This Day in History

[lordroel]

August 18th

684 – Battle of Marj Rahit: Umayyad partisans defeat the supporters of Ibn al-Zubayr and cement Umayyad control of Syria.

1304 – The Battle of Mons-en-Pévèle is fought to a draw between the French army and the Flemish militias.

1487 – The Siege of Málaga ends with the taking of the city by Castilian and Aragonese forces.

1572 – Marriage in Paris, France, of the Huguenot King Henry III of Navarre to Margaret of Valois, in a supposed attempt to reconcile Protestants and Catholics.

1587 – Virginia Dare, granddaughter of Governor John White of the Colony of Roanoke, becomes the first English child born in the Americas.

1590 – John White, the governor of the Roanoke Colony, returns from a supply trip to England and finds his settlement deserted.

1612 – The trial of the Pendle witches, one of England's most famous witch trials, begins at Lancaster Assizes.

1634 – Urbain Grandier, accused and convicted of sorcery, is burned alive in Loudun, France.

1783 – A huge fireball meteor is seen across Great Britain as it passes over the east coast.

1826 – Major Gordon Laing becomes the first non-Muslim to enter Timbuktu.

1838 – The Wilkes Expedition, which would explore the Puget Sound and Antarctica, weighs anchor at Hampton Roads.

1848 – Camila O'Gorman and Ladislao Gutierrez are executed on the orders of Argentine dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas.

1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Globe Tavern: Union forces try to cut a vital Confederate supply-line into Petersburg, Virginia, by attacking the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad.

1868 – French astronomer Pierre Janssen discovers helium.

1870 – Franco-Prussian War: Battle of Gravelotte is fought.

1891 – Major hurricane strikes Martinique, leaving 700 dead.

1903 – German engineer Karl Jatho allegedly flies his self-made, motored gliding airplane four months before the first flight of the Wright brothers.

1917 – A Great Fire in Thessaloniki, Greece destroys 32% of the city leaving 70,000 individuals homeless.

1920 – The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage.

1923 – First British Track and Field championships for women, London.

1938 – The Thousand Islands Bridge, connecting New York, United States with Ontario, Canada over the Saint Lawrence River, is dedicated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1940 – World War II: The Hardest Day air battle, part of the Battle of Britain. At that point, the largest aerial engagement in history with heavy losses sustained on both sides.

1945 – Sukarno takes office as the first president of Indonesia, following the country's declaration of independence the previous day.

1950 – Julien Lahaut, the chairman of the Communist Party of Belgium is assassinated by far-right elements.

1958 – Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in the United States.

1958 – Brojen Das from Bangladesh swims across the English Channel in a competition, as the first Bengali and the first Asian to do so. He came first among 39 competitors.

1963 – Civil rights movement: James Meredith becomes the first African American to graduate from the University of Mississippi.

1965 – Vietnam War: Operation Starlite begins: United States Marines destroy a Viet Cong stronghold on the Van Tuong peninsula in the first major American ground battle of the war.

1966 – Vietnam War: The Battle of Long Tan ensues after a patrol from the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment clashes with a Viet Cong force in Phước Tuy Province.

1971 – Vietnam War: Australia and New Zealand decide to withdraw their troops from Vietnam.

1976 – In the Korean Demilitarized Zone at Panmunjom, the Axe murder incident results in the death of two US soldiers.

1977 – Steve Biko is arrested at a police roadblock under the Terrorism Act No. 83 of 1967 in King William's Town, South Africa. He later dies from injuries sustained during this arrest bringing attention to South Africa's apartheid policies.

1983 – Hurricane Alicia hits the Texas coast, killing 21 people and causing over US$1 billion in damage (1983 dollars).

1989 – Leading presidential hopeful Luis Carlos Galán is assassinated near Bogotá in Colombia.

2003 – One year old Zachary Turner is murdered in Newfoundland by his mother who was awarded custody despite facing trial for the murder of Zachary's father. The case led to reform of Canada's bail laws.

2005 – A massive power blackout hits the Indonesian island of Java, affecting almost 100 million people, one of the largest and most widespread power outages in history.

2008 – President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf resigns under threat of impeachment.

2008 – War of Afghanistan: Uzbin Valley ambush occurs.

2017 – The first terrorist attack ever sentenced as a crime in Finland kills two and injures eight.

[lordroel]

August 19th

295 BC – The first temple to Venus, the Roman goddess of love, beauty and fertility, is dedicated by Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges during the Third Samnite War.

43 BC – Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, later known as Augustus, compels the Roman Senate to elect him Consul.

947 – Abu Yazid, a Kharijite rebel leader, is defeated and killed in the Hodna Mountains in modern-day Algeria by Fatimid forces.

1153 – Baldwin III of Jerusalem takes control of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from his mother Melisende, and also captures Ascalon.

1458 – Pope Pius II becomes the 211th Pope.

1504 – In Ireland, the Hiberno-Norman de Burghs (Burkes) and Anglo-Norman Fitzgeralds fight in the Battle of Knockdoe.

1561 – Mary, Queen of Scots, who was 18 years old, returns to Scotland after spending 13 years in France.

1612 – The "Samlesbury witches", three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury, England, are put on trial, accused of practicing witchcraft, one of the most famous witch trials in British history.

1666 – Second Anglo-Dutch War: Rear Admiral Robert Holmes leads a raid on the Dutch island of Terschelling, destroying 150 merchant ships, an act later known as "Holmes's Bonfire".

1692 – Salem witch trials: In Salem, Province of Massachusetts Bay, five people, one woman and four men, including a clergyman, are executed after being convicted of witchcraft.

1745 – Prince Charles Edward Stuart raises his standard in Glenfinnan: The start of the Second Jacobite Rebellion, known as "the 45".

1745 – Ottoman–Persian War: In the Battle of Kars, the Ottoman army is routed by Persian forces led by Nader Shah.

1759 – Battle of Lagos Naval battle during the Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France.

1772 – Gustav III of Sweden stages a coup d'état, in which he assumes power and enacts a new constitution that divides power between the Riksdag and the King.

1782 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Blue Licks: The last major engagement of the war, almost ten months after the surrender of the British commander Charles Cornwallis following the Siege of Yorktown.

1812 – War of 1812: American frigate USS Constitution defeats the British frigate HMS Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada earning the nickname "Old Ironsides".

1813 – Gervasio Antonio de Posadas joins Argentina's Second Triumvirate.

1839 – The French government announces that Louis Daguerre's photographic process is a gift "free to the world".

1848 – California Gold Rush: The New York Herald breaks the news to the East Coast of the United States of the gold rush in California (although the rush started in January).

1854 – The First Sioux War begins when United States Army soldiers kill Lakota chief Conquering Bear and in return are massacred.

1861 – First ascent of Weisshorn, fifth highest summit in the Alps.

1862 – American Indian Wars: During an uprising in Minnesota, Lakota warriors decide not to attack heavily defended Fort Ridgely and instead turn to the settlement of New Ulm, killing white settlers along the way.

1909 – The first automobile race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

1927 – Patriarch Sergius of Moscow proclaims the declaration of loyalty of the Russian Orthodox Church to the Soviet Union.

1934 – The first All-American Soap Box Derby is held in Dayton, Ohio.

1934 – The German referendum of 1934 approves Hitler's appointment as head of state with the title of Führer.

1936 – The Great Purge of the Soviet Union begins when the first of the Moscow Trials is convened.

1940 – First flight of the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber.

1942 – World War II: Operation Jubilee: The 2nd Canadian Infantry Division leads an amphibious assault by allied forces on Dieppe, France and fails, many Canadians are killed or captured. The operation was intended to develop and try new amphibious landing tactics for the coming full invasion in Normandy.

1944 – World War II: Liberation of Paris: Paris, France rises against German occupation with the help of Allied troops.

1945 – August Revolution: Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh take power in Hanoi, Vietnam.

1953 – Cold War: The CIA and MI6 help to overthrow the government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran and reinstate the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

1955 – In the Northeast United States, severe flooding caused by Hurricane Diane, claims 200 lives.

1960 – Cold War: In Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union, downed American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to ten years imprisonment by the Soviet Union for espionage.

1960 – Sputnik program: Korabl-Sputnik 2: The Soviet Union launches the satellite with the dogs Belka and Strelka, 40 mice, two rats and a variety of plants.

1964 – Syncom 3, the first geostationary communication satellite, was launched.

1965 – Japanese prime minister Eisaku Satō becomes the first post-World War II sitting prime minister to visit Okinawa Prefecture.

1978 – In Iran, Cinema Rex fire caused more than 400 deaths.

1980 – Saudia Flight 163, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar burns after making an emergency landing at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing 301 people.

1981 – Gulf of Sidra Incident: United States fighters intercept and shoot down two Libyan Sukhoi Su-22 fighter jets over the Gulf of Sidra.

1987 – Hungerford massacre: In the United Kingdom, Michael Ryan kills sixteen people with a semi-automatic rifle and then commits suicide.

1989 – Polish president Wojciech Jaruzelski nominates Solidarity activist Tadeusz Mazowiecki to be the first non-communist prime minister in 42 years.

1989 – Several hundred East Germans cross the frontier between Hungary and Austria during the Pan-European Picnic, part of the events that began the process of the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

1991 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union, August Coup: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is placed under house arrest while on holiday in the town of Foros, Ukraine.

1999 – In Belgrade, Yugoslavia, tens of thousands of Serbians rally to demand the resignation of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia President Slobodan Milošević.

2002 – Khankala Mi-26 crash: A Russian Mil Mi-26 helicopter carrying troops is hit by a Chechen missile outside Grozny, killing 118 soldiers.

2003 – A car-bomb attack on United Nations headquarters in Iraq kills the agency's top envoy Sérgio Vieira de Mello and 21 other employees.

2003 – A suicide attack on a bus in Jerusalem, Israel, planned by Hamas, kills 23 Israelis, seven of them children, in the Shmuel HaNavi bus bombing.

2005 – The first-ever joint military exercise between Russia and China, called Peace Mission 2005 begins.

2009 – A series of bombings in Baghdad, Iraq, kills 101 and injures 565 others.

