Today is Sunday, Aug. 9, the 221st day of 2026. There are 144 days left in the year.<\/p>\n
Today in history:<\/p>\n
On Aug. 9, 1974, Gerald Ford took the oath of office to become U.S. president after Richard Nixon\u2019s resignation; in a speech afterward, Ford declared that \u201cour long national nightmare is over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also on this date:<\/p>\n
In 1173, construction began on the campanile of Pisa Cathedral \u2014 better known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa.<\/p>\n
In 1854, Henry David Thoreau\u2019s \u201cWalden,\u201d which described Thoreau\u2019s experiences while living near Walden Pond in Massachusetts, was first published.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
In 1945, three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, a U.S. B-29 Superfortress dropped an atomic device over Nagasaki; the bombing and subsequent radiation poisoning killed an estimated 74,000 people.<\/p>\n
In 1969, actor Sharon Tate and four other people were found killed at Tate\u2019s Los Angeles home; cult leader Charles Manson and a group of his followers were later convicted of the crime.<\/p>\n
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan nominated Lauro Cavazos to be secretary of education; Cavazos became the first Hispanic to serve in the Cabinet.<\/p>\n
In 2014, Michael Brown Jr., a Black 18-year-old, was shot to death by a police officer following an altercation in Ferguson, Missouri; Brown\u2019s death led to sometimes-violent protests in Ferguson and other U.S. cities, helping fuel a national \u201cBlack Lives Matter\u201d movement.<\/p>\n
In 2024, a passenger plane crashed in a gated residential community in Brazil\u2019s Sao Paulo state, killing all 61 people aboard. The twin-engine plane operated by Voepass was en route to Sao Paulo\u2019s international airport at the time.<\/p>\n
In 2025, Jen Pawol broke Major League Baseball\u2019s gender barrier as the first female umpire to work a regular-season game; Pawol worked both games of a doubleheader between the Atlanta Braves and Miami Marlins.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Birthdays:<\/p>\n
Basketball Hall of Famer Bob Cousy is 98.
\nTennis Hall of Famer Rod Laver is 88.
\nActor Sam Elliott is 82.
\nSinger Barbara Mason is 79.
\nCollege Football Hall of Famer and former NFL player Doug Williams is 71.
\nActor Melanie Griffith is 69.
\nActor Amanda Bearse is 68.
\nRapper Kurtis Blow is 67.
\nHockey Hall of Famer Brett Hull is 62.
\nPro and College Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders is 59.
\nActor Gillian Anderson is 58.
\nActor Eric Bana is 58.
\nProducer-director McG (aka Joseph McGinty Nichol) is 58.
\nNHL player-turned-coach Rod Brind\u2019Amour is 56.
\nActor Thomas Lennon is 55.
\nActor Nikki Schieler Ziering is 55.
\nLatin rock singer Juanes is 54.
\nActor Liz Vassey is 54.
\nActor Kevin McKidd is 53.
\nActor Jessica Capshaw is 50.
\nActor Ashley Johnson is 43.
\nActor Anna Kendrick is 41.
\nSinger-rapper Kazuha is 23.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today is Sunday, Aug. 9, the 221st day of 2026. There are 144 days left in the year.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,342886,342887,3,31891,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-807782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-august-9-history","tag-gerald-ford-inaugurated","tag-news","tag-today-in-history","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}