On This Day: Tuesday August 9, 2005 This is the 221st day of the year, with 144 days remaining in 2005. Fact of the Day: Alaska "Alaska is the largest of the United States, but among the least populated. The 49th state to join the Union (January 3, 1959), Alaska contains Point Barrow, the northernmost point of the U.S. and Mount McKinley, the highest mountain in North America. About one-third of the state lies within the Arctic Circle and its westernmost point is only 50 miles (80 km) from Russia. Most of the inhabitants live in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and the capital, Juneau. Alaska is known for its oil industry, discovered in 1969, and for gold, natural gas, minerals, fishing, and lumber. There are many active volcanoes and the state has had several bad earthquakes. Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867 for about $7 million or two cents an acre. Its name comes from the Aleut word ""alakshak"", meaning peninsula." Holidays Feast day of St. Oswald of Northumbria, Saints Nathy and Felim, St. Romanus, and St. Emygius. Singapore: Independence Day. South Africa: National Women's Day. Events 378 - A large Roman army under Valens, Roman emperor of the East, was defeated by the Visigoths at the Battle of Adrianople in present-day Turkey. 1814 - Major General Andrew Jackson signed the Treaty of Fort Jackson ending the Creek War. The agreement provided for the surrender of 23 million acres of Creek land to the United States. 1831 - The first steam locomotive train began its inaugural run, between Albany and Schenectady, New York. 1842 - The Webster-Ashburn Treaty fixed the border between Maine and Canada's New Brunswick. 1854 - Henry David Thoreau published "Walden." 1859 - Nathan Ames of Saugus, Massachusetts patented the escalator. 1910 - A.J. Fisher of Chicago, Illinois received a patent for the electric washing machine. 1936 - African-American track star Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal of the Olympic Games in Berlin. 1945 - The second atomic bomb was dropped by the United States, over Nagasaki, Japan, killing an estimated 74,000 people. 1965 - Singapore proclaimed its independence from the Malaysian Federation. 1969 - Actress Sharon Tate and four other people were found brutally murdered in Tate's Los Angeles home; cult leader Charles Manson and several of his disciples were later convicted of the crime. 1974 - Succeeding Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford was sworn in as the 38th president of the United States of America. 2000 - Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. announced it was recalling 6.5 million tires that had been implicated in hundreds of accidents and at least 46 deaths. Births 1631 - John Dryden, first official Poet Laureate of Great Britain. 1633 - Izaak Walton, American author. 1896 - Jean Piaget, Swiss psychologist. Deaths 1962 - Hermann Hesse, Nobel Prize-winning German author.