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“Education, for most people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society... But for me, education means making creators... You have to make inventors, innovators, not conformists.”
~ Jean Piaget
Wikiquote (Jean Piaget (August 9, 1896 – September 16, 1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemology".)
August 9th, 586 BC
Solomon's Temple is totally destroyed by the Babylonians under King Nebuchadnezzar.
Wikipedia Image: Solomon's Temple, Jerusalem ● Nebuchadnezzar Tate impression, is a colour monotype print with additions in ink and watercolour portraying the Old Testament Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II by the English poet, painter and printmaker William Blake.
August 9th, 48 BC
Roman Empire:
48 BC - Caesar's Civil War; Battle of Pharsalus - Julius Caesar decisively defeats Pompey at Pharsalus (Farsala) and Pompey flees to Egypt.
70 - Jewish revolts against the Romans; caused the Roman General Titus, later who became Caesar, to besiege the city. (The second Temple was completely destroyed by fire on the 9th of Av, 70 AD.)
378 - Gothic War; Battle of Adrianople - A large Roman army led by Emperor Valens is defeated by the Visigoths in present-day Turkey. (Valens is killed along with over half of his army.)
Wikipedia Image: Relief from a 3rd-century sarcophagus depicting a battle between Romans and Germanic warriors; the central figure is perhaps the emperor Hostilian / Depiction of the Menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome.
August 9th, 681
Byzantine Empire (East Roman Empire):
681 - Bulgaria is founded as a Khanate on the south bank of the Danube after defeating the Byzantine armies of Emperor Constantine IV south of the Danube delta.
Wikipedia Image: The Baptism of Constantine painted by Raphael's pupils (1520–1524, fresco, Vatican City, Apostolic Palace); Mural of Saints Cyril and Methodius, 19th century, Troyan Monastery, Bulgaria; Justinian I depicted on one of the famous mosaics of the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna; The Greek fire was first used by the Byzantine Navy during the Byzantine-Arab Wars (from the Madrid Skylitzes, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid); Alexios I, founder of the Komnenos dynasty.
August 9th, 1173
Construction of the campanile of the cathedral of Pisa (now known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa) begins; it will take two centuries to complete.
Wikipedia Photo: The Leaning Tower of Pisa, credit Travels.
August 9th, 1483
Opening of the Sistine Chapel in Rome with the celebration of a Mass.
Wikipedia Photo: The Measure of Genius: Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel at 500; The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (left: West, right: East), "an artistic vision without precedent"; The Creation of Adam; The prophet Daniel; Detail from the Great Flood.; Detail of the Face of God; The pendentive of the Brazen serpent with its crowded composition was imitated by Mannerist painters. (unrestored state); The composition is similar to a Flight into Egypt.
August 9th, 1810
Napoleonic Wars:
1810 - Napoleon I annexes two departments of the Kingdom of Westphalia into the French Empire.
Wikipedia Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar; Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806; Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet; Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani); Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo; Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807; Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars; Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen; Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford; Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
August 9th, 1814
American Indian Wars:
1814 - The Creek sign the Treaty of Fort Jackson, giving up huge parts of Alabama and Georgia.
1877 - Battle of the Big Hole; A small band of Nez Percé Indians clash with the United States Army.
Wikipedia Photos: American Indians - Chief Crazy Horse, Tashunca-uitco (1849 - 1877) ● Geronimo Apache Chief (1829 - 1909) ● Indian Chief 'Two Eagles'; Crow Indian Chief ● Snake Cheif ● Band of Chiricahua Apache Indians, followers of legendary renegade Geronimo, attending a peace negotiation after a long struggle against U.S. government attempts to force them onto reservations - Tombstone, Arizona (1886), Life Magazine ● American Horse - Oglala ● Native American Arapaho Indian ● Washakie, Shoshone leader ● Arapaho American Indian Chief.
August 9th, 1842
Webster–Ashburton Treaty: is signed, establishing the Canada–United States border east of the Rocky Mountains tribes.
Wikipedia Photo: Rocky Mountains
August 9th, 1854
Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden.
Wikipedia Image: Henry David Thoreau.
August 9th, 1862
American Civil War:
1862 - Battle of Cedar Mountain; at Cedar Mountain, Virginia, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson narrowly defeats Union forces under General John Pope.
Wikipedia Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
● The northern army led by George McClellan and the southern army led by Robert E. Lee met at Antietam Creek, Maryland in September, 1862. It was a bloody battle where 13,000 Confederates and 12,000 Union troops died in just one day. McClellan had hesitated to attack before the battle thus letting the southern troops regroup. Also, he had saved reserves and refused to use them at the end of the battle thinking that Lee was holding reserves for a counterattack, even though those reserves didn't exist. The Union victory stopped Lee's northward advance and was a turning point in the war.
● Battle of Antietam / Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland
● Battle of Mobile Bay (1890) by Xanthus Russell Smith.
● Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. The Atlantic.
August 9th, 1892
Thomas Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph.
Wikipedia Photo: Thomas Edison (right) demonstrating the kinetograph (motion picture camera), with the assistance of George Eastman, who helped develop the film used in the early motion picture machines.
August 9th, 1907
The first Boy Scout encampment concludes at Brownsea Island in southern England.
Wikipedia Painting: Boy Scouts, by Norman Rockwell, 1944.
August 9th, 1918
World War I:
1918 - Flight over Vienna mission, when a dozen Italian Servizio Aeronautico single-engined military aircraft drop leaflets over the main capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, demanding that both Austrian hostilities against Italy be ended, and for Austria to end its alliance with the German Empire.
