Almanac

Today is Wednesday, Aug. 9, the 221st day of 2023. There are 144 days left in the year.

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, Calif., refused to load a munitions ship following a cargo vessel explosion that killed 320 men, many of them Black.

In 1945, three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, a U.S. B-29 Superfortress code-named Bockscar dropped a nuclear device over Nagasaki, killing an estimated 74,000 people.

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...