1929 - Russian ballet director Sergei Diaghilev passed away.
1934 - Voting in Germany designated Adolf Hitler as "Führer."
1936 - Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca was shot by fascists at the beginning of the Civil War.
1944 - Sir Henry Wood, British conductor and co-founder of the British Promenade Concerts "Proms” in 1895, died.
1953 - Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh was overthrown in a coup, and the Shah returned from exile in Italy.
1960 - Francis Gary Powers, an American pilot, was shot down while on a reconnaissance mission in Soviet airspace in a U-2 spy plane and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
1977 - Actor and comedian Groucho Marx, perhaps the most popular of the Marx Brothers, died; his films include "Night at the Opera" and "A Day at the Races."
1995 - Prince Charles and Princess Diana attended a VJ Day (Victory over Japan) memorial service outside Buckingham Palace with their children, Prince Harry and Prince William.
2003 - A truck bomb destroyed the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, killing 22 people in the worst attack on a UN civilian compound in its history, including Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN’s chief envoy to Iraq.
2013 - At least 34 people were killed while crossing a railway line in the Indian state of Bihar, leading to protests and train cars being set on fire.
