1919 - Italian composer and librettist Ruggero Leoncavallo, famous for the opera "Pagliacci," passed away at the age of 62.
1945 - The United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Japan, turning the city of Nagasaki into a vast area of ash, killing more than 70,000 people.
1969 - Actress Sharon Tate, the wife of filmmaker Roman Polanski, was found murdered along with four others in their home in Beverly Hills, California.
1974 - Gerald Ford took the oath of office as the 38th President of the United States following Richard Nixon's resignation.
1995 - Jerry Garcia, leader of the rock band "Grateful Dead" and a prominent symbol of the American counterculture revolution in the 1960s, died at the age of 53.
2000 - Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez made the first visit to Iraq by a head of state since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
2008 - American actor Bernie Mac, known for starring in a sitcom and appearing in the "Ocean's 11" films, died at the age of 50. 2008 - A Russian warplane dropped a bomb on a residential building in the Georgian town of Gori.
2012 - Kenyan David Lekuta Rudisha set a new world record in the men's 800-meter race.
2014 - Black teenager Michael Brown was shot by police in Ferguson, Missouri, USA, sparking prolonged protests and unrest.
