What happened on 9 August?

15 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1974 Resignation of Richard Nixon Facing certain impeachment over the Watergate cover-up, Nixon becomes the only US President to resign. Gerald Ford is sworn in the same day and pardons Nixon a month later.
2. 378 Battle of Adrianople Goths under Fritigern annihilate Eastern army; Emperor Valens killed; ushers in waves of barbarian settlement inside the empire.
3. 1945 Atomic bombing of Nagasaki Second nuclear weapon used in war; ~70,000 dead by year's end; Japan accepts unconditional surrender within days.
4. 1854 Thoreau's Walden Reflections on simple living at Walden Pond.
5. 48 BCE Battle of Pharsalus Caesar decisively defeats Pompey in Thessaly; Pompey flees to Egypt where he is murdered.
6. 1965 Singapore independence Expelled from Malaysia, Singapore becomes independent under Lee Kuan Yew and rises from poverty to a global financial hub.
7. 1963 Born: Whitney Houston American singer with one of the greatest voices in pop.
8. 1945 Soviet invasion of Manchuria Soviet army overruns Japanese-held Manchuria in three weeks; major factor in Japan's decision to surrender.
9. 1830 July Monarchy of Louis-Philippe The 'Citizen King' reigns over a constitutional, bourgeois monarchy until the 1848 Revolution.
10. 1588 Elizabeth's Tilbury speech Elizabeth rallies her troops against the Spanish Armada with one of history's famous speeches.
11. 1971 Operation Demetrius (internment) British army interns hundreds of suspected republicans without trial; alienates Catholic population and intensifies the Troubles.
12. 1870 Elementary Education Act 1870 Forster's Act establishes universal elementary schooling in England and Wales.
13. 2020 Belarus protests of 2020 Hundreds of thousands march against Lukashenko's stolen election in the largest protests in Belarusian history; mass arrests and torture grind the movement down.
14. 1974 Presidency of Gerald Ford Pardoned Nixon; Fall of Saigon; defeated by Carter in 1976.
15. 1948 Refus Global Borduas and fifteen Automatistes publish their total refusal of Duplessis's clerical Quebec; the manifesto costs him his job and seeds the Quiet Revolution.