Today, we mark the day “Singapore is expelled from Malaysia and becomes the only country to date to gain independence unwillingly,” as Wikipedia so succinctly puts it. Happy National Day, everybody!
Here are some other historic events that took place on 9 August.
117 – Trajan, Roman emperor, dies
1483 – Opening of the Sistine Chapel in Rome with the celebration of a Mass.
1631 – John Dryden, English poet, playwright, and critic is born
1854 – Henry David Thoreau publishes “Walden”
1942 – Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi is arrested in Bombay by British forces, launching the Quit India Movement.
1945 – World War II: Nagasaki is devastated when an atomic bomb, Fat Man, is dropped by the United States B-29 Bockscar. 39,000 people are killed outright.
1962 – Hermann Hesse, German-Swiss author and poet, Nobel Prize laureate dies
1969 – Actress Sharon Tate, wife of Roman Polanski, is killed in a “ritualistic murder” by Charles Manson, while 8 months pregnant.
1994 – The International Day of the World’s Indigenous People is proclaimed
