Aug. 6
1958 — Glen Davis of Columbus, Ohio, sets a world record in the 400 hurdles with a time of 49.2 in Budapest, Hungary.
1966 — Muhammad Ali knocks out Brian London in the third round to retain his world heavyweight title.
1972 — South African Gary Player wins his second PGA golf championship with a two-stroke victory over Jim Jamieson and Tommy Aaron.
1978 — John Mahaffey beats Tom Watson and Jerry Pate on the second playoff hole to win the PGA Championship.
1991 — Debbie Doom of the U.S. pitches her second consecutive perfect game in women’s softball at the Pan American Games. Doom threw a perfect game at the Netherlands Antilles in the opener and matches that performance against Nicaragua, winning 8-0.
1992 — Carl Lewis leads a U.S. sweep in the long jump in the Olympics with a mark of 28 feet, 5 1-2 inches on his first attempt. Mike Powell takes the silver and Joe Greene the bronze. Kevin Young demolishes one of track’s oldest records with a time of 46.78 seconds in the 400 hurdles. Bruce Baumgartner becomes the first American wrestler to win medals in three straight Olympics, taking the gold in the 286-pound freestyle division.
1994 — Jeff Gordon wins the Brickyard 400, the first stock car race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
1995 — Canada’s Donovan Bailey wins the 100 meters at World Track and Field Championships in Goteborg, Sweden, marking the first time since 1976 an American fails to win a medal in the event at a major meet.
1999 — Tony Gwynn goes 4-for-5, singling in his first at-bat to become the 22nd major leaguer to reach 3,000 hits, as the San Diego Padres beat the Montreal Expos 12-10.
2006 — Floyd Landis is fired by his team and the Tour de France no longer considers him its champion after his second doping sample tested positive for higher-than-allowable levels of testosterone.
2006 — Sherri Steinhauer wins the Women’s British Open for the third time, and the first since it became a major.
2008 — Sammy Villegas, a former University of Toledo basketball player, is charged with point shaving. Villegas is accused of shaving points during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons.
2008 — Kim Terrell-Kearney wins the first professional championship match featuring two black bowlers, beating Trisha Reid 216-189 in the U.S. Bowling Congress’ U.S. Women’s Open. Terrell-Kearney collects her second U.S. Women’s Open title and third career major title.
2010 — Tyson Gay upsets the defending world and Olympic champion Usain Bolt in a race between the two fastest runners in history. Gay beats the Jamaican at the DN Galan meet in 9.84 seconds at the same stadium where Bolt last lost a race two years ago. Bolt finishes second in 9.97.
2015 — Ryan Lochte becomes the first man to win the 200-meter individual medley four consecutive times at the world swimming championships. Lochte comes home strong on the freestyle lap and touches first in 1:55.81 in Kazan, Russia.
2017 — I.K. Kim won the Women’s British Open, hanging on with a 1-under 71 for a two-shot victory over Jodi Ewart Shadoff and her first major championship.
Aug. 7
1907 — Walter Johnson wins the first of his 417 victories, leading the Washington Senators past the Cleveland Indians 7-2.
1952 — Bion Shively, 74, drives Sharp Note to victory in the third heat of the Hambletonian Stakes.
1982 — Speed Bowl wins the Hambletonian Stakes in straight heats with 25-year-old Tom Haughton in the sulky, the youngest to win the Hambletonian.
1983 — Norway’s Grete Waitz takes the women’s marathon in the first world track and field championships at Helsinki, Finland.
1992 — Sergei Bubka, the world record-holder and defending Olympic champion, fails to clear a height in the pole vault.
1999 — Wade Boggs becomes the first player to homer for his 3,000th hit, connecting with a two-run shot in Tampa Bay’s 15-10 loss to Cleveland.
2004 — Greg Maddux becomes the 22nd pitcher in major league history to reach 300 victories, leading the Chicago Cubs to an 8-4 victory over San Francisco.
2005 — Justin Gatlin dominates the 100 meters at the track and field championships in Helsinki. The Olympic champion wins in 9.88 seconds, finishing 0.17 seconds ahead of Michael Frater of Jamaica. The margin of victory is the largest in the 10 world championships held since the meet’s inception in 1983.
