Battle of Winchelsea
1350 Battle of Winchelsea (or Les Espagnols sur Mer): The English naval fleet under King Edward III defeats a Castilian fleet of 40 ships
- 1484 Giovanni Battista Cibo elected as Pope Innocent VIII
Battle of Mohács
1526 Battle of Mohács: In a decisive battle the Hungarian Empire is conquered by the Ottoman Empire led by Suleiman the Magnificent
Burial of Atahualpa
1533 Atahualpa, last Sapa Inca Emperor is suspected to have been buried in Northern Peru or in Ecuador
- 1540 Emperor Karel deprives city Gent of its definitive rights and privileges
- 1612 Battle of Surat, India: English fleet beats Portuguese
- 1655 Warsaw falls without resistance to a small force under the command of Charles X Gustav of Sweden during The Deluge.
- 1664 Adriaen Pieck and Gerrit de Ferry patent wooden firespout in Amsterdam
Treaty of Turin
1696 King Louis XIV of France and Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy sign Peace of Turin, a turning point in the War of the League of Augsburg
- 1708 British troops occupy Menorca & Sardinia
- 1708 Haverhill, Massachusetts, destroyed by French & Indians
- 1742 English writer Edmond Hoyle publishes his "Short Treatise" on the card game whist
- 1756 Frederick II of Prussia leads an Anglo-Prussian alliance into Saxony - beginning of the Seven Years' War
- 1758 New Jersey Legislature forms 1st Indian reservation
- 1776 Americans withdraw from Manhattan to Westchester
- 1782 British man o'war HMS Royal George capsizes at Spithead, off of Hampshire, England; more than 800 crew and visitors killed [1]
- 1786 Shays' Rebellion, an armed uprising in Springfield and Worcester, Massachusetts, by citizens in opposition to the government's increased efforts to collect taxes on both individuals and their businesses
- 1793 Slaves in French colony of St Domingue (Haiti) freed
Domitila Meets Pedro I
1822 Domitila de Castro meets her long-term lover Dom Pedro I, then Prince of Portugal and later Emperor of Brazil, for the first time in São Paulo
- 1825 Portugal recognizes the Independence of Brazil
1st Electric Transformer
1831 Michael Faraday demonstrates 1st electric transformer
Fighting The Scourge of Child Labour
1833 Britain’s 1st Factory Act becomes law "to regulate the Labour of Children and young Persons in the Mills and Factories of the United Kingdom"
- 1842 Great Britain and China sign Treaty of Nanking, ending the Opium war
- 1844 1st white-indian lacrosse game in Montreal, Indians win
- 1854 Self-governing windmill patented by American inventor Daniel Halladay
- 1861 American Civil War: US Navy squadron captures forts at Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina.
- 1862 Battle of Aspromonte; Italian royal forces defeat rebels
Second Battle of Bull Run
1862 Second Battle of Bull Run, fought in Manassas, Virginia begins, Confederate victory (US Civil War)
- 1862 US Bureau of Engraving & Printing begins operation
United States One Dollar Bill
1862 US Department of the Treasury forms division now known as US Bureau of Engraving and Printing to print newly issued paper currency
Death of English Cricket
1882 Australia beat England by 7 runs - "Death of English cricket" with Australian fast bowler Fred Spofforth posting 14-90 (7-46 & 7-44)
First Carnegie Library
1883 First Carnegie library financed by industrialist Andrew Carnegie opens in Dunfermline, Scotland, the 1st of 2,509 libraries built around the world
Krakatoa: The World’s Mightiest Explosion
1883 Seismic sea waves created by Krakatoa eruption create a rise in English Channel 32 hrs after explosion
1st Heavyweight Title Fight
1885 Boxing's 1st heavyweight title fight with 3-oz gloves & 3-minute rounds fought between American boxers John L. Sullivan & Dominick McCaffrey in Cincinnati, Ohio
Daimler's Motorcycle Patent
1885 Gottlieb Daimler receives German patent for a motorcycle
- 1885 Phillies Charlie Ferguson no-hits Providence 1-0
- 1889 1st American International professional lawn tennis contest (Newport, Rhode Island)
- 1895 The formation of the Northern Rugby Union at the George Hotel, Huddersfield, England.