2010 – Operation Iraqi Freedom ends, with the last of the United States brigade combat teams crossing the border to Kuwait.

2013 – The Dhamara Ghat train accident kills at least 37 people in the Indian state of Bihar.

2017 – Tens of thousands of farmed non-native Atlantic salmon are accidentally released into the wild in Washington waters in the 2017 Cypress Island Atlantic salmon pen break.

[lordroel]

August 20th

AD 14 – Agrippa Postumus, maternal grandson of the late Roman emperor Augustus, is executed by his guards under mysterious circumstances while in exile.

636 – Battle of Yarmouk: Arab forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid take control of the Levant away from the Byzantine Empire, marking the first great wave of Muslim conquests and the rapid advance of Islam outside Arabia.

917 – Battle of Acheloos: Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria decisively defeats a Byzantine army.

1083 – Canonization of the first King of Hungary, Saint Stephen and his son Saint Emeric celebrated as a National Day in Hungary.

1191 – Richard I of England initiates the Massacre at Ayyadieh, leaving 2,600–3,000 Muslim hostages dead.

1308 – Pope Clement V pardons Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, absolving him of charges of heresy.

1391 – Konrad von Wallenrode becomes the 24th Grand Master of the Teutonic Order.

1467 – The Second Battle of Olmedo takes places as part of a succession conflict between Henry IV of Castile and his half-brother Alfonso, Prince of Asturias.

1519 – Philosopher and general Wang Yangming defeats Zhu Chenhao, ending the Prince of Ning rebellion against the reign of the Ming dynasty's Zhengde Emperor.

1648 – Battle of Lens: French Duc d'Enghien defeats Spaniards

1672 – Former Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis are brutally murdered by an angry mob in The Hague.

1707 – The first Siege of Pensacola comes to end with the failure of the British to capture Pensacola, Florida.

1710 – War of the Spanish Succession: A multinational army led by the Austrian commander Guido Starhemberg defeats the Spanish-Bourbon army commanded by Alexandre Maître, Marquis de Bay in the Battle of Saragossa.

1775 – The Spanish establish the Presidio San Augustin del Tucson in the town that became Tucson, Arizona.

1794 – Battle of Fallen Timbers: American troops force a confederacy of Shawnee, Mingo, Delaware, Wyandot, Miami, Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi warriors into a disorganized retreat.

1852 – Steamboat Atlantic sank on Lake Erie after a collision, with the loss of at least 150 lives.

1858 – Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution through natural selection in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory.

1866 – President Andrew Johnson formally declares the American Civil War over.

1882 – Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow, Russia.

1905 – Sun Yat-sen, Chinese revolutionary, forms the first chapter of T'ung Meng Hui, a union of all secret societies determined to bringing down the Manchus.

1910 – The Great Fire of 1910 (also commonly referred to as the "Big Blowup" or the "Big Burn") occurs in northeast Washington, northern Idaho (the panhandle), and western Montana, burning approximately 3 million acres (12,000 km2).

1914 – World War I: Brussels is captured during the German invasion of Belgium.

1920 – The first commercial radio station, 8MK (now WWJ), begins operations in Detroit.

1920 – The National Football League is organized as the American Professional Football Conference in Canton, Ohio

1926 – Japan's public broadcasting company, Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK) is established.

1938 – Lou Gehrig hits his 23rd career grand slam, a record that stood for 75 years until it was broken by Alex Rodriguez.

1940 – In Mexico City, exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded with an ice axe by Ramón Mercader. He dies the next day.

1940 – World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes the fourth of his famous wartime speeches, containing the line "Never was so much owed by so many to so few".

1944 – World War II: One hundred sixty-eight captured allied airmen, including Phil Lamason, accused by the Gestapo of being "terror fliers", arrive at Buchenwald concentration camp.

1944 – World War II: The Battle of Romania begins with a major Soviet Union offensive.

1950 – Korean War: United Nations repel an offensive by North Korean divisions attempting to cross the Nakdong River and assault the city of Taegu.

1955 – Battle of Philippeville: In Morocco, a force of Berbers from the Atlas Mountains region of Algeria raid two rural settlements and kill 77 French nationals.

1960 – Senegal breaks from the Mali Federation, declaring its independence.

1962 – The NS Savannah, the world's first nuclear-powered civilian ship, embarks on its maiden voyage.

1968 – Cold War: Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia, crushing the Prague Spring. East German participation is limited to a few specialists due to memories of the recent war. Only Albania and Romania refuse to participate.

1975 – Viking program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars.

1977 – Voyager program: NASA launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.

1986 – In Edmond, Oklahoma, U.S. Postal employee Patrick Sherrill guns down 14 of his co-workers and then commits suicide.

1988 – "Black Saturday" of the Yellowstone fire in Yellowstone National Park

1988 – Iran–Iraq War: A ceasefire is agreed after almost eight years of war.

1988 – The Troubles: Eight British soldiers are killed and 28 wounded when their bus is hit by an IRA roadside bomb in Ballygawley, County Tyrone.

1989 – The pleasure boat Marchioness sinks on the River Thames following a collision. Fifty-one people are killed.

1991 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union, August Coup: More than 100,000 people rally outside the Soviet Union's parliament building protesting the coup aiming to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev.

1991 – Estonia, annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, issues a decision on the re-establishment of independence on the basis of historical continuity of its pre-World War II statehood.

1993 – After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, the Oslo Accords are signed, followed by a public ceremony in Washington, D.C. the following month.

1995 – The Firozabad rail disaster claimed 358 lives in Firozabad, India.

1997 – Souhane massacre in Algeria; over 60 people are killed and 15 kidnapped.

1998 – The Supreme Court of Canada rules that Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government's approval.

1998 – U.S. embassy bombings: The United States launches cruise missile attacks against alleged al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical weapons plant in Sudan in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

2002 – A group of Iraqis opposed to the regime of Saddam Hussein take over the Iraqi Embassy in Berlin, Germany for five hours before releasing their hostages and surrendering.

2006 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Tamil politician and former MP S. Sivamaharajah is shot dead at his home in Tellippalai.

2007 – China Airlines Flight 120 caught fire and exploded after landing at Naha Airport in Okinawa, Japan.

2008 – Spanair Flight 5022, from Madrid, Spain to Gran Canaria, skids off the runway and crashes at Barajas Airport. Of the 172 people on board, 146 die immediately, and eight more later die of injuries sustained in the crash.

2012 – A prison riot in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, kills at least 20 people.

2014 – Seventy-two people are killed in Japan's Hiroshima Prefecture by a series of landslides caused by a month's worth of rain that fell in one day.

2016 – Fifty-four people are killed when a suicide bomber detonates himself at a Kurdish wedding party in Gaziantep, Turkey.

[lordroel]

August 21st

959 – Eraclus becomes the 25th bishop of Liège.

1140 – Song dynasty general Yue Fei defeats an army led by Jin dynasty general Wuzhu at the Battle of Yancheng during the Jin–Song Wars.

1192 – Minamoto no Yoritomo becomes Sei-i Taishōgun and the de facto ruler of Japan. (Traditional Japanese date: July 12, 1192)

1331 – King Stefan Uroš III, after months of anarchy, surrenders to his son and rival Stefan Dušan, who succeeds as King of Serbia.

1415 – Henry the Navigator leads Portuguese forces to victory over the Marinids at the Battle of Ceuta.

1680 – Pueblo Indians capture Santa Fe from the Spanish during the Pueblo Revolt.

1689 – The Battle of Dunkeld in Scotland.

1770 – James Cook formally claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales.

1772 – King Gustav III completes his coup d'état by adopting a new Constitution, ending half a century of parliamentary rule in Sweden and installing himself as an enlightened despot.

1778 – American Revolutionary War: British forces begin besieging the French outpost at Pondichéry.

1791 – A Vodou ceremony, led by Dutty Boukman, turns into a violent slave rebellion, beginning the Haitian Revolution.

1808 – Battle of Vimeiro: British and Portuguese forces led by General Arthur Wellesley defeat French force under Major-General Jean-Andoche Junot near the village of Vimeiro, Portugal, the first Anglo-Portuguese victory of the Peninsular War.

1810 – Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of France, is elected Crown Prince of Sweden by the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates.

1821 – Jarvis Island is discovered by the crew of the ship, Eliza Frances.

1831 – Nat Turner leads black slaves and free blacks in a rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, which will claim the lives of 55 to 65 whites and about twice that number of blacks.[1]

1852 – Tlingit Indians destroy Fort Selkirk, Yukon Territory.

1863 – Lawrence, Kansas is destroyed by pro-Confederate guerrillas known as Quantrill's Raiders.

1883 – An F5 tornado strikes Rochester, Minnesota, leading to the creation of the Mayo Clinic.

1888 – The first successful adding machine in the United States is patented by William Seward Burroughs.

1897 – Oldsmobile, an American automobile manufacturer and marque, is founded.

1901 – Six hundred American school teachers, Thomasites, arrived in Manila on the USAT Thomas.

1911 – The Mona Lisa is stolen by Vincenzo Perugia, a Louvre employee.

1914 – World War I: The Battle of Charleroi, a successful German attack across the River Sambre that pre-empted a French offensive in the same area.

1918 – World War I: The Second Battle of the Somme begins.

1942 – World War II: The flag of Nazi Germany is planted atop Mount Elbrus, the highest peak of the Caucasus mountain range.

1942 – World War II: The Guadalcanal Campaign: American forces defeat an attack by Imperial Japanese Army soldiers in the Battle of the Tenaru.

1944 – Dumbarton Oaks Conference, prelude to the United Nations, begins.

1944 – World War II: Canadian and Polish units capture the strategically important town of Falaise, Calvados, France.

1945 – Physicist Harry Daghlian is fatally irradiated in a criticality accident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

1957 – The Soviet Union successfully conducts a long-range test flight of the R-7 Semyorka, the first intercontinental ballistic missile.

1959 – United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order proclaiming Hawaii the 50th state of the union. Hawaii's admission is currently commemorated by Hawaii Admission Day

1961 – American country music singer Patsy Cline returns to record producer Owen Bradley's studio in Nashville, Tennessee to record her vocals to Willie Nelson's "Crazy", which would become her signature song.

