Ivan Konev

The 2nd Red Banner Army was a Soviet field army of World War II that was formed at Khabarovsk in the Soviet Far East in July 1938. It spent most of the war guarding the border in the Blagoveshchensk area, sending formations to the Eastern Front while undergoing several reorganizations. At the time of its creation, the unit was part of the army group known as the Far Eastern Front. The unit was designated as the 2nd Army and was led by corps commander Ivan Konev (pictured). It became the 2nd Independent Red Banner Army in September 1938 when the front was dissolved and its troops were split into two independent armies, and was redesignated in June 1940 as the 2nd Red Banner Army. In August 1945, the army fought in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, capturing the Japanese fortified regions of Aihun and Sunwu adjacent to its sector of the border, and advancing into Manchuria to Qiqihar. The army was disbanded after the war in late 1945. (Full article...)

Cobra King shortly after battling into the Bastogne perimeter

• ... that Cobra King (pictured) was the first tank to break the Siege of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge?
• ... that during his term as the governor of North Sumatra in the 1980s, Kaharuddin Nasution ordered all civil servants in the province to wear white uniforms?
• ... that the 2002 Football League First Division play-off Final was played under a closed roof at the Millennium Stadium because it was too sunny?
• ... that the Domino Sugar Refinery was described on completion as the largest sugar refinery in the Americas?
• ... that Zacharias Stopius was ennobled by the king of Poland, while his daughter became the first female diplomat of Sweden?
• ... that "Freuet euch der schönen Erde", an 1827 hymn about the beauty of nature, became successful with a melody composed by Frieda Fronmüller 100 years later?
• ... that a short film made by Samantha Buck and Marie Schlingmann at university was screened at both the Telluride Film Festival and South by Southwest?
• ... that the French peanut is native to Brazil?

Gotabaya Rajapaksa

• An Air India Express aircraft overruns the runway at Calicut International Airport in Kerala, India, killing 18 people on board.
• The incumbent Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna party, led by Gotabaya Rajapaksa (pictured), claims a landslide victory in the parliamentary election.
• In India, construction of the Ram Temple on disputed land officially begins, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi laying the foundation stone.
• Explosions in Beirut, Lebanon, kill at least 157 people and injure more than 5,000 others.

August 9: International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples; National Women's Day in South Africa (1956)

Leaning Tower of Pisa

• 1173 – Construction began on a campanile that eventually became known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa (pictured).
• 1862 – American Civil War: After nearly being driven from the field in the early part of the Battle of Cedar Mountain, Confederate troops counter-attacked and achieved a victory.
• 1942 – World War II: In the first major naval engagement of the Guadalcanal campaign, Japan forced the U.S. Navy to withdraw from the Solomon Islands.
• 1960 – The unrecognized region of South Kasai seceded from the former Republic of the Congo.
• 2006 – British police arrested 24 people for conspiring to detonate liquid explosives carried on board airliners travelling from the UK to the US and Canada.