- 1896 Chop suey invented in NYC by chef of visiting Chinese Ambassador
- 1898 The Goodyear tire company founded
- 1900 Gaetano Bresci, the assassin of King Umberto I of Italy, is tried and sentenced to life imprisonment; he will commit suicide in jail on 22 May 1901
- 1903 The Finance Minister, Count Witte, is dismissed in what is seen as a victory for those in Russia who want their country to expand into Manchuria and Korea in defiance of the Japanese
De Brazza Leaves Brazzaville
1905 Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza leaves Brazzaville
- 1907 The Quebec Bridge over St Lawrence River collapses during construction, killing 75 workers
- 1908 NY gives a ticker tape parade to returning US Olympians from London
- 1909 AH Latham of France sets world airplane altitude record of 155 m
- 1909 World's 1st air race held in Rheims France. Glenn Curtiss (USA) wins
- 1910 Japan changes Korea's name to Chōsen and appoints a governor-general to rule its new colony
- 1911 Ishi, considered the last Native American to make contact with European Americans, emerges from the wilderness of northeastern California.
- 1913 Pieter Cort Van de Linden forms Dutch government
Battle of Tannenberg
1914 4th day of Battle of Tannenberg (WWI): Russian Second Army panics, General Martos caught
- 1914 Arizonian is 1st vessel to arrive in San Francisco via Panama Canal
- 1914 Battle of St Quentin: French counterattack under General Lanrezac
- 1914 New Zealand forces capture German Samoa
- 1916 Congress creates US Naval Reserve
Hindenburg Chief of Staff
1916 General Paul von Hindenburg replaces Von Falkenhayn as German chief of staff
Second Battle of Bapaume
1918 WWI: Bapaume, France re-taken from the Germans in the Second Battle of Bapaume by British, Australian, NZ and Canadian Corps in the Hundred Days Offensive
- 1920 An American sweep of the medals in the men's 100m freestyle at the Antwerp Olympics; Duke Kahanamoku sets world record 1:00.4 in defending his 1912 gold medal
- 1920 An American sweep of the medals in the women's 3m springboard diving event at the Antwerp Olympics; Aileen Riggin wins gold ahead of teammates Helen Wainwright & Thelma Payne
Bleibtrey Wins 3rd Gold
1920 Ethelda Bleibtrey wins her 3rd gold medal of the Antwerp Olympics; teams with Irene Guest, Frances Schroth & Margaret Woodbridge in American 4 x 100m freestyle relay team; world record 5:11.6
- 1920 Swedish swimmer Håkan Malmrot completes the breaststroke double at the Antwerp Olympics beating teammate Thor Henning in the 200m; also beats Henning for gold in the 400m
- 1924 Germany's Reichstag approves the Dawes Plan, which sought to solve the WWI reparations problem
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
1929 Aviator Anne Morrow Lindbergh makes her first solo flight
Zeppelin Round-the-World Flight
1929 German airship Graf Zeppelin ends a round-the-world flight
- 1930 The last 36 remaining inhabitants of St Kilda are voluntarily evacuated to other parts of Scotland.
- 1932 International Anti-War Committee forms in Amsterdam
- 1932 United Cigar Stores shuts 800 shops
- 1935 2nd NFL Chicago All-Star Game: Chicago Bears 5, All-Stars 0 (77,450)
- 1937 MLB Philadelphia A's Bob Johnson is 2nd to get 6 RBIs in an inning (1st)
Palestine Jews in WWII
1939 Chaim Weizmann informs England that Palestine Jews will fight in WW II
- 1940 7th NFL Chicago All-Star Game: Green Bay 45, All-Stars 28 (84,567)
- 1941 German Einsatzkommando in Russia kills 1,469 Jewish children
- 1943 Danish Navy scuttles its warships so as not to be taken by Germany
- 1944 15,000 American troops liberating Paris march down Champs Elysees
- 1944 Anti-German rebellion in Slovakia
- 1945 British liberate Hong Kong from Japan
Occupation of Japan
1945 General MacArthur named Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in Japan
Ambedkar Heads Constitution Committee
1947 B.R. Ambedkar is appointed chairman of the drafting committee for the Indian constitution
- 1947 Constantine Tsaldaris succeeds Maximos as Greek premier
- 1949 USSR performs its first nuclear test at Semipalatinsk, Kazakh SSR
- 1950 International Olympic Committee votes to admit West Germany & Japan in 1952
- 1952 New York premiere of history-based film "The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima"
- 1953 KHSL TV channel 12 in Chico, CA (CBS) begins broadcasting
- 1953 USSR explodes its first hydrogen bomb
- 1954 San Francisco International Airport (SFO) opens
- 1956 French government routes troops to Cyprus near Suez crisis
Longest Filibuster in History
1957 Strom Thurmond (Sen-D-SC) ends 24 hr filibuster against civil rights
Move It
1958 Cliff Richard and the Drifters release single "Move It", Richards debut single. Credited as 1st British Rock n Roll song.
