History of 8 September
1935 – U.S. Senator Huey P. Long, “The Kingfish” of Louisiana politics, was shot and mortally wounded. He died two days later.
1945 – In Washington, DC, a bus equipped with a two-way radio was put into service for the first time.
1945 – Bess Myerson of New York was crowned Miss America. She was the first Jewish contestant to win the title.
1951 – A peace treaty with Japan was signed by 48 other nations in San Francisco, CA.
1960 – NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, was dedicated by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The facility had been activated in July earlier that year.
1966 – NBC-TV aired the first episode of “Star Trek” entitled “The Man Trap”. The show was canceled on September 2, 1969.
1971 – In Washington, DC, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was inaugurated. The opening featured the premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass.”
1973 – Hank Aaron hit his 709th home run.
1974 – U.S. President Ford granted an unconditional pardon to former U.S. President Nixon.
1975 – In Boston, MA, public schools began their court-ordered citywide busing program amid scattered incidents of violence.
1986 – Herschel Walker made his start in the National Football League (NFL) after leaving the New Jersey Generals of the USFL.
1997 – America Online acquired CompuServe.
1998 – Mark McGwire (St. Louis Cardinals) hit his 62nd home run of the season. He had beaten a record that had stood for 37 years by Roger Maris. McGwire would eventually reach 70 home runs on September 27.
1999 – Russia’s Mission Control switched off the Mir space station’s central computer and other systems to save energy during a planned six months of unmanned flights.
2004 – NASA’s unmanned spacecraft Genesis crash-lands when its parachute fails to open.
2005 – Two Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft from EMERCOM land at a disaster aid staging area at Little Rock Air Force Base; the first time Russia has flown such a mission to North America.
2015 – British researchers announced that evidence of a larger version of Stonehenge had been located about 2 miles from the Stonehenge location. There were 90 buried stones that had been found by ground-penetrating radar.
2016 – NASA launches OSIRIS-REx, its first asteroid sample return mission. The probe will visit 101955 Bennu and is expected to return with samples in 2023.
2019 – Brigid Kosgei breaks the women’s half marathon world record in a time of 1:04.28 at the 2019 Great North Run.
Celebrating Birthday Today
- 1981 – Kate Abdo, English journalist
- 1981 – Selim Benachour, Tunisian footballer
- 1981 – Maris Ļaksa, Latvian basketball player
- 1981 – Morten Gamst Pedersen, Norwegian footballer
- 1981 – Jonathan Taylor Thomas, American actor
- 1982 – Travis Daniels, American football player
- 1983 – Kate Beaton, Canadian cartoonist
- 1983 – Diego Benaglio, Swiss footballer
- 1983 – Will Blalock, American basketball player
- 1983 – Chris Judd, Australian footballer
- 1983 – Wali Lundy, American football player
- 1983 – Lewis Roberts-Thomson, Australian footballer
- 1983 – Sarah Stup, American writer and autism activist
- 1984 – Bobby Parnell, American baseball player
- 1984 – Vitaly Petrov, Russian race car driver
- 1984 – Jürgen Säumel, Austrian footballer
- 1984 – Tiago Treichel, Brazilian footballer
- 1984 – Peter Whittingham, English footballer
- 1985 – Tomasz Jodłowiec, Polish footballer
- 1986 – Brett Anderson, Australian rugby league player
- 1986 – Carlos Bacca, Colombian footballer
- 1986 – Matt Grothe, American football player
- 1986 – Dan Hunt, Australian rugby league player
- 1986 – Joao Moutinho, Portuguese footballer
- 1986 – Kirill Nababkin, Russian footballer
- 1987 – Alexandre Bilodeau, Canadian skier
- 1987 – Danielle Frenkel, Israeli high jumper
- 1987 – Wiz Khalifa, Haitian rapper and actor
- 1987 – Illya Marchenko, a Ukrainian tennis player
- 1987 – Marcel Nguyen, German gymnast
- 1988 – Arrelious Benn, American football player
- 1988 – Chantal Jones, American model, and actress
- 1988 – Rie Kaneto, Japanese swimmer
- 1989 – Gylfi Sigurðsson, Icelandic footballer
- 1989 – Avicii, Swedish electronic musician (d. 2018)
- 1990 – Matt Barkley, American football player
- 1990 – Tokelo Rantie, South African footballer
- 1990 – Musa Nizam, Turkish footballer
- 1990 – Jos Buttler, English cricketer
- 1991 – Ignacio González, Mexican footballer
- 1991 – Joe Sugg, British vlogger
- 1992 – Nino Niederreiter, Swiss ice hockey player
- 1992 – Kilian Pruschke, German footballer
- 1993 – Will Bosisto, Australian cricketer
- 1994 – Marco Benassi, Italian footballer
- 1994 – Cameron Dallas, American Internet personality
- 1995 – Ellie Black, Canadian gymnast
- 1998 – Matheus Leist, Brazilian race car driver
- 2000 – Brennan Malone, American baseball pitcher