2007 — San Francisco’s Barry Bonds hits home run No. 756 to break Hank Aaron’s storied record. Noticeably absent are Commissioner Bud Selig and Aaron.
2012 — Aly Raisman becomes the first U.S. woman to win Olympic gold on floor. She picks up a bronze on balance beam on the final day of gymnastics at the London Olympics and just misses a medal in the all-around.
2016 — Jim Furyk becomes the first golfer to shoot a 58 in PGA Tour history. Three years after Furyk became the sixth player on tour with a 59, he takes it even lower in the Travelers Championship with a 12-under 58 in the final round.
2016 — Ichiro Suzuki triples off the wall for his 3,000th hit in the major leagues, becoming the 30th player to reach the milestone as the Miami Marlins beat the Colorado Rockies 10-7.
2016 — Manny Machado becomes the second player in major league history to homer in the first, second and third innings, driving in a career-high seven runs in a 10-2 victory over the Chicago White Sox.
Aug. 8
1902 — The United States, led by William Larned, beats Britain three matches to two to capture the Davis Cup.
1903 — Britain wins the Davis Cup by beating the United States 4-1.
1936 — At the Berlin Olympics, the United States finishes 1-2-3 in the men’s decathlon. Glenn Morris sets a world record with 7,900 points, followed by Robert Clark and Jack Parker.
1981 — Shiaway St. Pat, driven by Ray Remmen, wins the first Hambletonian Stakes run at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J. in four heats.
1982 — Ray Floyd, who shot a record 63 in the opening round, wins the PGA championship by three shots over Lanny Wadkins.
1984 — Carl Lewis sets the Olympic record in the 200 meters with a 19.80 clocking.
1987 — Mack Lobell, driven by John Campbell, wins the Hambletonian in straight heats with a record-smashing performance. Mack Lobell wins the second heat, and the race, by 6¼ lengths over Napoletano in 1:53 3-5, a fifth of a second off the world all-age trotting record set by Prakas in 1985.
1992 — The Dream Team picks up its gold medal and Carl Lewis anchors a world-record 400-meter relay, winning his eighth gold medal in three Olympics. The U.S. basketball team beats Croatia 117-85, with the 32-point margin of victory the smallest of the Games. In the 400, Mike Marsh, Leroy Burrell, Dennis Mitchell and Lewis set a world record of 37.40 seconds. Steve Lewis anchors another world-record as the Americans won the 1,600 relay by nearly half the length of a football field. The team of Andrew Valmon, Quincy Watts, Michael Johnson and Lewis ran the 1,600 in 2:55.74.
2006 — Roger Goodell is chosen as the NFL’s next commissioner. Favored for months to get the job, he is unanimously elected by the league’s 32 owners on the fifth ballot.
2010 — Los Angeles Sparks forward Tina Thompson scores 23 points to become the WNBA’s all-time scoring leader in a 92-83 loss to the San Antonio Silver Stars. She surpasses Lisa Leslie’s career total of 6,263 points. Thompson is the last of the original WNBA players.
2012 — Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings of the United States become the first three-time gold medalists in Olympic beach volleyball history. The duo beat Jennifer Kessy and April Ross 21-16, 21-16 in the all-American final, extending their Olympic winning streak to 21 matches.
2012 — Brittney Reese wins the long jump, becoming the first U.S. woman to win the Olympic long jump since Jackie Joyner-Kersee in 1988. Caster Semenya makes her Olympic debut three years after being forced to undergo gender tests, finishing second in her 800 heat.
2015 — Katie Ledecky ends her world swimming championships in spectacular style, lowering her own world record by 3.61 seconds in the 800-meter freestyle for her fifth gold medal. The 18-year-old American completes a sweep of the 200, 400, 800 and 1,500 freestyles in Kazan, Russia. She was the anchor leg on the victorious 4×200 free relay, too.
2018 — The NCAA Board of Governors and Division I Board of Directors adopt a “series of significant policy and legislative changes” as part of an effort to “fundamentally” change the NCAA’s structure. The NCAA changes eligibility rules, allowing top prospects to hire agents in high school and giving college players more leeway to return after declaring for NBA draft.
