Today in History....August 14

On this day in …


* 1848, the Oregon Territory was created

* 1900, international forces, including U.S. Marines, entered Beijing to put down the Boxer Rebellion, which was aimed at purging China of foreign influence

* 1917, China declared war on Germany and Austria during World War I

* 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law

* 1945, President Harry Truman announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally, ending World War II

* 1947, Pakistan became independent of British rule

* 1969, British troops went to Northern Ireland to intervene in sectarian violence between Protestants and Roman Catholics

* 1973, the U.S. bombing of Cambodia came to a halt

* 1980, workers went on strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, in a job action that resulted in the creation of the Solidarity labor movement

* 1997, an unrepentant Timothy McVeigh was formally sentenced to death for the Oklahoma City bombing. ALSO: Two cosmonauts (Vasily Tsibliyev and Alexander Lazutkin) made it safely home to Earth after a luckless six-month mission aboard the Mir space station

* 2003, a huge blackout hit the northeastern United States and part of Canada; 50 million people lost power

* 2006, Israel halted its offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas as a U.N.-imposed cease-fire went into effect. ALSO: Cuban state television aired the first video of Fidel Castro since he stepped down as president to recover from surgery, showing the bedridden Cuban leader talking with his brother Raul as well as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez