Aug 14 410

Visigoths under King Alaric sack Rome after slave co-conspirators open the city gates for them. Looting lasts for six days.

Aug 14 1908

Thousands of angry whites begin rampaging through the negro neighborhood of Springfield, Illinois. At least two blacks are lynched and one baby killed before the state militia finally quells the race riot two days later.

Aug 14 1941

Corporal Josef Jakobs, a German spy, is the final prisoner executed at the Tower of London. Having a broken ankle, he is seated in a fine wooden Windsor chair and executed by an eight man firing squad of Scots Guards.

Aug 14 1945

Over the radio, Hirohito announces his unconditional surrender to Allied forces, thus bringing an end to World War II. This broadcast is the first chance the Japanese people have had to hear their god-emperor's speaking voice.

Aug 14 1951

Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst dies at home in Beverly Hills, California.

Aug 14 1965

Salvatore Bono and Cherilyn Sarkisian La Pierre capture #1 on the American pop charts with their song "I Got You Babe," launching the careers of Sonny & Cher.

Aug 14 2126

The next scheduled perihelion for the "Doomsday Rock," also known as the Swift-Tuttle Comet. The six-mile-diameter mass is thought to be roughly the same size as the asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs and will probably come within 15 million miles of planet Earth.