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FILE NO. 09.08 5 specimens · est. 1504-1974

What happened on September 8?

Real photographs, all filed under this date. Name each event before you read on.
Case Timeline 1504-1974 · 470 years
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What happened on September 8

All 5 specimens from this file, spanning 1504 to 1974, with the story behind each photograph.

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  1. Sepia photograph of a thin young boy in a hospital gown walking on crutches with one leg bandaged.
    Conflict · 1941

    A siege begins that will last nearly 900 days

    German forces severed the last road into Leningrad, beginning a blockade of almost 900 days. Around a million civilians died, most of them from starvation during the first winter.

  2. Colour photograph of two couples in formal dress walking a red carpet away from a white columned building.
    Politics · 1974

    A new president pardons the one who resigned a month earlier

    Gerald Ford granted Richard Nixon a full pardon for any crimes committed in office. It was deeply unpopular and is widely thought to have cost Ford the 1976 election. (Pictured: Nixon leaving the White House a month earlier.)

  3. Black and white photograph of tanks rolling off landing craft onto a beach as soldiers watch.
    Conflict · 1943

    Italy switches sides in the middle of the war

    The armistice between Italy and the Allies was announced publicly, taking Italy out of the Axis. German forces immediately occupied the country and the fighting continued for another 20 months. (Pictured: Allied landings in Italy that same week.)

  4. Sepia photograph of a colossal marble nude male statue on a plinth before a rough stone wall.
    Art · 1504

    Michelangelo's David is unveiled in the Piazza della Signoria

    Michelangelo's David was unveiled in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. He was 26 when he began it, working a block of marble two earlier sculptors had abandoned as ruined.

  5. Sepia photograph of men searching an enormous field of splintered timber and wreckage.
    Disaster · 1900

    A hurricane wipes out Galveston, the deadliest disaster the country has known

    A hurricane came ashore at Galveston, Texas, with a storm surge that swept over an island whose highest point was under nine feet. Estimates of the dead run from 6,000 to 12,000, still the highest toll of any US natural disaster.