1961 – Motown releases what would be its first #1 hit (in America), "Please Mr. Postman" by The Marvelettes.

1963 – Xá Lợi Pagoda raids: The Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces loyal to Ngô Đình Nhu, brother of President Ngo Dinh Diem, vandalizes Buddhist pagodas across the country, arresting thousands and leaving an estimated hundreds dead.

1968 – Cold War: Nicolae Ceaușescu, leader of Communist Romania, publicly condemns the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, encouraging the Romanian population to arm itself against possible Soviet reprisals.

1968 – James Anderson Jr. posthumously receives the first Medal of Honor to be awarded to an African American U.S. Marine.

1971 – A bomb exploded in the Liberal Party campaign rally in Plaza Miranda, Manila, Philippines with several anti-Marcos political candidates injured.

1982 – Lebanese Civil War: The first troops of a multinational force lands in Beirut to oversee the Palestine Liberation Organization's withdrawal from Lebanon.

1983 – Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino, Jr. is assassinated at the Manila International Airport (now renamed Ninoy Aquino International Airport in his honor).

1986 – Carbon dioxide gas erupts from volcanic Lake Nyos in Cameroon, killing up to 1,800 people within a 20-kilometer range.

1988 – The 6.9 Mw  Nepal earthquake shakes the Nepal–India border with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), leaving 709–1,450 people killed and thousands injured.

1991 – Latvia declares renewal of its full independence after its occupation by the Soviet Union since 1945.

1991 – Coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev collapses.

1993 – NASA loses contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft.

1994 – Royal Air Maroc Flight 630 crashes in Douar Izounine, Morocco, killing all 44 people on board.[2]

1995 – Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 529, an Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia, attempts to divert to West Georgia Regional Airport after the left engine fails, but the aircraft crashes in Carroll County near Carrollton, Georgia, killing nine of the 29 people on board.[3]

2000 – Tiger Woods, American professional golfer, wins the 82nd PGA Championship and becomes the first golfer since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in a calendar year.

2013 – Hundreds of people are reported killed by chemical attacks in the Ghouta region of Syria.

2016 – The closing ceremony of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, takes place.

2017 – A solar eclipse traverses the continental United States.

[lordroel]

August 22nd

392 – Arbogast has Eugenius elected Western Roman Emperor.
851 – Battle of Jengland: Erispoe defeats Charles the Bald near the Breton town of Jengland.
1138 – Battle of the Standard between Scotland and England.
1485 – The Battle of Bosworth Field, the death of Richard III and the end of the House of Plantagenet.
1559 – Bartolomé Carranza, Spanish archbishop, is arrested for heresy.
1614 – Fettmilch Uprising: Jews are expelled from Frankfurt, Holy Roman Empire, following the plundering of the Judengasse.
1639 – Madras (now Chennai), India, is founded by the British East India Company on a sliver of land bought from local Nayak rulers.
1642 – Charles I raises his standard in Nottingham, which marks the beginning of the English Civil War.
1654 – Jacob Barsimson arrives in New Amsterdam. He is the first known Jewish immigrant to America.
1711 – Britain's Quebec Expedition loses eight ships and almost nine hundred soldiers, sailors and women to rocks at Pointe-aux-Anglais.
1717 – Spanish troops land on Sardinia.
1770 – James Cook names and lands on Possession Island, and claims the east coast of Australia for Britain as New South Wales.
1777 – British forces abandon the Siege of Fort Stanwix after hearing rumors of Continental Army reinforcements.
1780 – James Cook's ship HMS Resolution returns to England (Cook having been killed on Hawaii during the voyage).
1791 – Beginning of the Haitian Slave Revolution in Saint-Domingue, Haiti.
1798 – French troops land at Kilcummin, County Mayo, Ireland to aid the rebellion.
1827 – José de la Mar becomes President of Peru.
1846 – The Second Federal Republic of Mexico is established.
1849 – The first air raid in history. Austria launches pilotless balloons against the city of Venice.
1851 – The first America's Cup is won by the yacht America.
1864 – Twelve nations sign the First Geneva Convention, establishing the rules of protection of the victims of armed conflicts.[1]
1875 – The Treaty of Saint Petersburg between Japan and Russia is ratified, providing for the exchange of Sakhalin for the Kuril Islands.
1894 – Mahatma Gandhi forms the Natal Indian Congress (NIC) in order to fight discrimination against Indian traders in Natal.
1902 – Cadillac Motor Company is founded.
1902 – Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to make a public appearance in an automobile.
1910 – Korea is annexed by Japan with the signing of the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910, beginning a period of Japanese rule of Korea that lasted until the end of World War II.
1922 – Michael Collins, Commander-in-chief of the Irish Free State Army, is shot dead in an ambush during the Irish Civil War.
1934 – Bill Woodfull of Australia becomes the only cricket captain to twice regain The Ashes.
1941 – World War II: German troops begin the Siege of Leningrad.
1942 – Brazil declares war on Germany, Japan and Italy.
1944 – World War II: Holocaust of Kedros in Crete by German forces
1949 – The Queen Charlotte earthquake is Canada's strongest since the 1700 Cascadia earthquake
1953 – The penal colony on Devil's Island is permanently closed.
1962 – The OAS attempts to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle.
1963 – X-15 Flight 91 reaches the highest altitude of the X-15 program (107.96 km (67.08 mi) (354,200 feet)).
1966 – Labor movements NFWA and AWOC merge to become the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), predecessor of the United Farm Workers.
1968 – Pope Paul VI arrives in Bogotá, Colombia. It is the first visit of a pope to Latin America.
1971 – J. Edgar Hoover and John Mitchell announce the arrest of 20 of the Camden 28.
1972 – Rhodesia is expelled by the IOC for its racist policies.
1973 – The Congress of Chile votes in favour of a resolution condemning President Salvador Allende's government and demands that he resign or else be unseated through force and new elections.
1978 – The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FLSN) occupies national palace in Nicaragua.
1978 – The District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment is passed by the U.S. Congress. The proposed amendment would have provided the District of Columbia with full voting representation in the Congress, the Electoral College, and regarding amending the U.S. Constitution. The proposed amendment failed to be ratified by enough states (ratified by 16, needed 38) and so did not become part of the Constitution.
1981 – Far Eastern Air Transport Flight 103 disintegrates in mid-air and crashes in Sanyi Township, Miaoli County, Taiwan. All 110 people on board are killed.[2]
1985 – British Airtours Flight 28M suffers an engine fire during takeoff at Manchester Airport. The pilots abort but due to inefficient evacuation procedures 55 people are killed, mostly from smoke inhalation.
1989 – Nolan Ryan strikes out Rickey Henderson to become the first Major League Baseball pitcher to record 5,000 strikeouts.
1992 – FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi shoots and kills Vicki Weaver during an 11-day siege at her home at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.
2003 – Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is suspended after refusing to comply with a federal court order to remove a rock inscribed with the Ten Commandments from the lobby of the Alabama Supreme Court building.
2004 – Versions of The Scream and Madonna, two paintings by Edvard Munch, are stolen at gunpoint from a museum in Oslo, Norway.
2006 – Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise Flight 612 crashes near the Russian border over eastern Ukraine, killing all 170 people on board.
2006 – Grigori Perelman is awarded the Fields Medal for his proof of the Poincaré conjecture in mathematics but refuses to accept the medal.
2007 – The Texas Rangers defeat the Baltimore Orioles 30–3, the most runs scored by a team in modern Major League Baseball history.
2012 – Ethnic clashes over grazing rights for cattle in Kenya's Tana River District result in more than 52 deaths.

[lordroel]

