August 9
Twenty individuals, including at least nine firefighters, are killed in Boston’s worst fire. It consumes 65 downtown acres and 776 buildings in more than 12 hours. – 1872.
A second atom bomb is dropped on Japan by the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally in Japan’s unconditional surrender. – 1945.
Richard M. Nixon officially ends his term as president of the United States. Minutes later, vice president Gerald R. Ford is sworn in as the 38th U.S. president. – 1974.
Members of Charles Manson’s cult kill five individuals in movie director Roman Polanski’s home, including Polanski’s pregnant wife. Less than two days later, the group killed two more individuals. The savage crimes shocked the Nation. – 1969.
August 10
Missouri becomes the 24th state, the first state entirely west of the Mississippi River. Missouri was admitted within the Missouri Compromise in 1820 which admitted Maine as a northern state. – 1821.
Construction on the St. Lawrence Seaway begins. Ultimately 22,000 workers spent five years building the 2,342-mile route from the Atlantic Ocean to the northern-most part of the Great Lakes. – 1954.
The United Kingdom records its first temperature above 100°F. Throughout the month, an intense heat wave scorched the European continent which claimed more than 35,000 lives. – 2003.
August 11
A group of federal prisoners classified as “most dangerous” arrives at Alcatraz Island, a 22-acre rocky outcrop situated 1.5 miles offshore in San Francisco Bay. – 1934.
Racial tension reaches a breaking point in the Watts section of Los Angeles after two white policemen scuffle with a black motorist suspected of drunken driving. A riot quickly rages over a 50-square-mile area of South Central Los Angeles. Order was restored August 16 which left 34 dead, 1,032 injured, nearly 4,000 arrested. – 1965.
August 12
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was concluded between the United States, Canada and Mexico. It went into effect in January 1994. – 1992.
What was to become a 232-day strike by Major League Baseball players over owners’ demands for team salary caps begins; ultimately 938 games were canceled. It ended the 1994 season. – 1994.
August 13
After a three-month siege, Spanish forces under Hernán Cortés capture Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec empire. Cortés’ men leveled the city. – 1521.
In an effort to stem the tide of refugees attempting to leave East Berlin, the communist government representatives of East Germany begin building the Berlin Wall to divide East Berlin and West Berlin. – 1961.
August 14
President Franklin Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act, to provide for the first time, guaranteed income for retirees and to create a system of unemployment benefits. – 1935.
A major outage knocks out power across the eastern United States and parts of Canada. Fifty-Million people were affected. Despite concerns, there were very few reports of looting or other blackout-inspired crime. In New York City, the police department, out in full force, recorded about 100 fewer arrests than average. In some places, citizens even took it upon themselves to help direct traffic in the absence of working traffic lights. In New York City, the estimated cost of the blackout was more than $500 Million. – 2003.
August 15
The American-built waterway across the Isthmus of Panama, to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is inaugurated with the passage of the U.S. vessel Ancon, a cargo and passenger ship. – 1914.
Emperor Hirohito broadcasts the news of Japan’s surrender to the Japanese people. In Japan’s Shinto religious tradition, the emperor was divine; his voice was the voice of a god. Hirohito said, “(Japan’s enemy) has begun to employ a most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable.” – 1945.
The Woodstock Music Festival opens on a patch of farmland in White Lake, a hamlet in the upstate New York town of Bethel, which was host to more than of half a million festival-goers. – 1969.
U.S. president Richard M. Nixon announces a 90-day freeze on wages, prices, and rents in an attempt to combat inflation. – 1971.
Sources: History.com, Toil and Trouble, by Thomas R. Brooks; American Labor Struggles, by Samuel Yellen; IWW calendar, Solidarity Forever; Historical Encyclopedia of American Labor, edited by Robert E. Weir and James P. Hanlan; Southwest Labor History Archives/George Meany Center; Geov Parrish’s Radical History; workday Minnesota; Andy Richards and Adam Wright, AFL-CIO Washington DC Metro Council.