Aug. 9
1936 — Jesse Owens becomes the first American to win four Olympic gold medals as the United States sets a world record in the 4×100 relay at the Berlin Games. The record time of 39.8 seconds lasts for 20 years.
1950 — Lusty Song, driven by Delvin Miller, wins the Hambletonian Stakes in straight heats over Star’s Pride. Lusty Song wins by a length in the first race and by a neck in the second.
1981 — Larry Nelson beats Fuzzy Zoeller by three strokes to take the PGA Championship.
1984 — Britain’s Daley Thompson wins his second Olympic decathlon with a record 8,797 points and Valerie Brisco-Hooks sets her second Olympic record with a 21.81 time in the 200-meter run.
1987 — Larry Nelson sinks a 6-foot putt in the first hole of a playoff to beat Lanny Wadkins in the PGA Championship.
1992 — The Summer Olympics ends with the Unified Team holding a 112-108 lead in medals over the United States, the closest race since America won 90-86 in 1964 at Tokyo.
1995 — John Godina becomes the first American to win the shot put event at the World Championships with a toss of 70 feet, 5¼ inches.
2007 — Alexis Thompson becomes the youngest quarterfinalist in the 107-year history of the U.S. Women’s Amateur, beating fellow 12-year-old Pearl Jin 5 and 4 in the second round and Lizette Salas 5 and 4 in the third.
2007 — David Beckham makes his long-awaited Major League Soccer debut, entering in the 72nd minute of the Los Angeles Galaxy’s 1-0 loss to D.C. United.
2008 — Mariel Zagunis leads a U.S. sweep of the women’s saber fencing for the first American medals of the Beijing Games. Zagunis, the 2004 gold Olympic champion, beats Sada Jacobson 15-8 for the gold medal. Becca Ward takes the bronze.
2009 — Jennifer Song becomes the second woman to win two U.S. Golf Association championships in the same year, beating Jennifer Johnson 3 and 1 in the U.S. Women’s Amateur final at Old Warson. The 19-year-old Song, coming off her freshman year at Southern California, won the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links in June. Pearl Sinn is the only other woman to win two USGA titles in a year, taking the 1988 Amateur and Public Links.
2010 — No American player appears in the top 10 for the first time since the men’s tennis computer rankings began in 1973. Andy Roddick drops from No. 9 to No. 11 in the latest ATP rankings.
2012 — Usain Bolt wins the 200 meters in 19.32 seconds, making him the only man with two Olympic titles in that event. He adds it to the 100 gold he won Aug. 5, duplicating the 100-200 double he produced at the Beijing Games four years ago. This time, Bolt leads a Jamaican sweep, with his training partner and pal Yohan Blake getting the silver in 19.44, and Warren Weir taking the bronze in 19.84. The American men take the top two spots in the men’s decathlon (Ashton Eaton and Trey Hardee) and triple jump (Christian Taylor and Will Claye), raising the U.S. track and field total with three days to go to 24 medals.
2012 — The U.S. women’s soccer team wins the Olympic gold medal, avenging one of its most painful defeats with a 2-1 victory over Japan. Carli Lloyd scores in the eighth and 54th minutes for the Americans, who lost to the Japanese in penalty kicks at last year’s World Cup final.
2012 — Maggie Steffens scored five times and the U.S. women’s water polo team beat Spain 8-5 to take the Olympic tournament for the first time. U.S. middleweight Claressa Shields caps her swift rise to the top of women’s Olympic boxing with a 19-12 victory over Russia’s Nadezda Torlopova. The 17-year-old Shields dances and slugs her way past her 33-year-old opponent.
2014 — Nick Rimando breaks the MLS record with his 113th shutout in Real Salt Lake’s 3-0 victory over D.C. United. Rimando broke a tie with Kevin Hartman for the record.
2016 — Michael Phelps adds to his Olympic record medal haul twice. He avenges his London 2012 loss to South African rival Chad le Clos with a 200-meter butterfly victory and his 20th career gold. Then, he anchors the 4×200 freestyle relay team for his 21st gold.
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