September 8 is the 251st day of the year (252nd in leap years). There are 114 days remaining until the end of the year. (Photo: Michelangelo’s David is unveiled in Florence, September 8, 1504.)

Today in History

• Michelangelo’s David is unveiled in Florence (1504)
• Former US President Ulysses S. Grant drives the final “golden spike” in Gold Creek, Montana, completing the Northern Pacific Railway from the Great Lakes to the Pacific (1883)
• The body of Annie Chapman, Jack the Ripper’s second victim, is discovered (1888)
• The Pledge of Allegiance, part of a marketing campaign to sell American flags to schools, is first recited on the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World (1892)
• The first Miss America (Margaret Gorman of Washington, DC) is crowned (1921)
• Scotch® transparent tape enters the market (1930)
• World War II: The Siege of Leningrad begins (1941)
• World War II: The official end of the war comes with the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty between Japan and the Allied Powers (1951)
• Star Trek, Tarzan, and That Girl premier on TV (1966)
• Watergate Scandal: US President Gerald Ford pardons Richard Nixon for “any crimes he may have committed while in office” (1974)

Birthdays

• Richard I of England, monarch (1157)
• Joshua Chamberlain, defender of Little Round Top, US general, governor of Maine (1828)
• Antonín Dvořák, composer (1841)
• Charles Guiteau, assassin of US President James Garfield (1841)
• Siegfried Sassoon, poet and soldier (1886)
• Howard Dietz, songwriter and publicist (1896)
• Jimmie Rodgers, singer-songwriter (1897)
• Peter Sellers, actor (1925)
• Patsy Cline, singer-songwriter (1932)
• Archie Goodwin, comic book artist and writer (1937)
• Sam Nunn, US senator (1938)
• Bernie Sanders, US senator (1941)
• Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, singer-songwriter, member of the Grateful Dead (1945)
• Heather Thomas, actress (1957)
• Aimee Mann, singer-songwriter (1960)
• David Arquette, actor and filmmaker (1971)
• Martin Freeman, actor (1971)
• Pink, singer-songwriter (1979)
• Jonathan Taylor Thomas, actor (1981)
• Wiz Khalifa, rapper (1987)

Deaths

• Annie Chapman, victim of Jack the Ripper (1888)
• Faisal I of Iraq, monarch (1933)
• Carl Weiss, assassin of US Senator Huey Long (1935)
• Richard Strauss, composer (1949)
• Dorothy Dandridge, actress and singer (1965)
• Bud Collyer, game show host (1969)
• Zero Mostel, actor (1977)
• Alex North, film composer (1991)
• Moondog, musician known as the “Viking of 6th Avenue” (1999)
• Leni Riefenstahl, filmmaker (2003)
• Frank Thomas, animator, one of Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men” (2004)

Holidays and Celebrations

• Day of Asturias (Asturias, Spain, commemorating the birth of the Virgin Mary)
• Feast Day of Our Lady of Meritxell (Andorra, national holiday)
• Feast of ‘Izzat (Bahá’i)
• First day of the Fiestas de Santa Fe (New Mexico)
• Independence Day (Macedonia)
• International Literacy Day (United Nations)
• National Day (Andorra)
• Victory Day (Malta)
• Victory Day (Pakistan)

Informal and made-up holidays include National Date Nut Bread Day, Pardon Day (Ford/Nixon), Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Nurses’ Day, World Physical Therapy Day

(*O.S., or Old Style, when used, refers to the fact that Russia did not convert from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar until 1918.)