Timeline August 2009

Events in August 2009 7

• 1915 – 2009 Les Paul (1915-2009) Died 13 August 2009, aged 94 Paul was an American guitarist and inventor whose innovations in solid-body electric guitars and multitrack recording transformed popular music. The Gibson Les Paul guitar, named for him, became one of the most iconic instruments in rock music. He continued performing weekly club shows into his nineties.
• 1921 – 2009 Eunice Kennedy Shriver (1921-2009) Died 11 August 2009, aged 88 Shriver was an American philanthropist and member of the Kennedy family who founded the Special Olympics in 1968. Her advocacy work greatly expanded opportunities and public attention for people with intellectual disabilities worldwide. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work.
• 1932 – 2009 Ted Kennedy (1932-2009) Died 25 August 2009, aged 77 Kennedy represented Massachusetts in the US Senate for nearly 47 years, becoming one of the chamber's most influential legislators on healthcare and civil rights. He was the youngest brother of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy. His death came as Congress debated major healthcare reform he had long championed.
• 1933 – 2009 Corazon Aquino (1933-2009) Died 1 August 2009, aged 76 Aquino served as President of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992, coming to power after the People Power Revolution that ended Ferdinand Marcos's rule. She was the first female president of the Philippines and a symbol of the country's return to democracy. Her death prompted an outpouring of national mourning.
• 1950 – 2009 John Hughes (1950-2009) Died 6 August 2009, aged 59 Hughes was an American filmmaker who wrote and directed a series of defining 1980s teen comedies including The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Sixteen Candles, and later wrote Home Alone. His films shaped the era's popular image of American adolescence. He largely withdrew from public life in his later career.
• 2009 US Open 2009 Men: Juan Martín del Potro · Women: Kim Clijsters Del Potro upset Federer in five sets. Clijsters came out of retirement to win.
• 2009 Inglourious Basterds History rewritten, and Waltz A war film in four languages that ends by burning Hitler alive in a Paris cinema — the first of Tarantino's revisionist revenge fantasies. Christoph Waltz, essentially unknown outside German television, wins the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Hans Landa. The opening farmhouse scene is arguably the best twenty minutes Tarantino has directed.