August 23rd

30 BC – After the successful invasion of Egypt, Octavian executes Marcus Antonius Antyllus, eldest son of Mark Antony, and Caesarion, the last king of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt and only child of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra.
20 BC – Ludi Volcanalici are held within the temple precinct of Vulcan, and used by Augustus to mark the treaty with Parthia and the return of the legionary standards that had been lost at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC.
AD 79 – Mount Vesuvius begins stirring, on the feast day of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire.
406 – Gothic king Radagaisus is executed after he is defeated by Roman general Stilicho and 12,000 "barbarians" are incorporated into the Roman army or sold as slaves.
476 – Odoacer, chieftain of the Germanic tribes (Herulic - Scirian foederati), is proclaimed rex Italiae ("King of Italy") by his troops.
634 – Abu Bakr dies at Medina and is succeeded by Umar I who becomes the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate.
1244 – Siege of Jerusalem: The city's citadel, the Tower of David, surrenders to Khwarezmian Empire.
1268 – Battle of Tagliacozzo: The army of Charles of Anjou defeats the Ghibellines supporters of Conradin of Hohenstaufen marking the fall of the Hohenstaufen family from the Imperial and Sicilian thrones, and leading to the new chapter of Angevin domination in Southern Italy.
1305 – Sir William Wallace is executed for high treason at Smithfield, London.
1328 – Battle of Cassel: French troops stop an uprising of Flemish farmers.
1382 – Siege of Moscow: The Golden Horde led by Tokhtamysh lays siege to the capital of the Grand Duchy of Moscow.
1514 – The Battle of Chaldiran ends with a decisive victory for the Sultan Selim I, Ottoman Empire, over the Shah Ismail I, founder of the Safavid dynasty.
1521 – Christian II of Denmark is deposed as king of Sweden and Gustav Vasa is elected regent.
1541 – French explorer Jacques Cartier lands near Quebec City in his third voyage to Canada.
1572 – French Wars of Religion: Mob violence against thousands of Huguenots in Paris results in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre.
1595 – Long Turkish War: Wallachian prince Michael the Brave confronts the Ottoman army in the Battle of Călugăreni and achieves a tactical victory.
1600 – Battle of Gifu Castle: The eastern forces of Tokugawa Ieyasu defeat the western Japanese clans loyal to Toyotomi Hideyori, leading to the destruction of Gifu Castle and serving as a prelude to the Battle of Sekigahara.
1628 – George Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham, is assassinated by John Felton.
1655 – Battle of Sobota: The Swedish Empire led by Charles X Gustav defeats the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
1703 – Edirne event: Sultan Mustafa II of the Ottoman Empire is dethroned.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: King George III delivers his Proclamation of Rebellion to the Court of St James's stating that the American colonies have proceeded to a state of open and avowed rebellion.
1784 – Western North Carolina (now eastern Tennessee) declares itself an independent state under the name of Franklin; it is not accepted into the United States, and only lasts for four years.
1799 – Napoleon I of France leaves Egypt for France en route to seizing power.
1813 – At the Battle of Großbeeren, the Prussians under Von Bülow repulse the French army.
1831 – Nat Turner's slave rebellion is suppressed.
1839 – The United Kingdom captures Hong Kong as a base as it prepares for war with Qing China. The ensuing three-year conflict will later be known as the First Opium War.
1864 – American Civil War: The Union Navy captures Fort Morgan, Alabama, thus breaking Confederate dominance of all ports on the Gulf of Mexico except Galveston, Texas.
1866 – Austro-Prussian War ends with the Treaty of Prague.
1873 – Albert Bridge in Chelsea, London opens.
1898 – The Southern Cross Expedition, the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, departs from London.
1904 – The automobile tire chain is patented.
1914 – World War I: The British Expeditionary Force and the French Fifth Army begin their Great Retreat before the German Army.
1914 – World War I: Japan declares war on Germany.
1921 – British airship R-38 experiences structural failure over Hull in England and crashes in the Humber Estuary. Of her 49 British and American training crew, only four survive.
1923 – Captain Lowell Smith and Lieutenant John P. Richter performed the first mid-air refueling on De Havilland DH-4B, setting an endurance flight record of 37 hours.
1927 – Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti are executed after a lengthy, controversial trial.
1929 – Hebron Massacre during the 1929 Palestine riots: Arab attack on the Jewish community in Hebron in the British Mandate of Palestine, continuing until the next day, resulted in the death of 65–68 Jews and the remaining Jews being forced to leave the city.
1939 – World War II: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression treaty, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. In a secret addition to the pact, the Baltic states, Finland, Romania, and Poland are divided between the two nations.
1942 – World War II: Beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad.
1943 – World War II: Kharkiv is liberated after the Battle of Kursk.
1944 – World War II: Marseille is liberated by the Allies.
1944 – World War II: King Michael of Romania dismisses the pro-Nazi government of Marshal Antonescu, who is arrested. Romania switches sides from the Axis to the Allies.
1944 – Freckleton Air Disaster: A United States Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator bomber crashes into a school in Freckleton, England, killing 61 people.
1945 – World War II: Soviet–Japanese War: The USSR State Defense Committee issues Decree no. 9898cc "About Receiving, Accommodation, and Labor Utilization of the Japanese Army Prisoners of War".
1946 – Ordinance No. 46 of the British Military Government constitutes the German Länder (states) of Hanover and Schleswig-Holstein.
1948 – World Council of Churches is formed by 147 churches from 44 countries.
1954 – First flight of the Lockheed C-130 multi-role aircraft.
1958 – Chinese Civil War: The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis begins with the People's Liberation Army's bombardment of Quemoy.
1966 – Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.
1970 – Organized by Mexican American labor union leader César Chávez, the Salad Bowl strike, the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history, begins.
1973 – A bank robbery gone wrong in Stockholm, Sweden, turns into a hostage crisis; over the next five days the hostages begin to sympathise with their captors, leading to the term "Stockholm syndrome".
1975 – The Pontiac Silverdome opens in Pontiac, Michigan, 30 miles (48 km) northwest of Detroit, Michigan
1985 – Hans Tiedge, top counter-spy of West Germany, defects to East Germany.
1989 – Singing Revolution: Two million people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania stand on the Vilnius–Tallinn road, holding hands.
1990 – Saddam Hussein appears on Iraqi state television with a number of Western "guests" (actually hostages) to try to prevent the Gulf War.
1990 – Armenia declares its independence from the Soviet Union.
1990 – West and East Germany announce that they will reunite on October 3.
1991 – The World Wide Web is opened to the public.
1994 – Eugene Bullard, the only African American pilot in World War I, is posthumously commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force.
2000 – Gulf Air Flight 072 crashes into the Persian Gulf near Manama, Bahrain, killing 143.
2006 – Natascha Kampusch, who had been abducted at the age of ten, escapes from her captor Wolfgang Přiklopil, after eight years of captivity.
2007 – The skeletal remains of Russia's last royal family members Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia, and his sister Grand Duchess Anastasia are discovered near Yekaterinburg, Russia.
2011 – A magnitude 5.8 (class: moderate) earthquake occurs in Virginia. Damage occurs to monuments and structures in Washington D.C. and the resulted damage is estimated at $200 million–$300 million USD.
2011 – Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is overthrown after the National Transitional Council forces take control of Bab al-Azizia compound during the Libyan Civil War.
2012 – A hot-air balloon crashes near the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana, killing six people and injuring 28 others.
2013 – A riot at the Palmasola prison complex in Santa Cruz, Bolivia kills 31 people.

[lordroel]

August 24th

367 AD – Gratian, son of Roman Emperor Valentinian I, is named co-Augustus at the age of eight by his father.

394 – The Graffito of Esmet-Akhom, the latest known inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphs, is written.

410 – The Visigoths under king Alaric I begin to pillage Rome.

455 – The Vandals, led by king Gaiseric, begin to plunder Rome. Pope Leo I requests Gaiseric not destroy the ancient city or murder its citizens. He agrees and the gates of Rome are opened. However, the Vandals loot a great amount of treasure.

1185 – Sack of Thessalonica by the Normans.

1200 – King John of England, signer of the first Magna Carta, marries Isabella of Angoulême in Bordeaux Cathedral.

1215 – Pope Innocent III issues a bull declaring Magna Carta invalid.

1349 – Six thousand Jews are killed in Mainz after being blamed for the bubonic plague.

1482 – The town and castle of Berwick upon Tweed is captured from Scotland by an English army.

1516 – The Ottoman Empire under Selim I defeats the Mamluk Sultanate and captures present-day Syria at the Battle of Marj Dabiq.

1561 – Willem of Orange marries duchess Anna of Saxony.

1608 – The first official English representative to India lands in Surat.

1643 – A Dutch fleet establishes a new colony in the ruins of Valdivia in southern Chile.

1662 – The Act of Uniformity requires England to accept the Book of Common Prayer.

1682 – William Penn receives the area that is now the state of Delaware, and adds it to his colony of Pennsylvania.

1690 – Job Charnock of the East India Company establishes a factory in Calcutta, an event formerly considered the founding of the city (in 2003 the Calcutta High Court ruled that the city's foundation date is unknown).

1781 – American Revolutionary War: A small force of Pennsylvania militia is ambushed and overwhelmed by an American Indian group, which forces George Rogers Clark to abandon his attempt to attack Detroit.

1812 – Peninsular War: A coalition of Spanish, British, and Portuguese forces succeed in lifting the two-and-a-half-year-long Siege of Cádiz.

1814 – British troops invade Washington, D.C. and during the Burning of Washington the White House, the Capitol and many other buildings are set ablaze.

1815 – The modern Constitution of the Netherlands is signed.

1816 – The Treaty of St. Louis is signed in St. Louis, Missouri.

1820 – Constitutionalist insurrection at Oporto, Portugal.

1821 – The Treaty of Córdoba is signed in Córdoba, now in Veracruz, Mexico, concluding the Mexican War of Independence from Spain.

1857 – The Panic of 1857 begins, setting off one of the most severe economic crises in United States history.

1870 – The Wolseley expedition reaches Manitoba to end the Red River Rebellion.

1891 – Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera.

1898 – Count Muravyov, Foreign Minister of Russia presents a rescript that convoked the First Hague Peace Conference.

1909 – Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.

1911 – Manuel de Arriaga is elected and sworn-in as the first President of Portugal.

1914 – World War I: German troops capture Namur.

1914 – World War I: The Battle of Cer ends as the first Allied victory in the war.

1929 – Second day of two-day Hebron massacre during the 1929 Palestine riots: Arab attacks on the Jewish community in Hebron in the British Mandate of Palestine, result in the death of 65–68 Jews; the remaining Jews are forced to flee the city.

1931 – France and the Soviet Union sign a neutrality pact.

1931 – Resignation of the United Kingdom's Second Labour Government. Formation of the UK National Government.

1932 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the United States non-stop (from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey).

1933 – The Crescent Limited train derails in Washington, D.C., after the bridge it is crossing is washed out by the 1933 Chesapeake–Potomac hurricane.

1936 – The Australian Antarctic Territory is created.

1937 – Spanish Civil War: the Basque Army surrenders to the Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie following the Santoña Agreement.

1937 – Spanish Civil War: Sovereign Council of Asturias and León is proclaimed in Gijón.

1941 – Adolf Hitler orders the cessation of Nazi Germany's systematic T4 euthanasia program of the mentally ill and the handicapped due to protests, although killings continue for the remainder of the war.

1942 – World War II: The Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Japanese aircraft carrier Ryūjō is sunk, with the loss of seven officers and 113 crewmen. The US carrier USS Enterprise is heavily damaged.

1944 – World War II: Allied troops begin the attack on Paris.

1949 – The treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization goes into effect.

1950 – Edith Sampson becomes the first black U.S. delegate to the United Nations.

1954 – The Communist Control Act goes into effect, outlawing the American Communist Party.

1954 – Getúlio Vargas, president of Brazil, commits suicide and is succeeded by João Café Filho.

1963 – Buddhist crisis: As a result of the Xá Lợi Pagoda raids, the US State Department cables the United States Embassy, Saigon to encourage Army of the Republic of Vietnam generals to launch a coup against President Ngô Đình Diệm if he did not remove his brother Ngô Đình Nhu.

1967 – Led by Abbie Hoffman, the Youth International Party temporarily disrupts trading at the New York Stock Exchange by throwing dollar bills from the viewing gallery, causing trading to cease as brokers scramble to grab them.

1970 – Vietnam War protesters bomb Sterling Hall at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, leading to an international manhunt for the perpetrators.

1981 – Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for murdering John Lennon.

1989 – Colombian drug barons declare "total war" on the Colombian government.

1989 – Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose is banned from baseball for gambling by Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti.

