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more events on September 8
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1994
USAir Flight 427 crashes on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport, killing all 132 people aboard; subsequent investigation leads to changes in manufacturing practices and pilot training.
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1991
Macedonian Independence Day; voters overwhelmingly approve referendum to form the Republic of Macedonia, independent of Yugoslavia.
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1988
Wildfires in Yellowstone National Park in the US, the world’s first national park, force evacuation of the historic Old Faithful Inn; visitors and employees evacuate but the inn is saved.
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1979
Pink (Alecia Beth Moore), multiple award-winning singer, including three Grammys (“Lady Marmalade,” “Trouble,” “Imagine.”)
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1974
President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard M. Nixon for any crimes arising from the Watergate scandal he may have committed while in office.
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1971
Martin Freeman, actor (The Office BBC Two TV series; Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey).
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The Kennedy Center opens in Washington, DC with a performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass.
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1970
Yuji Nishizawa, hijacked All Nippon Airways flight, July 23, 1999.
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1963
Brad Silberling, screenwriter, director (City of Angels); wrote and directed Moonlight Mile (2002) based on the murder of his girlfriend, actress Rebecca Schaeffer, by a stalker.
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1960
President Dwight Eisenhower dedicates NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
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Penguin Books in Britain is charged with obscenity for trying to publish the D.H. Lawrence novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
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1955
The United States, Australia, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Thailand sign the mutual defense treaty that established the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).
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1954
Michael Shermer, founder of The Skeptics Society and editor of Skeptic magazine.
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Anne Diamond, journalist, TV host (Good Morning Britain) social activist; led Back to Sleep campaign that drastically reduced the number of cot deaths (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) among UK infants.
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1951
Japanese representatives sign a peace treaty in San Francisco.