Music History
1958 Guitarist George Harrison (15) joins The Quarrymen, who later become The Beatles
- 1958 US Air Force Academy's permanent site opens in Colorado Springs, Colorado
Olympic Gold
1960 Australian swimmer Dawn Fraser wins blue ribband 100m freestyle gold medal at the Rome Olympics; retains title won in Melbourne 1956; will win unprecedented 3rd consecutive 100m gold in Tokyo 1964
- 1960 Italy wins cycling team pursuit and Sante Gaiardoni takes the sprint gold medal at the Rome Olympics; Italy wins all 4 track events and road team time trial to thoroughly dominate sport
- 1960 Jordan premier Hazza-el-Madjali deadly injured at bomb attack
Olympic Gold
1960 Swedish canoeists Gert Fredriksson and Sven-Olov Sjödelius win the K2-1,000m in 3:34.73 at the Rome Olympics; Fredriksson's 6th gold medal in 4 Olympic Games
- 1962 Some provisions of Kuwaiti constitution are suspended
- 1962 US U-2 flight sees SAM launch pads in Cuba
Baseball Record
1963 Harmon Killebrew (Twins) HRs off Pete Burnside (Senators) in DH
Baseball Record
1964 On Elston Howard Night, NY Yankees Mickey Mantle ties Babe Ruth's career strikeout record (1,330)
- 1965 Astronauts Cooper & Conrad complete 120 Earth orbits in Gemini 5
Baseball Record
1965 San Francisco GiantsWillie Mays sets NL record for HRs in a month with his 17th of August
- 1966 Dutch Internal minister Smallenbroek resigns after driving drunk
- 1966 The Beatles' last public concert before a crowd of 25,000, and 7,000 unsold seats, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California
- 1967 Final TV episode of "The Fugitive" starring David Janssen watched by 78 million people
- 1967 Yanks longest day, Red Sox take 1st game 2-1 in 9, Yanks win 2nd game in 20, 4-3 a total of 8 hours & 19 minutes
- 1968 Democrats nominate Hubert H Humphrey for US President (Chicago)
Tennis Open
1968 First match in the US Open tennis era; on her way to the final, Billie Jean King beats fellow American Dr Vija Vuskains 6-1, 6-0
Sports History
1969 Joe Pepitone quits NY Yankees after being fined $500 for leaving the bench
- 1969 KYUS TV channel 3 in Miles City, MT (ABC/NBC) begins broadcasting
- 1970 Black Panthers confront cops in Philadelphia (1 cop killed)
Olympic Gold
1972 Sandy Neilson wins the blue ribband women's 100m freestyle gold medal in 58.59 at the Munich Olympics beating fellow American Shirley Babashoff and Shane Gould of Australia
Lust for Life
1977 Iggy Pop releases his second album "Lust for Life", a collaboration with David Bowie
- 1978 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1978 USTA National Tennis Center opens in Flushing NY
- 1979 Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1979 Sheridan Broadcasting Corp purchases Mutual Black Network
- 1981 Phillies minor leaguer Jeff Stone steals pro baseball record 121st base en route to 122 (Spartanburg (South Atlantic League))
- 1982 38°F lowest temperature ever recorded in Cleveland in August
Baseball Record
1982 Kansas City Royal George Brett gets his 1,500th hit
#1 in the Charts
1982 Steve Miller's single "Abracadabra" hits #1
- 1982 The synthetic chemical element Meitnerium, atomic number 109, is first synthesized at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, Germany.
- 1985 Atlantis moves to launch pad for 51-J mission
- 1985 NY Yank Don Baylor is hit by a pitch for a record 190th time
- 1986 Heike Drechsler of East Germany ties world women's 200 m mark (21.71s)
Baseball Record
1987 Houston Astro MLB player Nolan Ryan passes the 200-strikeout barrier for record 11th time
Event of Interest
1990 Saddam Hussein declares America can't beat Iraq
- 1991 JFK Jr. wins his 1st battle as an attorney
Event of Interest
1991 Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev signs decree to close Semipalatinsk test site (site of 456 Soviet nuclear tests 1949-89) after protests by Nevada-Semipalatinsk anti-nuclear movement [1]
- 1991 USSR suspends Communist Party activities
- 1992 Brave's Charlie Leibrandt 1,000th strikeout. He decides to keep the ball by rolling it to the dugout, allowing Ricky Jordan to take second base on error.
- 1992 Randy Myers blows his 6th save of the season & it marks the 5th time he's blown a potential win for Greg Harris
- 1993 93rd US Golf Amateur Championship won by John Harris
- 1995 NATO launches Operation Deliberate Force against Bosnian Serb forces.
- 1996 Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801, a Vnukovo Airlines Tupolev Tu-154, crashes into a mountain on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen, killing all 141 aboard.
