August 9

• August 9, 48 BC
  Dictator of the Roman Republic Julius Caesar defeats Senatorial army under Gnaeus Pompeius in the battle of Pharsalus in central Greece, the decisive battle of Caesar's Civil War
• August 9, 14
  Augustus, the first Emperor of the Roman Empire, dies and his adopted son Tiberius succeeds to the throne
• August 9, 378
  Cavalry of Visigoth, a branch of the nomadic tribes of Germanic peoples, destroys Roman army and kills emperor Valens at battle of Adrianople
• August 9, 910
  King Edward of Wessex, son of Alfred the Great, defeats the Northumbrian Vikings at the Battle of Tettenhall
• August 9, 1378
  Cardinals declare Pope Urban VI lawless, anti-Christian, and devil
• August 9, 1483
  Pope Sixtus IV celebrates the first mass in the Sistine Chapel, chapel in the official residence of the Pope, named in his honor
• August 9, 1805
  Austria joins Britain, Russia, Sweden and the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in the Third Coalition against Napoleonic France and Spain
• August 9, 1842
  United States-Canada border is defined by Webster–Ashburton Treaty
• August 9, 1855
  Antonio López de Santa Anna resigns for the 11th and the last time as President of Mexico
• August 9, 1896
  Otto Lilienthal, German aerodynamic engineer, makes his last glide when his glider No. 11 is upset by a sudden gust of wind and he is unable to regain control
• August 9, 1936
  American track and field athlete Jesse Owens wins his fourth gold medal at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, so is called "single-handedly crushing Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy"
• August 9, 1942
  British arrest Indian nationalist Mohandas Gandhi and the entire Congress Working Committee in Bombay
• August 9, 1945
  Fat Man, an implosion-type atomic bomb with a plutonium core, is dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, killing outright 35,000-40,000 people and thousands more from the effect of burns and radiation sickness during the following months
• August 9, 1965
  Singapore gains independence from Malaysia
• August 9, 1974
  Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, resigns from office as a result of the Watergate Scandal, triggered by break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex
• August 9, 2007
  The French global bank BNP Paribas in the United Kingdom blocks withdrawals from three hedge funds heavily committed in subprime mortgages, signaling the beginning of Great Recession

April 23

• April 23, 303
  Saint George, a soldier in the Roman, is executed by decapitation after some torture sessions near Nicomedia's city wall
• April 23, 871
  Alfred the Great becomes the King of Wessex after death of his brother ?thelred
• April 23, 1014
  The Battle of Clontarf ends Danish rule in Ireland but a Dane kill Irish King Brian Boru
• April 23, 1154
  Damascus surrenders to sultan Nur ad-Din van Aleppo
• April 23, 1348
  King Edward III of England establishes the Order of the Garter, the first English order of knighthood
• April 23, 1500
  Pedro Alvares Cabral, a Portuguese navigator and explorer, lands at Terra da Vera Cruz, on the northeast coast of what later became known as Brazil, and claims Brazil for Portugal
• April 23, 1516
  In Bavaria, Germany, the Reinheitsgebot is enacted, which requires that beer be made from malt, hops, yeast, water and nothing else
• April 23, 1635
  The first public school in America, Boston Latin School, is founded in Boston, Massachusetts
• April 23, 1660
  Sweden concludes peace with Poland at Oliva, near Danzig ending the Second Northern War. The Polish king renounces claims on the Swedish throne, and on Livonia, Brandenburg is accepted as sovereign in Ducal Prussia
• April 23, 1661
  King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland is crowned in Westmister Abbey
• April 23, 1795
  In Britain the trial to impeach Warren Hastings, first Governor-General of Bengal, on 21 charges for high crimes and misdemeanors ends after 7 years acquitting Hastings on all charges
• April 23, 1798
  The first Dutch Constitution is accepted
• April 23, 1899
  Some 2000 people gather to watch torture and the lynching Sam Hose, a black man questionably accused of murdering a white planter and raping his wife
• April 23, 1920
  Turkish Grand National Assembly, the unicameral Turkish legislature, first meets in the midst of the war of Independence in Turkey<>, in Ankara
• April 23, 1938
  Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia demand self-government
• April 23, 1941
  Greece surrenders to the Italians and the Germans, who managed to ally due to the stalled Italian invasion known as the Greco-Italian War
• April 23, 1992
  McDonald's opens its first fast-food restaurant in China
• April 23, 1993
  The World Health Organization declares tuberculosis a Global Emergency
• April 23, 2003
  Beijing closes all of its schools for two weeks due to the SARS virus