This is a list of selected August 9 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Before doing so, please review the selected anniversaries guidelines. If your suggestion is potentially controversial or relates to a day currently or soon to appear on the Main Page, post it on the talk page instead.
Please note:
- Events listed on the Main Page are selected based on article quality and to provide a diverse range of topics, rather than solely on the importance or significance of the events.
- Only four or five events are featured each day; therefore, not all important or significant events can be included.
- An event is generally excluded if it is already the subject of the scheduled featured article or picture of the day.
To report an error in content currently on the Main Page, see Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. If a listed event is inaccurate, please first seek consensus and update the corresponding article before making changes here.
Staging area
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
Leaning Tower of Pisa
Replica of the original Fat Man atomic bomb
Interior of the Sistine Chapel
North and east walls of the Sistine Chapel
Sharon Tate
Richard Nixon
Resignation letter of Richard Nixon
- Sharon Tate
Mushroom cloud over Nagasaki
Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| National Day in Singapore (1965); | refimprove |
| 48 BC – Julius Caesar and the Populares defeated Pompey and the Optimates at the Battle of Pharsalus, solidifying his control over the Roman Republic. | needs more footnotes, unreferenced sections |
| 378 – A large Roman army led by Emperor Valens was destroyed by the Goths in the Battle of Adrianople. | unreferenced section |
| 1173 – Construction began on a campanile that eventually became known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa. | Unreffed statements, page number |
| 1483 – The first mass in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican City was celebrated. | refimprove |
| 1842 – The Webster–Ashburton Treaty was signed, clarifying the Canada–United States border between Lake Superior and the Lake of the Woods, and the location of the Maine–New Brunswick border. | refimprove section |
| 1854 – Henry David Thoreau published Walden, his account of having spent two years living mostly in isolation on the shores of Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts, U.S. | refimprove section |
| Eileen Gray |b|1878 | missing page numbers |
Eligible
- 1862 – American Civil War: After nearly being driven from the field in the early part of the Battle of Cedar Mountain, Confederate troops counter-attacked and achieved a victory.
- 1877 – Nez Perce War: Both the Nez Perce and the United States Army suffered numerous casualties at the Battle of the Big Hole, which ended conclusively.
- 1897 – The first meeting of the International Congress of Mathematicians was held in Zürich, Switzerland.
- 1902 – In a ceremony at Westminster Abbey, Edward VII and Alexandra were crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor and Empress of India.
- 1942 – World War II: In the first major naval engagement of the Guadalcanal campaign, Japan forced the U.S. Navy to withdraw from the Solomon Islands.
- 1942 – Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 was premiered in Leningrad while the city was under siege by Nazi forces.
- 1945 – World War II: The USAAF bomber Bockscar dropped a Fat Man atomic bomb (replica pictured) on Nagasaki, Japan.
- 1956 – About 20,000 women marched on Pretoria, South Africa, to protest the introduction of pass laws for black women under apartheid.
- 1960 – Led by Albert Kalonji, South Kasai declared its unilateral secession from the Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville).
- 1965 – The state of Singapore (flag pictured) was expelled from the Malaysian federation due to a heated ideological conflict between their respective ruling parties.
- 1969 – Members of the Manson Family invaded a house and murdered American actress Sharon Tate (pictured) and four guests in Los Angeles, before killing two more people the following night.
- 1971 – The Troubles: British forces began arresting and interning suspected Irish republican militants in Northern Ireland.
- 1988 – Wayne Gretzky was traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings in one of the most controversial player transactions in ice hockey history.
- 2001 – A suicide bomber attacked a pizza restaurant in Jerusalem, killing 15 people and wounding 130 others.
- 2006 – British police arrested 24 people for conspiring to detonate liquid explosives carried on board airliners travelling from the UK to the US and Canada.
- 2008 – A civilian school bus in Dahyan, Yemen, was bombed by Saudi Arabia killing at least 40 children under 15.
- Born/died: | Arnold Fitz Thedmar |b|1201| Walter of Kirkham |d|1260| Hieronymus Bosch |d|1516| Michael the Brave |d|1601| Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton |b|1757| Roman Dmowski |b|1864| Annie Turnbo Malone |b|1869| Albert Ketèlbey |b|1875 Philip Larkin |b|1922| Bob Cousy |b|1928| John Key |b|1961| Gillian Anderson |b|1968| Beryl May Dent |d|1977|Li Jiawei|b|1981| Jason Heyward |b|1989 |
Notes
- Enola Gay/Little Boy appear on August 6, so Bockscar/Fat Man should not appear in the same year
- Battle of Tulagi and Gavutu–Tanambogo appears on August 7, so Battle of Savo Island should not appear in the same year
August 9: International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples; National Women's Day in South Africa (1956)
First Smokey Bear poster
- 1821 – The statue of A'a from Rurutu was presented to members of the London Missionary Society on the south Pacific island of Ra'iatea.
- 1934 – The Blue Lotus, the fifth volume of The Adventures of Tintin by the Belgian cartoonist Hergé and noted for its emphasis on countering negative misconceptions of Chinese people, began serialisation.
- 1944 – The United States Forest Service authorized the use of Smokey Bear (pictured) as its mascot to replace Bambi.
- 1974 – On the verge of an impeachment and removal from office amid the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon became the first president of the United States to resign.
- 2014 – Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African-American man, was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, resulting in widespread protests and unrest.
- Stephen of Anjou (d. 1354)
- Ernst Haeckel (d. 1919)
- Brett Hull (b. 1964)
- Gay van der Meer (d. 2014)