This Day in History

• Michael Brown is killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri
  On August 9, 2014, police officer Darren Wilson shoots and kills Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Protests and riots ensue in Ferguson and soon spread across the country. There are many different accounts of the incident, including the ...Continue reading
• Charles Manson cult kills five, including actress Sharon Tate
  On August 9, 1969, members of Charles Manson’s cult kill five people in movie director Roman Polanski’s Beverly Hills, California, home, including Polanski’s pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate. Less than two days later, the group killed again, murdering supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his ...Continue reading
• Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” is published
  Henry David Thoreau’s classic Walden, or, A Life in the Woods is required reading in many classrooms today. But when it was first published—on August 9, 1854—it sold just around 300 copies a year. The American transcendentalist writer’s work is a first-person account of his experimental time of ...Continue reading