1989 – Tadeusz Mazowiecki is chosen as the first non-communist prime minister in Central and Eastern Europe.

1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1991 – Ukraine declares itself independent from the Soviet Union.

1992 – Hurricane Andrew makes landfall in Homestead, Florida as a Category 5 hurricane, causing up to $25 billion (1992 USD) in damages.

1994 – Initial accord between Israel and the PLO about partial self-rule of the Palestinians on the West Bank.

1995 – Microsoft Windows 95 was released to the public in North America.

1998 – First radio-frequency identification (RFID) human implantation tested in the United Kingdom.

2004 – Eighty-nine passengers die after two airliners explode after flying out of Domodedovo International Airport, near Moscow. The explosions are caused by suicide bombers from Chechnya.

2006 – The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term "planet" such that Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet.

2010 – In San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico, 72 illegal immigrants are killed by Los Zetas and eventually found dead by Mexican authorities.

2010 – Henan Airlines Flight 8387 crashes at Yichun Lindu Airport in Yichun, Heilongjiang, China, killing 44 out of the 96 people on board.

2016 – An earthquake strikes Central Italy with a magnitude of 6.2, with aftershocks felt as far as Rome and Florence.

[lordroel]

August 25th

766 – Emperor Constantine V humiliates nineteen high-ranking officials, after discovering a plot against him. He executes the leaders, Constantine Podopagouros and his brother Strategios.

1248 – The Dutch city of Ommen receives city rights and fortification rights from Otto III, the Archbishop of Utrecht.

1258 – Regent George Mouzalon and his brothers are killed during a coup headed by the aristocratic faction under, paving the way for its leader, Michael VIII Palaiologos, to ultimately usurp the throne of the Empire of Nicaea.

1270 – King Louis IX of France dies in Tunis while on the Eighth Crusade.

1537 – The Honourable Artillery Company, the oldest surviving regiment in the British Army, and the second most senior, is formed.

1543 – António Mota and a few companions become the first Europeans to visit Japan.

1580 – War of the Portuguese Succession: Spanish victory at the Battle of Alcântara brings about the Iberian Union.

1609 – Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers.

1630 – Portuguese forces are defeated by the Kingdom of Kandy at the Battle of Randeniwela in Sri Lanka.

1758 – Seven Years' War: Frederick II of Prussia defeats the Russian army at the Battle of Zorndorf.

1814 – War of 1812: On the second day of the Burning of Washington, British troops torch the Library of Congress, United States Treasury, Department of War, and other public buildings.

1823 – American fur trapper Hugh Glass is mauled by a grizzly bear while on an expedition in South Dakota.

1825 – Uruguay declares its independence from Brazil.

1830 – The Belgian Revolution begins.

1835 – The first Great Moon Hoax article is published in The New York Sun, announcing the discovery of life and civilization on the Moon.

1875 – Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim across the English Channel, traveling from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in 21 hours and 45 minutes.

1883 – France and Viet Nam sign the Treaty of Huế, recognizing a French protectorate over Annam and Tonkin.

1894 – Kitasato Shibasaburō discovers the infectious agent of the bubonic plague and publishes his findings in The Lancet.

1898 – Seven hundred Greek civilians, 17 British guards and the British Consul of Crete are killed by a Turkish mob in Heraklion, Greece.

1914 – World War I: Japan declares war on Austria-Hungary.

1914 – World War I: The library of the Catholic University of Leuven is deliberately destroyed by the German Army. Hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable volumes and Gothic and Renaissance manuscripts are lost.

1916 – The United States National Park Service is created.

1920 – Polish–Soviet War: Battle of Warsaw, which began on August 13, ends with the Red Army's defeat.

1933 – The Diexi earthquake strikes Mao County, Sichuan, China and kills 9,000 people.

1939 – The United Kingdom and Poland form a military alliance in which the UK promises to defend Poland in case of invasion by a foreign power.

1940 – World War II: The first Bombing of Berlin by the British Royal Air Force.

1942 – World War II: Second day of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons; a Japanese naval transport convoy headed towards Guadalcanal is turned back by an Allied air attack.

1944 – World War II: Paris is liberated by the Allies.

1945 – Ten days after World War II ends with Japan announcing its surrender, armed supporters of the Chinese Communist Party kill U.S. intelligence officer John Birch, regarded by some of the American right as the first victim of the Cold War.

1948 – The House Un-American Activities Committee holds first-ever televised congressional hearing: "Confrontation Day" between Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss.

1950 – President Harry Truman orders the U.S. Army to seize control of the nation's railroads to avert a strike.

1961 – President Jânio Quadros of Brazil resigns after just seven months in power, initiating a political crisis that culminates in a military coup in 1964.

1967 – George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, is assassinated by a former member of his group.

1980 – Zimbabwe joins the United Nations.

1981 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Saturn.

1989 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Neptune, the second to last planet in the Solar System at the time.

1991 – Belarus gains its independence from the Soviet Union.

1991 – The Battle of Vukovar begins. An 87-day siege of Vukovar by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), supported by various Serb paramilitary forces, between August and November 1991 (during the Croatian War of Independence).

1991 – Linus Torvalds announces the first version of what will become Linux.

1997 – Egon Krenz, the former East German leader, is convicted of a shoot-to-kill policy at the Berlin Wall.

2001 – American singer Aaliyah and several members of her record company are killed as their overloaded aircraft crashes shortly after takeoff from Marsh Harbour Airport, Bahamas.

2006 – Former Prime Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Lazarenko is sentenced to nine years imprisonment for money laundering, wire fraud, and extortion.

2012 – Voyager 1 spacecraft enters interstellar space becoming the first man-made object to do so.

2017 – Hurricane Harvey makes landfall in Texas as a powerful Category 4 hurricane, the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the United States since 2004. Over the next few days, the storm causes catastrophic flooding throughout much of eastern Texas, killing 106 people and causing $125 billion in damage.

[lordroel]

August 26th

683 – Yazid I's army kills 11,000 people of Medina including notable Sahabas in Battle of al-Harrah.

1071 – The Seljuq Turks defeat the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert, and soon gain control of most of Anatolia.

1278 – Ladislaus IV of Hungary and Rudolf I of Germany defeat Ottokar II of Bohemia in the Battle on the Marchfeld near Dürnkrut in (then) Moravia.

1303 – Alauddin Khalji captures Chittorgarh.

1346 – Hundred Years' War: The military supremacy of the English longbow over the French combination of crossbow and armoured knights is established at the Battle of Crécy.

1444 – Battle of St. Jakob an der Birs: A vastly outnumbered force of Swiss Confederates is defeated by the Dauphin Louis (future Louis XI of France) and his army of 'Armagnacs' near Basel.

1542 – Francisco de Orellana navigated the Amazon River, reaching the Atlantic Ocean.

1748 – The first Lutheran denomination in North America, the Pennsylvania Ministerium, is founded in Philadelphia.

1768 – Captain James Cook sets sail from England on board HMS Endeavour.

1778 – The first recorded ascent of Triglav, the highest mountain in Slovenia.

1789 – The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is approved by the National Constituent Assembly of France.

1791 – John Fitch is granted a United States patent for the steamboat.

1810 – The former viceroy Santiago de Liniers of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata is executed after the defeat of his counter-revolution.

1813 – War of the Sixth Coalition: An impromptu battle takes place when French and Prussian-Russian forces accidentally run into each other near Liegnitz, Prussia (now Legnica, Poland).

1814 – Chilean War of Independence: Infighting between the rebel forces of José Miguel Carrera and Bernardo O'Higgins erupts in the Battle of Las Tres Acequias.

1883 – The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa begins its final, paroxysmal, stage.

1914 – World War I: The German colony of Togoland surrenders to French and British forces after a 20-day campaign.

1914 – World War I: During the retreat from Mons, the British II Corps commanded by General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien fought a vigorous and successful defensive action at Le Cateau.

1920 – The 19th amendment to United States Constitution takes effect, giving women the right to vote.

1922 – Greco-Turkish War (1919–22): Turkish army launched what has come to be known to the Turks as the "Great Offensive" (Büyük Taarruz). The major Greek defense positions were overrun.

1940 – Chad becomes the first French colony to join the Allies under the administration of Félix Éboué, France's first black colonial governor.

1942 – At Chortkiv, the Ukrainian police and German Schutzpolizei deport two thousand Jews to Bełżec extermination camp. Five hundred of the sick and children are murdered on the spot. This continued until the next day.

1944 – World War II: Charles de Gaulle enters Paris.

1966 – The South African Border War starts with the battle at Omugulugwombashe.

1970 – A new feminist movement leads a nationwide Women's Strike for Equality.

1977 – The Charter of the French Language is adopted by the National Assembly of Quebec

1978 – Papal conclave: Albino Luciani is elected as Pope John Paul I.

1980 – After John Birges plants a bomb at Harvey's Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada, in the United States, the FBI inadvertently detonates the bomb during its disarming.

1997 – Beni Ali massacre occurs in Algeria, leaving 60 to 100 people dead.

1998 – The first flight of the Air Force Delta III ends in disaster 75 seconds after liftoff resulting in the loss of the Galaxy X satellite.

1999 – Russia begins the Second Chechen War in response to the Invasion of Dagestan by the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade.

2009 – Kidnapping victim Jaycee Dugard is discovered alive in California after being missing for over 18 years.

2011 – The Boeing 787 Dreamliner, Boeing's all-new composite airliner, receives certification from the EASA and the FAA.

2015 – Two U.S. journalists are shot and killed by a disgruntled former coworker while conducting a live report in Moneta, Virginia.

[lordroel]

August 27th

410 – The sacking of Rome by the Visigoths ends after three days.

1172 – Henry the Young King and Margaret of France are crowned junior king and queen of England.

1557 – The Battle of St. Quentin results in Emmanuel Philibert becoming Duke of Savoy.

1593 – Pierre Barrière fails in his attempt to assassinate King Henry IV of France.

1689 – The Treaty of Nerchinsk is signed by Russia and the Qing Empire (Julian calendar).

1776 – Battle of Long Island: In what is now Brooklyn, New York, British forces under General William Howe defeat Americans under General George Washington.

