TODAY
EVENTS: In 1666 the Great Fire of London began, lasting until September 5; in 1945 the Second World War ended when General Douglas MacArthur accepted the Japanese surrender; in 1963 George Wallace, Governor of Alabama, halted integration of black and white students by surrounding Tuskegee High School with state troopers.
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BIRTHS: John Howard, pioneer of prison reform, born in London, 1726; Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, 1806-10, born in Ajaccio, Corsica, 1778; Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, diplomat and writer, born in Anstruther, Fifeshire, 1887.
DEATHS: Thomas Telford, Scottish-born civil engineer, died in London, 1834; Henri Rousseau, painter, died in Paris, 1910; Piotr Jaroszewicz, Prime Minister of Poland, 1970-80, was murdered near Warsaw in 1992.
TOMORROW
EVENTS: In 1783 the Treaty of Versailles, by which Britain recognised the independence of the United States, was signed; in 1939 Britain and France declared war on Germany; in 1943 Allied troops invaded Italy; in 1976 the American Viking II spacecraft touched down on Mars.
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BIRTHS: Ferdinand Porsche, automobile designer, born in Maffersdorf, Austria, 1875; Urho Kekkonen, President of Finland, 1956-81, born in Pielavesi, Finland, 1900.
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DEATHS: Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector, 1653-58, died in London, 1658; Ivan Turgenev, Russian writer, died in Bougival, France, 1883; e.e. cummings, Modernist poet, died in North Conway, New Hampshire, 1962; Ho Chi Minh, President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, 1945-69, died in Hanoi, 1969.