Wikipedia Photo: Trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV Tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes. National Archives and Records Administration.
Print: German WWI Zeppelin Bombing Warsaw Poland Postcard (technically a Schutte-Lanz airship)
August 9th, 1930
Betty Boop makes her cartoon debut in Dizzy Dishes. 
Wikipedia Image: Betty Boop icon in different poses. (Dizzy Dishes 1930 - Betty Boop's First Apperance)
August 9th, 1936
Summer Olympic Games: Games of the XI Olympiad; Jesse Owens wins his fourth gold medal at the games becoming the first American to win four medals in one Olympiad.
Wikipedia Photo: 1903; Orville Wright successfully makes a flight in a heavier-than-air machine that takes off from level ground under its own power and is controlled during flight. He flies the first airplane.
August 9th, 1942
Indian leader Mohanda Gandhi is arrested in Bombay by British forces, launching the Quit India Movement.
Wikipedia Photo: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (October 2, 1869 – January 30, 1948): commonly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India. (Employing non-violent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for non-violence, civil rights and freedom across the world.)
August 9th, 1942
World War II:
1942 - Guadalcanal Campaign; Battle of Savo Island - Allied naval forces protecting their amphibious forces during the initial stages of the Battle of Guadalcanal are surprised and defeated by an Imperial Japanese Navy cruiser force.
1944 - Continuation War; Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive - the largest offensive launched by Soviet Union against Finland during World War II, ends to a strategic stalemate. (Both Finnish and Soviet troops at the Finnish front dug to defensive positions, and the front remains stable until the end of the war.)
1945 - Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Nagasaki, Japan is devastated when an atomic bomb, Fat Man, is dropped by the United States B-29 Bockscar, 39,000 people are killed outright.
1945 - Soviet invasion of Manchuria; The Soviet Union declares war on Japan.
Wikipedia Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945.
USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.
Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.
August 9th, 1944
United States Forest Service and the Wartime Advertising Council release posters featuring Smokey Bear or the first time.
Wikipedia Image: Smokey Bear (often called Smokey the Bear or simply Smokey) is a mascot of the United States Forest Service created to educate the public about the dangers of forest fires. An advertising campaign featuring Smokey was created in 1944 with the slogan, "Smokey Says – Care Will Prevent 9 out of 10 Forest Fires".
August 9th, 1965
Singapore is expelled from Malaysia and becomes the first and only country to date to gain independence unwillingly.
Wikipedia Image: Singapore (officially the Republic of Singapore - an island country made up of 63 islands); is a southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, 137 kilometres (85 mi) north of the equator.
August 9th, 1969
Followers led by Charles Manson murder pregnant actress Sharon Tate (wife of Roman Polanski), coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Polish actor Wojciech Frykowski, men's hairstylist Jay Sebring and recent high-school graduate Steven Parent.
Wikipedia Photo: 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders that terrorized Los Angeles
August 9th, 1974
Watergate Scandal: Richard Nixon becomes the first President of the United States to resign from office. His Vice President Gerald Ford, becomes president.
Wikipedia Photo: Watergate Scandal: was a political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s as a result of the June 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement.
Watergate Complex Washington, DC, credit Watergate Notes; President Richard M. Nixon defended himself against many allegations, National Archives; Oliver F. Atkins' photo of Nixon leaving the White House shortly before his resignation became effective, August 9, 1974.
August 9th, 1995
In a first of its over-hyped kind, Netscape went public in a historic IPO. (This set precedent for the dot-com technology bubble for the next 5 years.)
Wikipedia Image: Netscape Communications (Netscape) is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser.
August 9th, 2006
Aircraft hijacking:
2006 - Transatlantic aircraft plot of 2006; At least 21 suspected terrorists are arrested in the transatlantic aircraft plot that happened in the United Kingdom. The arrests are made in London, Birmingham and High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire High_Wycombe.
Wikipedia Photo: Hijacked Sudan passenger jet lands in Libya, August 27, 2008; Amsterdam false alarm revives airplane hijacking memories, Passengers leave a Vueling plane at a field near Amsterdam Airport after a hijack scare last week that led the Netherlands to scramble F-16 fighter jets, September 2, 2012 Reuters; Egypt Air flight 648 was hijacked in November 1985 by the terrorist Abu Nidal organisation, credit AP; Cockpit section of Pan Am 103 wreckage following a mid-air explosion, December 21, 1988; 747 Pan Am airliner that exploded and crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland, with 259 passengers on board in 1988; Debris lies in a deep gash through the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, caused by the crash of Pan Am flight 103, credit AP; Flight 175 hits the WTC South Tower. The picture was taken from a traffic helicopter. credit: WABC 7/ Salient Stills; Hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston crashes into the South Tower of the World Trade Center and explodes at 9:03 a.m. on September 11, 2001 in New York City, credit Spencer Platt / Getty Images.
August 9th, 2014
Ferguson protests and unrest: Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African American male in Ferguson, Missouri was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer after reportedly assaulting the officer and attempting to steal his weapon, sparking protests and unrest in the city. Officials insisted Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, feared for his life and acted appropriately when he shot and killed the teenager, was cleared of criminal wrongdoing by a county grand jury and federal civil rights investigators.
Wikipedia Image: Ferguson protests and unrest: Demonstrators stand in the middle of West Florissant Ave. as they react to tear gas fired by police during ongoing protests in reaction to the shooting of teenager Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Mo., Aug. 18, 2014. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)