Today in History

Georgia invades South Ossetia, touching off a five-day war between Georgia and Russia.

An EF2 tornado hits Brooklyn, New York, the first in that borough since 1889.

The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley is raised to surface, 136 years after it sank following its successful attack on USS Housatonic in the outer harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.

Iraq annexes the state of Kuwait as its 19th province, six days after Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait.

NASA Space Shuttle Columbia begins its eighth flight, NASA’s 30th shuttle mission.

Angola, Cuba and South Africa sign a cease-fire treaty in the border war that began in 1966.

Brigadier General Efrain Rios Montt is deposed as president of Guatemala in the country’s second military coup in 17 months.

Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein executes 22 political opponents.

Pioneer-Venus 2 is launched to probe the atmosphere of Venus.

President Richard Nixon resigns from the presidency as a result of the Watergate scandal.

 M. Ashman, author, co-editor of Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey, and a founding member of TED Global, the international organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading.

England’s “Great Train Robbery;” 2.6 million pounds ($7.3 million) is stolen

U.S. troops repel the first North Korean attempt to overrun them at the Battle of Naktong Bulge, which continued for 10 days.

Svetlana Y Savitskaya, Soviet cosmonaut, the first woman to walk in space (July 25, 1984).

The Soviet Union declares war on Japan.