August 9th in History

48 BC   Caesar's civil war: Battle of Pharsalus – Julius Caesar decisively defeated Pompey at Pharsalus and Pompey fled to Egypt.

681   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, with a Kahn rather than a King.  Bulgaria had been a Khaganate of Muslim Turkey.  Bulgaria has embraced, at different times, all three of the Abramic religions as the official state faith, by turns - Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, varying from one regime to the next replacing it.

Botticelli's" The  Last Temptation
 of Christ", from the North Wall
of the Sistine Chapel

1483   The Sistine Chapel named for Pope Sixtus IV opened; this was before Michelangelo painted the ceiling, but after Botticelli, di Cosimo, Ghirlandaio, Roselli, Signorelli, Pinturicchio and Perugino had painted the walls with frescoes.  The Chapel is the site of the conclave of Cardinals which elects new Popes.


1631   Birth of poet John Dryden.

1814   Indian Wars: The Creek signed the Treaty of Fort William

1819    Birth of William Morton

American dental surgeon who first demonstrated anesthesia.

Jackson, giving up huge parts of Alabama and Georgia.

1842   The Webster-Ashburton Treaty is signed, establishing the United States-Canada border east of the Rocky Mountains.


1892   Thomas Edison received a patent for a full-duplex and quadruplex two-way telegraph, dramtically improving the commercial usefulness and efficiency of telegraphy.  Rival Nikola Tesla was working on wireless telegraphy during the same period.On Aug. 9,

1896, Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist famous for his studies of cognitive development in children, was born.

1902   Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, ending the 'Victorian Era' and beginning the 'Edwardian Era'.

1942    Indian leader, Mahatma Gandhi was arrested in Bombay by British forces, launching the Quit India Movement.

Smokey the Bear poster

            Allied naval forces protecting their amphibious forces during the initial stages of the Battle of Guadalcanal are surprised and defeated by an Imperial Japanese Navy cruiser force.

1944    The United States Forest Service and the Wartime Advertising Council released posters featuring Smokey Bear for the first time.
             Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive, the largest offensive launched by Soviet Union against Finland during Second World War, ended in a strategic stalemate. Both Finnish and Soviet troops at Finnish front dug in defensive positions, and the front remained stable until the end of the war.

1945   World War II: Nagasaki is devastated when the second atomic bomb, "Fat Man", was dropped by the United States B-29 Bock's car. 39,000 people are killed outright.

1965     Singapore was expelled from Malaysia and became the first, and only country to gain independence unwillingly.
             A fire at a Titan missile base near Searcy, Arkansas killed 53 construction workers.

1974   As a direct result of the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon became the first President of the United States to resign from office. His Vice President, Gerald Ford, became president.

2001   US President George W. Bush announced his support for federal funding of limited research on embryonic stem cells.

2004 Terry Nichols was sentenced to 161 consecutive life sentences on state murder charges in the Oklahoma City bombing.

2007   Emergence of the Financial crisis of 2007-2008 when a liquidity crisis resulted from the Subprime mortgage crisis.