Associated Press

On Aug. 11, 1934, the first federal prisoners arrived at Alcatraz Island, a former military prison, in San Francisco Bay.

In 1949, President Harry S. Truman nominated General Omar N. Bradley to become the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In 1956, abstract painter Jackson Pollock died in an automobile accident on Long Island, New York, at age 44.

In 1973, at a house party in the Bronx, 18-year-old DJ Kool Herc began extending the musical breaks of records and speaking over the beat, marking the (unofficial) birth of hip-hop music.

In 1992, the Mall of America, the nation’s largest shopping center, opened in Bloomington, Minnesota.

In 1997, President Bill Clinton made the first use of the historic line-item veto, rejecting three items in spending and tax bills.