August 9 in History

Historical Events on August 9

1810 Napoleon annexes Westphalia as part of the First French Empire.

1862 American Civil War: Battle of Cedar Mountain: At Cedar Mountain, Virginia, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson narrowly defeats Union forces under General John Pope.

1892 Thomas Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph.

1942 World War II: Battle of Savo Island: 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 Continuation War: The Vyborg-Petrozavodsk Offensive, the largest offensive launched by Soviet Union against Finland during the Second World War, ends to a strategic stalemate. Both Finnish and Soviet troops at the Finnish front dug to defensive positions, and the front remains stable until the end of the war.

1965 Singapore is expelled from Malaysia and becomes the only country to date to gain independence unwillingly.

1971 The Troubles: The British Army in Northern Ireland launches Operation Demetrius. Hundreds of people are arrested and interned, thousands are displaced, and twenty are killed in the violence that followed.

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

1999 Russian President Boris Yeltsin fires his Prime Minister, Sergei Stepashin, and for the fourth time fires his entire cabinet.

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Famous Birthdays on August 9

1896 Jean Piaget

1947 Roy Hodgson

1963 Whitney Houston

1975 Mahesh Babu

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Famous Deaths on August 9

1975 Dmitri Shostakovich

1995 Jerry Garcia

1996 Frank Whittle

2010 Ted Stevens

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