Fat Man / Diesel / Betty Boop / Usain Bolt

-48 BC

The Battle of Pharsalus ends Caesar's Civil War, forcing Pompey the Great to flee to Egypt.

-378

The Battle of Adrianople is one of history's decisive battles: the Goths’ army beats the Roman forces, killing Emperor Valens.

-1790

The first American ship to circumnavigate the globe, Robert Gray's Columbia Rediviva, returns to Boston after a 3-year journey.

-1898

German inventor Rudolf Diesel receives patent #608,845 for his internal combustion engine, later called a diesel engine.

-1930

Betty Boop makes her first appearance in Max Fleischer's cartoon "Dizzy Dishes".

-1942

Mahatma Gandhi and 50 others are arrested in Bombay after the All-India Congress passes a "Quit India" motion.

-1945

"Fat Man", the second atomic bomb, is dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, causing part of the city to be destroyed.

-1954

Henry David Thoreau's Walden, or A Life in the Woods, is published. Today it's required reading in many classrooms, but when it was published, it sold just 300 copies a year.

-1965

Singapore became independent after separating from the Federation of Malaysia.

-1969

Charles Manson's cult kills five people in Roman Polanski's Beverly Hills home, including Polanski's pregnant wife, Sharon Tate.

-1974

Vice President Gerald Ford swore the oath of office as the 38th president of the United States after Nixon resigned.

-2012

Usain Bolt wins the 200m at the London Olympics in 19.32 to become the first to win 100/200m double back-to-back.

-2020

Alexander Lukashenko, longtime dictator of Belarus, officially wins 80% of the vote, but unofficially loses 60-70% to the leading opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya—sparking protests in Belarus and international condemnation.