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August 8
1942. Six would-be German saboteurs are executed in Washington DC, the culmination of a comically inept plan by Nazi Germany to insert agents into the United States via submarine to conduct economic sabotage. The saboteurs targets included hydroelectric plants at Niagara Falls, and a number of key manufacturing facilities and railroad-related targets.
1945. Two days after America drops the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the Soviet Union declares war on Japan, and attacks Japanese positions in Manchuria. America would come to regret their prior insistence, indeed begging, the Soviet Union to join the war against Japan -- when the atomic bomb was nothing more than a concept on paper.
1945. The United States signs the UN Charter, becoming the third nation to join.
1973. Vice President Spiro Agnew appears on television to denounce accusations that he had taken kickbacks while governor of Maryland. Within two months, however, exemplifying the corruption that was endemic in the Nixon Administration, he will plead no contest to charges relating to the kickbacks, with the condition that he resign as Vice President. Upon his resignation, Nixon will appoint Gerry Ford as Vice President.
1974. President Nixon announces his resignation, effective the next day. Gerry Ford thereupon becomes President of the United States -- the only person to ever hold that office who had not been elected as either President or Vice President.
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