1793 – French Revolutionary Wars: The city of Toulon revolts against the French Republic and admits the British and Spanish fleets to seize its port, leading to the Siege of Toulon by French Revolutionary forces.

1798 – Wolfe Tone's United Irish and French forces clash with the British Army in the Battle of Castlebar, part of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, resulting in the creation of the French puppet Republic of Connacht.

1810 – Napoleonic Wars: The French Navy defeats the British Royal Navy, preventing them from taking the harbour of Grand Port on Île de France.

1813 – French Emperor Napoleon I defeats a larger force of Austrians, Russians, and Prussians at the Battle of Dresden.

1828 – Brazil and Argentina recognize the sovereignty of Uruguay in the Treaty of Montevideo

1832 – Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk tribe of Native Americans, surrenders to U.S. authorities, ending the Black Hawk War.

1859 – Petroleum is discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania leading to the world's first commercially successful oil well.

1881 – The Georgia hurricane makes landfall near Savannah, Georgia, resulting in an estimated 700 deaths.

1883 – Eruption of Krakatoa: Four enormous explosions destroy the island of Krakatoa and cause years of climate change.

1893 – The Sea Islands hurricane strikes the United States near Savannah, Georgia, killing between 1,000-2,000 people.

1896 – Anglo-Zanzibar War: The shortest war in world history (09:02 to 09:40), between the United Kingdom and Zanzibar.

1914 – World War I: Battle of Étreux: A British rearguard action by the Royal Munster Fusiliers during the Great Retreat.

1915 – Attempted assassination of Bishop Patrick Heffron, bishop of the Diocese of Winona by Rev. Louis M. Lesches.

1916 – World War I: The Kingdom of Romania declares war on Austria-Hungary, entering the war as one of the Allied nations.

1918 – Mexican Revolution: Battle of Ambos Nogales: U.S. Army forces skirmish against Mexican Carrancistas in the only battle of World War I fought on American soil.

1922 – Greco-Turkish War: The Turkish army takes the Aegean city of Afyonkarahisar from the Kingdom of Greece.

1927 – Five Canadian women file a petition to the Supreme Court of Canada, asking, "Does the word 'Persons' in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?"

1928 – The Kellogg–Briand Pact outlawing war is signed by fifteen nations. Ultimately sixty-one nations will sign it.

1933 – The first Afrikaans Bible is introduced during a Bible Festival in Bloemfontein.

1939 – First flight of the turbojet-powered Heinkel He 178, the world's first jet aircraft.

1942 – First day of the Sarny Massacre.

1943 – World War II: Japanese forces evacuate New Georgia Island in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II.

1943 – World War II: Aerial bombardment by the Luftwaffe razes to the ground the village of Vorizia in Crete.

1956 – The nuclear power station at Calder Hall in the United Kingdom was connected to the national power grid becoming the world's first commercial nuclear power station to generate electricity on an industrial scale.

1962 – The Mariner 2 unmanned space mission is launched to Venus by NASA.

1964 – South Vietnamese junta leader Nguyễn Khánh enters into a triumvirate power-sharing arrangement with rival generals Trần Thiện Khiêm and Dương Văn Minh, who had both been involved in plots to unseat Khánh.

1971 – An attempted coup d'état fails in the African nation of Chad. The Government of Chad accuses Egypt of playing a role in the attempt and breaks off diplomatic relations.

1975 – The Governor of Portuguese Timor abandons its capital, Dili, and flees to Atauro Island, leaving control to a rebel group.

1979 – The Troubles: Eighteen British soldiers are killed in an ambush by the Provisional Irish Republican Army near Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland, in the deadliest attack on British forces during Operation Banner. An IRA bomb also kills British royal family member Lord Mountbatten and three others on his boat at Mullaghmore, Republic of Ireland.

1980 – A massive bomb planted by extortionist John Birges explodes at Harvey's Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada after a failed disarming attempt by the FBI. Although the hotel is damaged, no one is injured.

1982 – Turkish military diplomat Colonel Atilla Altıkat is shot and killed in Ottawa. Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide claim to be avenging the massacre of 1​1⁄2 million Armenians in the 1915 Armenian Genocide.

1985 – The Nigerian government is peacefully overthrown by Army Chief of Staff Major General Ibrahim Babangida.

1991 – The European Community recognizes the independence of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

1991 – Moldova declares independence from the USSR.

2003 – Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, passing 34,646,418 miles (55,758,005 km) distant.

2003 – The first six-party talks, involving South and North Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, convene to find a peaceful resolution to the security concerns of the North Korean nuclear weapons program.

2006 – Comair Flight 5191 crashes on takeoff from Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky bound for Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta. Of the passengers and crew, 49 of 50 are confirmed dead in the hours following the crash.

2009 – Internal conflict in Burma: The Burmese military junta and ethnic armies begin three days of violent clashes in the Kokang Special Region.

2011 – Hurricane Irene strikes the United States east coast, killing 47 and causing an estimated $15.6 billion in damage.

[lordroel]

August 28th

475 – The Roman general Orestes forces western Roman Emperor Julius Nepos to flee his capital city, Ravenna.

489 – Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, defeats Odoacer at the Battle of Isonzo, forcing his way into Italy.

632 – Fatimah, daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad dies, with her cause of death being a controversial topic among the Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims.

663 – Silla–Tang armies crush the Baekje restoration attempt and force Yamato Japan to withdraw from Korea in the Battle of Baekgang.

1189 – Third Crusade: The Crusaders begin the Siege of Acre under Guy of Lusignan.

1521 – The Ottoman Turks occupy Belgrade.

1524 – The Kaqchikel Maya rebel against their former Spanish allies during the Spanish conquest of Guatemala.

1542 – Turkish–Portuguese War: Battle of Wofla: The Portuguese are scattered, their leader Christovão da Gama is captured and later executed.

1565 – Pedro Menéndez de Avilés sights land near St. Augustine, Florida and founds the oldest continuously occupied European-established city in the continental United States.

1609 – Henry Hudson discovers Delaware Bay.

1619 – Election of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor.

1640 – Second Bishop's War: King Charles I's English army loses to a Scottish Covenanter force at the Battle of Newburn.

1648 – The Siege of Colchester ends when Royalists Forces surrender to the Parliamentary Forces after eleven weeks, during the Second English Civil War.

1709 – Meidingnu Pamheiba is crowned King of Manipur.

1789 – William Herschel discovers a new moon of Saturn: Enceladus.

1810 – Battle of Grand Port: The French accept the surrender of a British Navy fleet.

1830 – The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's new Tom Thumb steam locomotive races a horse-drawn car, presaging steam's role in U.S. railroads.

1833 – King William IV gives Royal Assent to the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, although slavery remained legal in the possessions of the East India Company until the passage of the Indian Slavery Act, 1843.

1845 – The first issue of Scientific American magazine is published.

1849 – After a month-long siege, Venice, which had declared itself independent as the Republic of San Marco, surrenders to Austria.

1859 – The Carrington event is the strongest geomagnetic storm on record to strike the Earth. Electrical telegraph service is widely disrupted.

1861 – American Civil War: Union forces attack Cape Hatteras, North Carolina in the Battle of Hatteras Inlet Batteries which lasts for two days.

1862 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Bull Run, also known as the Battle of Second Manassas. The battle ends on August 30.

1867 – The United States takes possession of the (at this point unoccupied) Midway Atoll.

1879 – Cetshwayo, last king of the Zulus, is captured by the British.

1898 – Caleb Bradham's beverage "Brad's Drink" is renamed "Pepsi-Cola".

1901 – Silliman University is founded in the Philippines. It is the first American private school in the country.

1909 – A group of mid-level Greek Army officers launches the Goudi coup, seeking wide-ranging reforms.

1913 – Queen Wilhelmina opens the Peace Palace in The Hague.

1914 – World War I: The Royal Navy defeats the German fleet in the Battle of Heligoland Bight.

1914 – World War I: German troops take the city of Namur in Belgium.

1916 – World War I: Germany declares war on Romania.

1916 – World War I: Italy declares war on Germany.

1917 – Ten Suffragettes are arrested while picketing the White House.

1924 – The Georgian opposition stages the August Uprising against the Soviet Union.

1937 – Toyota Motors becomes an independent company.

1943 – Denmark in World War II: German authorities demand that Danish authorities crack down on acts of resistance. The next day, martial law is imposed on Denmark.

1944 – World War II: Marseille and Toulon are liberated.

1955 – Black teenager Emmett Till is brutally murdered in Mississippi, galvanizing the nascent civil rights movement.

1957 – U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond begins a filibuster to prevent the Senate from voting on Civil Rights Act of 1957; he stopped speaking 24 hours and 18 minutes later, the longest filibuster ever conducted by a single Senator.

1963 – March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom: The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his I Have a Dream speech

1964 – The Philadelphia race riot begins.

1968 – The police rioted during the Democratic National Convention, beating up anti-war protesters, peaceful demonstrators, innocent bystanders, and members of the press.

1988 – Ramstein air show disaster: Three aircraft of the Frecce Tricolori demonstration team collide and the wreckage falls into the crowd. Seventy-five are killed and 346 seriously injured.

1990 – Iraq declares Kuwait to be its newest province.

1990 – An F5 tornado strikes the Illinois cities of Plainfield and Joliet, killing 29 people.

1993 – The Galileo spacecraft discovers a moon, later named Dactyl, around 243 Ida, the first known asteroid moon.

1998 – Pakistan's National Assembly passes a constitutional amendment to make the "Qur'an and Sunnah" the "supreme law" but the bill is defeated in the Senate.

1998 – Second Congo War: Loyalist troops backed by Angolan and Zimbabwean forces repulse the RCD and Rwandan offensive on Kinshasa.

2003 – In "one of the most complicated and bizarre crimes in the annals of the FBI", Brian Wells dies after becoming involved in a complex plot involving a bank robbery, a scavenger hunt, and a homemade explosive device.

[lordroel]

August 29th

708 – Copper coins are minted in Japan for the first time (Traditional Japanese date: August 10, 708).

1009 – Mainz Cathedral suffers extensive damage from a fire, which destroys the building on the day of its inauguration.

1261 – Pope Urban IV succeeds Pope Alexander IV as the 182nd pope.

