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Vietnam

On August 11, 1972, the last of American ground combat troops exited South Vietnam.

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Independence

On August 10, 1809, Ecuadorians attempted independence from Spain with the Declaration of Independence of Quito, but failed with the execution of all the conspirators a few days less than a year later.

Independence was finally achieved in 1822.

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Gandhi and Yeltsin

On August 9, 1942, British forces arrested Mahatma Gandhi in Bombay, spurring the Quit India Movement into nationwide action.

In 1999, Russian President Boris Yeltsin fired his Prime Minister, Sergei Stepashin, and his entire cabinet.

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Born & Died

Francis Hutcheson, philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment and a great influence on David Hume and Adam Smith, was born in Ireland on August 8, 1694. He died on his birthday in 1746.


Followers of Mahatma Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement against the British rule on August 8, 1942.

On the same day in 1974, President Richard M. Nixon resigned.

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Purple Heart

On August 7, 1782, George Washington instituted the Badge of Military Merit to honor soldiers wounded in battle, an award later renamed “the Purple Heart.”


Illustration: “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” Emanuel Leutze, 1851, Oil on canvas (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City), depicting an event in 1776, not 1782.

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Jamaican independence

On August 6, 1962, Jamaica became independent of Great Britain.

In 1991, on this date, Tim Berners-Lee released files describing his idea for the World Wide Web, and put up the first website, running on a NeXT computer at CERN, in France.

Tim Berners-Lee, pioneer of the World Wide Web, c 1990s.