Resignation of U.S. President Nixon
Faced with the near-certain prospect of impeachment for his role in the Watergate scandal, U.S. President Richard M. Nixon announced his resignation on this day in 1974 and was succeeded by Gerald Ford the following day. 1974.
The U.S. men’s Olympic basketball team—which had been dubbed the “Dream Team” because of an all-star roster of NBA players that included Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird—easily defeated Croatia to win the gold medal at the Barcelona Games. 1992.
Roger Federer, who came to be regarded as one of tennis’s greatest players, was born in Switzerland. 1981.
Armed robbers stole £2.6 million from the Glasgow-London Royal Mail Train near Bridego Bridge, north of London, in the Great Train Robbery. 1963.
The United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France signed the London Agreement, which authorized the Nürnberg trials, in which former Nazi leaders were indicted and tried as war criminals by the International Military Tribunal. 1945.
Jazz musician Benny Carter—an original and influential alto saxophonist, who was also a masterly composer and arranger and an important bandleader, trumpeter, and clarinetist—was born in New York City. 1907.
American physicist Ernest Orlando Lawrence—winner of the 1939 Nobel Prize for Physics for his invention of the cyclotron, the first particle accelerator to achieve high energies—was born in Canton, South Dakota. 1901.
The Wilmot Proviso, an attempt to prohibit the extension of slavery to new territories in the United States, was proposed, and, in the debate that followed, the Republican Party was born. 1846.