1315 – Battle of Montecatini: The army of the Republic of Pisa, commanded by Uguccione della Faggiuola, wins a decisive victory against the joint forces of the Kingdom of Naples and the Republic of Florence despite being outnumbered.

1350 – Battle of Winchelsea (or Les Espagnols sur Mer): The English naval fleet under King Edward III defeats a Castilian fleet of 40 ships.

1475 – The Treaty of Picquigny ends a brief war between the kingdoms of France and England.

1484 – Pope Innocent VIII succeeds Pope Sixtus IV.

1498 – Vasco da Gama decides to depart Calicut and return to Kingdom of Portugal.

1521 – The Ottoman Turks capture Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade).

1526 – Battle of Mohács: The Ottoman Turks led by Suleiman the Magnificent defeat and kill the last Jagiellonian king of Hungary and Bohemia.

1541 – The Ottoman Turks capture Buda, the capital of the Hungarian Kingdom.

1728 – The city of Nuuk in Greenland is founded as the fort of Godt-Haab by the royal governor Claus Paarss.

1756 – Frederick the Great attacks Saxony, beginning the Seven Years' War in Europe.

1758 – The Treaty of Easton establishes the first American Indian reservation, at Indian Mills, New Jersey, for the Lenape.

1778 – American Revolutionary War: British and American forces battle indecisively at the Battle of Rhode Island.

1786 – Shays' Rebellion, an armed uprising of Massachusetts farmers, begins in response to high debt and tax burdens.

1807 – British troops under Sir Arthur Wellesley defeat a Danish militia outside Copenhagen in the Battle of Køge.

1831 – Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction.

1842 – Treaty of Nanking signing ends the First Opium War.

1861 – American Civil War: The Battle of Hatteras Inlet Batteries gives Federal forces control of Pamlico Sound.

1869 – The Mount Washington Cog Railway opens, making it the world's first mountain-climbing rack railway.

1871 – Emperor Meiji orders the abolition of the han system and the establishment of prefectures as local centers of administration. (Traditional Japanese date: July 14, 1871).

1885 – Gottlieb Daimler patents the world's first internal combustion motorcycle, the Reitwagen.

1898 – The Goodyear tire company is founded.

1903 – The Slava, the last of the five Borodino-class battleships, is launched.

1907 – The Quebec Bridge collapses during construction, killing 75 workers.

1910 – The Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910, also known as the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty, becomes effective, officially starting the period of Japanese rule in Korea.

1911 – Ishi, considered the last Native American to make contact with European Americans, emerges from the wilderness of northeastern California.

1911 – The Canadian Naval Service becomes the Royal Canadian Navy.[1]

1914 – World War I: Start of the Battle of St. Quentin in which the French Fifth Army counter-attacked the invading Germans at Saint-Quentin, Aisne.

1915 – US Navy salvage divers raise F-4, the first U.S. submarine sunk in an accident.

1916 – The United States passes the Philippine Autonomy Act.

1918 – World War I: Bapaume taken by the New Zealand Division in the Hundred Days Offensive.

1930 – The last 36 remaining inhabitants of St Kilda are voluntarily evacuated to other parts of Scotland.

1941 – World War II: Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, is occupied by Nazi Germany following an occupation by the Soviet Union.

1943 – World War II: German-occupied Denmark scuttles most of its navy; Germany dissolves the Danish government.

1944 – World War II: Slovak National Uprising takes place as 60,000 Slovak troops turn against the Nazis.

1949 – Soviet atomic bomb project: The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, known as First Lightning or Joe 1, at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan.

1950 – Korean War: British troops arrive in Korea to bolster the US presence there.

1958 – United States Air Force Academy opens in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

1965 – The Gemini V spacecraft returns to Earth, landing in the Atlantic Ocean.

1966 – The Beatles perform their last concert before paying fans at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

1966 – Leading Egyptian thinker Sayyid Qutb is executed for plotting the assassination of President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

1970 – Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War, East Los Angeles, California. Police riot kills three people, including journalist Rubén Salazar.

1982 – The synthetic chemical element Meitnerium, atomic number 109, is first synthesized at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, Germany.

1991 – Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union suspends all activities of the Soviet Communist Party.

1991 – Libero Grassi, an Italian businessman from Palermo, is killed by the Sicilian Mafia after taking a solitary stand against their extortion demands.

1996 – Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801, a Tupolev Tu-154, crashes into a mountain on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen, killing all 141 aboard.

1997 – Netflix is launched as an internet DVD rental service.

1997 – At least 98 villagers are killed by the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria GIA in the Rais massacre, Algeria.

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.

2005 – Hurricane Katrina devastates much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing up to 1,836 people and causing $125 billion in damage.

2012 – At least 26 Chinese miners are killed and 21 missing after a blast in the Xiaojiawan coal mine, located at Panzhihua, Sichuan Province.

[lordroel]

August 30th

AD 70 – Titus ends the siege of Jerusalem after destroying Herod's Temple.

1282 – Peter III of Aragon lands at Trapani to intervene in the War of the Sicilian Vespers.

1363 – The five-week Battle of Lake Poyang begins, in which the forces of two Chinese rebel leaders (Chen Youliang and Zhu Yuanzhang) meet to decide who will supplant the Yuan dynasty.

1464 – Pope Paul II succeeds Pope Pius II as the 211th pope.

1574 – Guru Ram Das becomes the Fourth Sikh Guru/Master.

1590 – Tokugawa Ieyasu enters Edo Castle. (Traditional Japanese date: August 1, 1590)

1594 – The christening of Prince Henry of Scotland is celebrated with the Masque at the baptism of Prince Henry at Stirling Castle.

1727 – Anne, eldest daughter of King George II of Great Britain, is given the title Princess Royal.

1791 – HMS Pandora sinks after having run aground on the outer Great Barrier Reef the previous day.

1799 – The entire Dutch fleet is captured by British forces under the command of Sir Ralph Abercromby and Admiral Sir Charles Mitchell during the War of the Second Coalition.

1800 – Gabriel Prosser postpones a planned slave rebellion in Richmond, Virginia, but is arrested before he can make it happen.

1813 – First Battle of Kulm: French forces are defeated by an Austrian-Prussian-Russian alliance.

1813 – Creek War: Fort Mims massacre: Creek "Red Sticks" kill over 500 settlers (including over 250 armed militia) in Fort Mims, north of Mobile, Alabama.

1835 – Australia: Melbourne, Victoria is founded.

1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Richmond: Confederates under Edmund Kirby Smith rout Union forces under General William "Bull" Nelson.

1873 – Austrian explorers Julius von Payer and Karl Weyprecht discover the archipelago of Franz Josef Land in the Arctic Sea.

1896 – Philippine Revolution: After Spanish victory in the Battle of San Juan del Monte, eight provinces in the Philippines are declared under martial law by the Spanish Governor-General Ramón Blanco y Erenas.

1909 – Burgess Shale fossils are discovered by Charles Doolittle Walcott.

1914 – World War I: Germans defeat the Russians in the Battle of Tannenberg.

1917 – Vietnamese prison guards led by Trịnh Văn Cấn mutiny at the Thái Nguyên penitentiary against local French authority.

1918 – Fanni Kaplan shoots and seriously injures Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, which along with the assassination of Bolshevik senior official Moisei Uritsky days earlier, prompts the decree for Red Terror.

1922 – Battle of Dumlupınar: The final battle in the Greco-Turkish War ("Turkish War of Independence").

1940 – The Second Vienna Award reassigns the territory of Northern Transylvania from Romania to Hungary.

1942 – World War II: The Battle of Alam el Halfa begins.

1945 – The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong comes to an end.

1945 – The Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Douglas MacArthur lands at Atsugi Air Force Base.

1945 – The Allied Control Council, governing Germany after World War II, comes into being.

1945 – The August Revolution ends as Emperor Bảo Đại abdicates, ending the Nguyễn dynasty.

1962 – Japan conducts a test of the NAMC YS-11, its first aircraft since World War II and its only successful commercial aircraft from before or after the war.

1963 – The Moscow–Washington hotline between the leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union goes into operation.

1967 – Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African American Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

1974 – A Belgrade–Dortmund express train derails at the main train station in Zagreb killing 153 passengers.

1974 – A powerful bomb explodes at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries headquarters in Marunouchi, Tokyo. Eight are killed, 378 are injured. Eight left-wing activists are arrested on May 19, 1975 by Japanese authorities.

1981 – President Mohammad-Ali Rajai and Prime Minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar of Iran are assassinated in a bombing committed by the People's Mujahedin of Iran.

1984 – STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery takes off on its maiden voyage.

1991 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Azerbaijan declares independence from Soviet Union.

1992 – The 11-day Ruby Ridge standoff ends with Randy Weaver surrendering to federal authorities.

1995 – Bosnian War: NATO launches Operation Deliberate Force against Bosnian Serb forces.

1998 – Second Congo War: Armed forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and their Angolan and Zimbabwean allies recapture Matadi and the Inga dams in the western DRC from RCD and Rwandan troops.

2002 – Rico Linhas Aéreas Flight 4823 crashes on approach to Rio Branco International Airport, killing 23 of the 31 people on board.

2008 – A Conviasa Boeing 737 crashes into Illiniza Volcano in Ecuador, killing all three people on board.

2014 – Prime Minister of Lesotho Tom Thabane flees to South Africa as the army allegedly stages a coup.

[lordroel]

August 31st

1056 – After a sudden illness a few days previously, Byzantine Empress Theodora dies childless, thus ending the Macedonian dynasty.

1057 – Abdication of Byzantine Emperor Michael VI Bringas after just one year.

1218 – Al-Kamil becomes sultan of the Ayyubid dynasty.

1314 – King Haakon V of Norway moves the capital from Bergen to Oslo.

1422 – King Henry V of England dies of dysentery while in France. His son, Henry VI becomes King of England at the age of 9 months.

1776 – William Livingston, the first Governor of New Jersey, begins serving his first term.

1795 – War of the First Coalition: The British capture Trincomalee (present-day Sri Lanka) from the Dutch in order to keep it out of French hands.

1798 – Irish Rebellion of 1798: Irish rebels, with French assistance, establish the short-lived Republic of Connacht.

