2023 – Train derailment in Nawabshah, Sindh province, Pakistan, kills at least 30 people and injures more than 60

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Today in History for 6th August 2025

Historical Events

1917 – WWI: Battle of Mărăşeşti between the Romanian and German armies begins
1948 – Dutch super athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen wins the 200 m in 24.4 seconds at the London Olympics, becoming the first woman to claim three individual track and field gold medals at a Games, having already won the 100 m and 80 m hurdles
1965 – 32nd NFL Chicago College All-Star Game at Soldier Field: Cleveland 24, All-Stars 16 (68,000 attendees)
1974 – Explosion and fire destroy Great Northern Railroad yard in Wenatchee, Washington
2015 – Eqyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi inaugurates the Suez Canal Expansion at a ceremony in Ismaïlia

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Famous Birthdays

1738 – Hayashi Shihei, Japanese military scholar, born in Edo (now Tokyo), Japan (d. 1793)
1942 – George Jung [Boston George], American drug trafficker whose story was portrayed in the biopic “Blow”, born in Boston, Massachusetts (d. 2021)
1943 – Ray Buktenica, Greenwich Village actor (Rhoda, House Calls), born in New York City
1953 – Pat MacDonald, American rock singer-songwriter, and guitarist (Timbuk 3 – “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades”), born in Green Bay, Wisconsin
1963 – Charles Ingram, English former British Army major known for cheating on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, born in Derbyshire, England

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Famous Deaths

1272 – Stephen V, King of Hungary and Croatia (1270-72), son of Béla IV, dies at 32 or 33
1928 – W. H. Grattan Flood, Irish author and composer, dies at 68
1996 – Richard M. Goodwin, American mathematician and economist (The Dynamics of A Capitalist Economy), dies at 83
2009 – Bahadır Akkuzu, Turkish rock guitarist and singer (Kurtalan Ekspres), dies of a heart attack at 54
2022 – David Muse, American rock and smooth jazz saxophonist and flutist (Firefall – “You Are The Woman”; Marshall Tucker Band), dies of cancer at 73

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