| August 9, 378 | August 9, 1936 |
| • In one of the most decisive battles in history, a large Roman army under Valens, the Roman emperor of the east, is defeated by the Visigoths at the Battle of Adrianople in present day Turkey. Two thirds of the Roman army, including Emperor Valens, were overrun and slaughtered by the mounted barbarians. | • At the Summer Olympics in Berlin, Jesse Owens wins his fourth gold medal of the games in the 4x100 meter relay. Owens and 16 other black American athletes struck a propaganda blow against Nazi leader Adolf Hitler who planned to use the Berlin games as a showcase of supposed Aryan superiority. |
| August 10, 1846 | August 10, 1977 |
| • After a decade of debate, Congress chartered and President James K. Polk signed the Smithsonian Institute Act into law. It was named after James Smithson, an obscure English scientist, whose bequest of $500,000 made it possible. | • Postal employee David Berkowitz was arrested in Yonkers, NY, accused of being the "Son of Sam" gunman responsible for six slayings and seven woundings. In 1978 Mr. Berkowitz was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. |
| August 11, 1856 | August 11, 1934 |
| • A hurricane hits the Louisiana coast, killing more than 400 people when Isle Derniere is totally submerged by storm surges. A tidal wave carried off upward of 150 people, with some bodies ending up 6 miles away. The only survivors were those who were able to make it to a steamship moored at the island. | • The first federal prisoners arrived at the island prison Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay. |
| August 12, 1898 | August 12, 1985 |
| • Hawaii was formally annexed to the United States after Congress passed a joint resolution. Hawaii was granted territorial status in 1900 and became the 50th state of the union in 1959. | • A Japan Air Lines Boeing 747SR crashes into Mount Otsuka, 70 miles northwest of Tokyo. Twelve minutes into the flight, as the jumbo jet was approaching its cruising altitude, an explosion shook the aircraft and blew off part of the tail section. There were 524 people aboard, and all but four were dead by the time rescuers reached the remote crash site 12 hours later. |
| August 13, 1521 | August 13, 1961 |
| • After a three month siege, Spanish forces under Hernando Cortés capture Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec empire. Cortés' men leveled the city and captured Cuauhtemoc, the Aztec emperor. Tenochtitlán was founded in 1325 A.D. by a wandering tribe of hunters and gatherers on islands in Lake Texcoco, near present day Mexico City. | • East German troops seal off all roads between East and West Berlin and begin laying barbed wire along the border. East Germany hoped to halt the mass flight of its people to West Germany, an exodus that since the division of Germany in 1945 had numbered more than 3 million. |
| August 14, 1935 | August 14, 1945 |
| • During the Great Depression, the Social Security Act is passed by Congress. The bill mandated the now familiar "contributory system" in which workers put part of their salaries into a joint pension fund. | • President Harry S. Truman announced that Japan had unconditionally surrendered, ending the hostilities of World War II. Capitulation came several days after atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and after Emperor Hirohito called on Japan's war council to give up. |
| August 15, 1947 | August 15, 1961 |
| • India became independent after 200 years of British rule. Jawaharlal Nehru became India's first Prime minister. | • Two days after sealing off free passage between East and West Berlin with barbed wire, East German authorities begin building a wall to permanently close access to the West. for the next 28 years, the heavily fortified Berlin Wall stood as the most tangible symbol of the Cold War. |