- 1997 At least 98 villagers are killed by the GIA in the Rais massacre, Algeria.
- 1997 Netflix is founded by Marc Randolph and Reed Hasting in Scotts Valley, California as an online DVD rental business
- 2001 Goodwill Games V opens in Brisbane, Australia; this is the final edition of the event
- 2003 Ayatollah Sayed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the Shia Muslim leader in Iraq, is assassinated in a terrorist bombing, along with nearly 100 worshippers as they leave a mosque in Najaf.
- 2004 28th Olympic Games closes at Athens, Greece
- 2004 Athens Olympic marathon is run on same route as 1896 Games, start at site of the Battle of Marathon to the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens: Stefano Baldini of Italy wins men's gold in 2:10:55
- 2004 Brazil takes out the men's volleyball gold medal with a 3-1 victory over Italy at the Athens Olympics
- 2004 Future undisputed world light heavyweight boxing champion Andre Ward of the US wins the light heavyweight gold medal at the Athens Olympics beating Magomed Aripgadjiev of Belarus on points
F1 World Champion
2004 German Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher clinches his 5th straight F1 World Drivers Championship with a 2nd place in the Belgian F1 Grand Prix at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
- 2004 The Tradition Senior Men's Golf, Reserve Vineyards & GC: Craig Stadler wins his final major event by 1 stroke from Allen Doyle and Jerry Pate
Hurricane Katrina
2005 Hurricane Katrina makes 2nd and 3rd landfall as a category 3 hurricane, devastating much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Florida Panhandle. Kills more than 1,836, causes over $115 billion in damage.
- 2007 A United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident takes place at Minot Air Force Base and Barksdale Air Force Base.
Ronaldo Debuts for Real Madrid
2009 Cristiano Ronaldo makes his debut for Real Madrid, scoring a penalty in their 3-2 win over Deportivo La Coruña
Emmy Awards
2010 62nd Emmy Awards: Mad Men, Modern Family, Bryan Cranston & Kyra Sedgwick win
- 2012 Banana Spider venom is found to be effective in relieving erectile dysfunction
- 2012 Georgian hostage crisis results in 3 police officers and 10 militants being killed
- 2012 Operation Eagle, undertaken by the Egyptian Army, results in the deaths of 11 suspected terrorists and the arrest of another 23
- 2013 41 people are killed and 33 are injured in a bus accident in Kenya
Film & TV History
2013 Gary Sinise is named an honorary Marine by the Commandant of the Marine Corps
- 2014 Riots break out in Guinea following rumours that health workers are deliberately transmitting the Ebola virus to locals
- 2014 Senegal is 5th country hit by Ebola
- 2016 Italian coastguard says 6,500 migrants rescued at sea in 40 separate incidents in 1 day off coast of Sabratha, Libya
- 2017 Hurricane Harvey sets rainfall record (51.88 inches in Cedar Bayou) from a tropical cyclone in continental US, according to US National Weather Service
- 2017 Monsoon rains in Mumbai cause chaos closing schools and airports
Trump Visits Flooded Texas
2017 US President Donald Trump visits flood affected Texas
- 2018 Former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond resigns from the Scottish National Party amid sexual abuse allegations
- 2018 Germany hands back human remains of Namibian Herero and Nama people murdered during 1904-08 genocide at church service in Berlin
John McCain Lies in State
2018 John McCain is only the third person to lie in state at the Arizona state capital rotunda in Phoenix
Retirement Age Increased
2018 Russian President Vladimir Putin announces new retirement ages, 60 for women, 65 for men in TV address, amid protests
Aaron Rodgers Record Contract
2018 Star quarterback Aaron Rodgers signs NFL record contract extension with the Green Bay Packers; 4 years worth $134m rising to a possible $180m with a record $103m in guarantees
- 2019 Discovery of world's largest child sacrifice site announced by archaeologists with 227 victims from Chimú culture in Huanchaco, Peru
- 2019 Scientists announce there is no single 'gay' gene with genetics accounting for at most 25% of same-sex behavior, in study published in "Science"
Pujols Hits a Record
2022 St. Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols hits career home run 694 off of major league record 450th different pitcher in 13-4 win over Reds in Cincinnati
- 2022 Worst violence in Iraqi capital Baghdad in years with 30 killed and 700 injured after Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr announces he is withdrawing from politics [1]
- 2023 Greek wildfire north of city of Alexandroupoli declared EU's largest ever recorded, having burnt 310 sq miles (810 sq km) and killed 20 people [1]
- 2023 Parasite worm, alive and wriggling, found in a woman's brain for the first time in Canberra, Australia [1]
