August 23rd, 1939:

In Moscow, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact.

The treaty divides Eastern Europe into spheres of Nazi and Soviet influence, just days before the Nazis invade Poland, the start of World War Two.

1927:

In Boston, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed for the murders of two men during a robbery.

Fifty years later, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis proclaims that "any stigma and disgrace should be forever removed" from their names.

But controversy over Sacco and Vanzetti's guilt, and whether they got a fair trial, persists to this day.

2003:

Also in Massachusetts, defrocked Roman Catholic priest John Geoghan is beaten and strangled to death while serving time in prison.

Geoghan, who was convicted of child sex abuse, became a symbol of the clergy sex abuse scandal that shook America's Catholic Church.

1926:

In New York, silent movie heartthrob Rudolph Valentino --- one of film's first major sex symbols --- dies from a perforated ulcer.

He was 31 years old.

And, 1960:

Oscar Hammerstein, the Broadway librettist, dies in Doylestown, Pennsylvania at age 65.

Among his works with composer Richard Rodgers: Oklahoma, South Pacific, The King and I, and the Sound of Music.

Today in History, August 23rd,______,The Associated Press.