1813 – At the final stage of the Peninsular War, British-Portuguese troops capture the town of Donostia (now San Sebastián), resulting in a rampage and eventual destruction of the town. Elsewhere, Spanish troops repel a French attack in the Battle of San Marcial.

1864 – During the American Civil War, Union forces led by General William T. Sherman launch an assault on Atlanta.

1876 – Ottoman Sultan Murad V is deposed and succeeded by his brother Abdul Hamid II.

1886 – The 7.0 Mw  Charleston earthquake affects southeastern South Carolina with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme); 60 people killed with damage estimated at $5–6 million.

1888 – Mary Ann Nichols is murdered. She is the first of Jack the Ripper's confirmed victims.

1895 – German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin patents his navigable balloon.

1897 – Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector.

1907 – Russia and the United Kingdom sign the Anglo-Russian Convention, by which the UK recognizes Russian preeminence in northern Persia, while Russia recognizes British preeminence in southeastern Persia and Afghanistan. Both powers pledge not to interfere in Tibet.

1918 – World War I: Start of the Battle of Mont Saint-Quentin, a successful assault by the Australian Corps during the Hundred Days Offensive.

1920 – Polish–Soviet War: A decisive Polish victory in the Battle of Komarów.

1935 – In an attempt to stay out of the growing tensions concerning Germany and Japan, the United States passes the first of its Neutrality Acts.

1936 – Radio Prague, now the official international broadcasting station of the Czech Republic, goes on the air.

1939 – Nazi Germany mounts a false flag attack on the Gleiwitz radio station, creating an excuse to attack Poland the following day, thus starting World War II in Europe.

1940 – Pennsylvania Central Airlines Trip 19 crashes near Lovettsville, Virginia. The CAB investigation of the accident is the first investigation to be conducted under the Bureau of Air Commerce act of 1938.

1941 – World War II: Serbian paramilitary forces defeat Germans in the Battle of Loznica.

1943 – USS Harmon, the first U.S. Navy ship to be named after a black person, is commissioned.

1949 – The retreat of the Democratic Army of Greece in Albania after its defeat on Gramos mountain marks the end of the Greek Civil War.

1957 – The Federation of Malaya (now Malaysia) gains its independence from the United Kingdom.

1958 – A parcel bomb sent by Ngô Đình Nhu, younger brother and chief adviser of South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm, fails to kill King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.

1962 – Trinidad and Tobago becomes independent.

1963 – Crown Colony of North Borneo (now Sabah) achieves self governance.

1986 – Aeroméxico Flight 498 collides with a Piper PA-28 Cherokee over Cerritos, California, killing 67 in the air and 15 on the ground.

1986 – The Soviet passenger liner Admiral Nakhimov sinks in the Black Sea after colliding with the bulk carrier Pyotr Vasev, killing 423.

1987 – Thai Airways Flight 365 crashes into the ocean near Ko Phuket, Thailand, killing all 83 aboard.

1988 – Delta Air Lines Flight 1141 crashes while during takeoff from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, killing 14.

1991 – Kyrgyzstan declares its independence from the Soviet Union.

1993 – Russia completes removing its troops from Lithuania.

1994 – Russia completes removing its troops from Estonia.

1996 – Saddam Hussein's troops seized Irbil after the Kurdish Masoud Barzani appealed for help to defeat his Kurdish rival PUK.

1997 – Diana, Princess of Wales, her companion Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul die in a car crash in Paris.

1999 – The first of a series of bombings in Moscow kills one person and wounds 40 others.

1999 – A LAPA Boeing 737-200 crashes during takeoff from Jorge Newbury Airport in Buenos Aires, killing 65, including two on the ground.

2005 – The 2005 Al-Aaimmah bridge stampede in Baghdad kills 953 people.

2006 – Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream, stolen on August 22, 2004, is recovered in a raid by Norwegian police.

2016 – Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff is impeached and removed from office

[lordroel]

September 1st

1355 – King Tvrtko I of Bosnia writes In castro nostro Vizoka vocatum from the Old town of Visoki.

1420 – a 9.4 MS-strong earthquake shakes Chile's Atacama Region causing tsunamis in Chile as well as Hawaii and Japan.

1449 – Tumu Crisis: Mongols capture the Emperor of China.

1529 – The Spanish fort of Sancti Spiritu, the first one built in modern Argentina, is destroyed by natives.

1532 – Lady Anne Boleyn is made Marquess of Pembroke by her fiancé, King Henry VIII of England.

1604 – Adi Granth, now known as Guru Granth Sahib, the holy scripture of Sikhs, was first installed at Harmandir Sahib.

1644 – Battle of Tippermuir: James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose defeats the Earl of Wemyss's Covenanters, reviving the Royalist cause.

1715 – King Louis XIV of France dies after a reign of 72 years, which is the longest of any major European monarch.

1763 – Catherine II of Russia endorses Ivan Betskoy's plans for a Foundling Home in Moscow.

1772 – The Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa is founded in San Luis Obispo, California.

1774 – Massachusetts Bay colonists rise up in the bloodless Powder Alarm.

1804 – Juno, one of the largest asteroids in the Main Belt, is discovered by the German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding.

1831 – The high honor of Order of St. Gregory the Great is established by Pope Gregory XVI of the Vatican State to recognize high support for the Vatican or for the Pope, by a man or a woman, and not necessarily a Roman Catholic.

1836 – Narcissa Whitman, one of the first English-speaking white women to settle west of the Rocky Mountains, arrives at Walla Walla, Washington.

1838 – Saint Andrew's Scots School, the oldest school of British origin in South America, is established.

1859 – One of the largest coronal mass ejections ever recorded, later to be known as the Carrington Event, occurs.

1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Chantilly: Confederate Army troops defeat a group of retreating Union Army troops in Chantilly, Virginia.

1864 – American Civil War: The Confederate Army General John Bell Hood orders the evacuation of Atlanta, ending a four-month siege by General William Tecumseh Sherman.

1870 – Franco-Prussian War: The Battle of Sedan is fought, resulting in a decisive Prussian victory.

1873 – Cetshwayo ascends to the throne as king of the Zulu nation following the death of his father Mpande.

1878 – Emma Nutt becomes the world's first female telephone operator when she is recruited by Alexander Graham Bell to the Boston Telephone Dispatch Company.

1880 – The army of Mohammad Ayub Khan is routed by the British at the Battle of Kandahar, ending the Second Anglo-Afghan War

1894 – Over 400 people die in the Great Hinckley Fire, a forest fire in Hinckley, Minnesota.

1897 – The Tremont Street Subway in Boston opens, becoming the first underground rapid transit system in North America.

1905 – Alberta and Saskatchewan join the Canadian confederation.

1906 – The International Federation of Intellectual Property Attorneys is established.

1911 – The armored cruiser Georgios Averof is commissioned into the Greek Navy. It now serves as a museum ship.

1914 – St. Petersburg, Russia, changes its name to Petrograd.

1914 – The last known passenger pigeon, a female named Martha, dies in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo.

1920 – The Fountain of Time opens as a tribute to the 100 years of peace between the United States and Great Britain following the Treaty of Ghent.

1923 – The Great Kantō earthquake devastates Tokyo and Yokohama, killing about 105,000 people.

1928 – Ahmet Zogu declares Albania to be a monarchy and proclaims himself king.

1934 – The first Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animated cartoon, The Discontented Canary, is released to movie theatres.

1939 – World War II: Nazi Germany and Slovakia invade Poland, beginning the European phase of World War II.

1939 – General George C. Marshall becomes Chief of Staff of the United States Army.

1939 – The Wound Badge for Wehrmacht, SS, Kriegsmarine, and Luftwaffe soldiers is instituted. The final version of the Iron Cross is also instituted on this date.

1939 – Switzerland mobilizes its forces and the Swiss Parliament elects Henri Guisan to head the Swiss Armed Forces (an event that can happen only during war or mobilization).

1939 – Adolf Hitler signs an order to begin the systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and disabled people.

1951 – The United States, Australia and New Zealand sign a mutual defense pact, called the ANZUS Treaty.

1952 – The Old Man and the Sea, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Ernest Hemingway, is first published.

1958 – Iceland expands its fishing zone, putting it into conflict with the United Kingdom, beginning the Cod Wars.

1961 – The Eritrean War of Independence officially begins with the shooting of the Ethiopian police by Hamid Idris Awate.

1961 – The first conference of the Non-Aligned Countries is held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

1967 – The Khmer–Chinese Friendship Association is banned in Cambodia.

1967 – Six-Day War: The Khartoum Resolution is issued at the Arab Summit, and eight countries adopt the "three 'no's against Israel

1969 – A coup in Libya brings Muammar Gaddafi to power.

1969 – Trần Thiện Khiêm becomes Prime Minister of South Vietnam under President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu.

1970 – Attempted assassination of King Hussein of Jordan by Palestinian guerrillas, who attack his motorcade.

1972 – In Reykjavík, Iceland, American Bobby Fischer beats Russian Boris Spassky to become the world chess champion.

1974 – The SR-71 Blackbird sets (and holds) the record for flying from New York to London in the time of 1 hour, 54 minutes and 56.4 seconds at a speed of 1,435.587 miles per hour (2,310.353 km/h).

1979 – The American space probe Pioneer 11 becomes the first spacecraft to visit Saturn when it passes the planet at a distance of 21,000 kilometres (13,000 mi).

1980 – Major General Chun Doo-hwan becomes President of South Korea, following the resignation of Choi Kyu-hah.

1981 – A coup d'état in the Central African Republic overthrows President David Dacko.

1982 – The United States Air Force Space Command is founded.

1983 – Cold War: Korean Air Lines Flight 007 is shot down by a Soviet Union jet fighter when the commercial aircraft enters Soviet airspace, killing all 269 on board, including Congressman Lawrence McDonald.

1985 – A joint American–French expedition locates the wreckage of the RMS Titanic.

1991 – Uzbekistan declares independence from the Soviet Union.

2004 – The Crisis in Beslan commences when armed terrorists take schoolchildren and school staff hostage in North Ossetia (Russia); by the end of the siege three days later more than 385 people are dead (including hostages, other civilians, security personnel and terrorists