1559 – Spanish explorer de Luna lands in Pensacola Bay, Fla.
1820 – 1st US eye hospital, the NY Eye Infirmary, opens in NY.
1846 – Henry David Thoreau jailed for refusing to pay taxes.
1862 – Abraham Lincoln receives the first group of African Americans to confer with a US president.
1873 – “Field & Stream” begins publishing.
1912 – 2,500 US marines invade Nicaragua; US remains until 1925.
1932 – Philips makes 1 millionth radio.
1935 – Social Security Act becomes law.
1936 – Rainey Bethea is hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky in the last public execution in the United States.
1945 – V-J Day: Japan surrenders unconditionally to end WWII (also August 15 depending on time zone)
1961 – Philadelphia Phillies lose 17th straight game.
1962 – US mail truck in Plymouth, Mass robbed of more than $1.5 million.
1965 – Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe” hits #1.
1974 – Congress authorizes US citizens to own gold.
1990 – Denver vote for a 1% sales tax to pay for a baseball franchise.
1994 – Space telescope Hubble photographs Uranus with rings.
1995 – Shannon Faulkner becomes 1st woman to attend the Citadel.
1997 – Oklahoma Court of Appeals upholds death sentence of Timothy McVeigh.
2003 – Widescale power blackout in the northeast United States and Canada.
2015 – Most extensive face transplant surgery ever performed on Patrick Hardison by Eduardo Rodriguez at New York University Langone Medical Center.
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