Events Pre-1600 685 BC – Spring and Autumn period: Battle of Qianshi: Upon the death of the previous Duke of Qi, Gongsun Wuzhi, Duke Zhuang of Lu sends an army into the Duchy of Qi to install the exiled Qi prince Gongzi Jiu as the new Duke of Qi – but is defeated at Qianshi by Jiu's brother and rival claimant, the newly inaugurated Duke Huan of Qi. 870 – Treaty of Meerssen: King Louis the German and his half-brother Charles the Bald partition the Middle Frankish Kingdom into two larger east and west divisions. 1164 – Hassan II of Alamut proclaims the qiyāma, according to which Ismaili practice would change from traditional Islamic practice. 1220 – Sweden is defeated by Estonian tribes in the Battle of Lihula. 1264 – Mudéjar revolt: Muslim rebel forces take the Alcázar of Jerez de la Frontera after defeating the Castilian garrison. 1503 – King James IV of Scotland marries Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England, at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh, Scotland. 1509 – Krishnadeva Raya is crowned Emperor of Vijayanagara at Chittoor. 1576 – The cornerstone for Tycho Brahe's Uraniborg observatory is laid on the island of Hven. 1585 – John Davis enters Cumberland Sound in search of the Northwest Passage. 1588 – Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Gravelines: The naval engagement ends, ending the Spanish Armada's attempt to invade England.
1601–1900 1647 – The Irish Confederate Wars and Wars of the Three Kingdoms: Battle of Dungan's Hill: English Parliamentary forces defeat Irish forces. 1648 – Mehmed IV (1648–1687) succeeds Ibrahim I (1640–1648) as Ottoman sultan. 1709 – Bartolomeu de Gusmão demonstrates the lifting power of hot air in an audience before the king of Portugal in Lisbon, Portugal. 1786 – Mont Blanc on the French-Italian border is climbed for the first time by Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michel-Gabriel Paccard. 1794 – Joseph Whidbey leads an expedition to search for the Northwest Passage near Juneau, Alaska. 1831 – Four hundred Shawnee people agree to relinquish their lands in Ohio in exchange for land west of the Mississippi River in the Treaty of Wapakoneta. 1844 – The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, headed by Brigham Young, is reaffirmed as the leading body of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). 1863 – American Civil War: Following his defeat in the Battle of Gettysburg, General Robert E. Lee sends a letter of resignation to Confederate President Jefferson Davis (which is refused upon receipt). 1863 – Tennessee Military Governor Andrew Johnson frees his personal slaves in Greeneville, Tennessee, despite them being exempt from the Emancipation Proclamation, now commemorated as Emancipation Day in the state. 1870 – The Republic of Ploiești, a failed Radical-Liberal rising against Domnitor Carol of Romania. 1876 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph. 1897 – Italian anarchist Michele Angiolillo assassinates Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo.
1901–present 1903 – Black Saturday occurs, killing 12 in a stadium collapse in Philadelphia. 1908 – Wilbur Wright makes the Wright Brothers' first public flight, at a racecourse at Le Mans, France. 1918 – World War I: The Battle of Amiens begins a string of almost continuous Allied victories with a push through the German front lines (Hundred Days Offensive). 1919 – The Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1919 is signed. It establishes peaceful relations between Afghanistan and the UK, and confirms the Durand line as the mutual border. In return, the UK is no longer obligated to subsidize the Afghan government. 1929 – The German airship Graf Zeppelin begins a round-the-world flight. 1940 – The "Aufbau Ost" directive for the mobilization of German forces for the invasion of the Soviet Union is signed by Wilhelm Keitel. 1942 – Quit India Movement is launched in India against the British rule in response to Mohandas Gandhi's call for swaraj or complete independence. 1945 – The London Charter is signed by France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States, establishing the laws and procedures for the Nuremberg trials. 1945 – World War II: The Soviet Union declares war on Japan. 1946 – First flight of the nuclear capable Convair B-36, heaviest mass-produced piston-engined aircraft at the time. 1956 – Marcinelle mining disaster in Belgium. 262 coal miners, including a substantial number of Italian migrant workers, are killed in one of the largest mining accidents in Belgian history. 1963 – Great Train Robbery: In England, a gang of 15 train robbers steal £2.6 million in bank notes. 1963 – The Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), the current ruling party of Zimbabwe, is formed by a split from the Zimbabwe African People's Union. 1967 – The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is founded by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. 1969 – At a zebra crossing in London, photographer Iain Macmillan takes the iconic photo that becomes the cover image of the Beatles' album Abbey Road. 1973 – Kim Dae-jung, a South Korean politician and later president of South Korea, is kidnapped. 1974 – President Richard Nixon, in a nationwide television address, announces his resignation from the office of the President of the United States effective noon the next day. 1988 – The 8888 Uprising begins in Rangoon (Yangon), Burma (Myanmar). Led by students, hundreds of thousands join in nationwide protests against the one-party regime. On September 18, the demonstrations end in a military crackdown, killing thousands. 1988 – The first night baseball game in the history of Chicago's Wrigley Field (game was rained out in the fourth inning). 1989 – Space Shuttle program: STS-28 Mission: Space Shuttle Columbia takes off on a secret five-day military mission. 1990 – Iraq occupies Kuwait and the state is annexed to Iraq. This would lead to the Gulf War shortly afterward. 1991 – The Warsaw radio mast, then the tallest construction ever built, collapses. 1993 – The 7.8 Guam earthquake shakes the island with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), causing around $250 million in damage and injuring up to 71 people. 1998 – The Iranian consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, is raided by Taliban, leading to the deaths of ten Iranian diplomats and a journalist. 2000 – Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley is raised to the surface after 136 years on the ocean floor and 30 years after its discovery by undersea explorer E. Lee Spence. 2001 – Albanian rebels ambush a convoy of the Army of the Republic of Macedonia near Tetovo, killing 10 soldiers. 2004 – A tour bus belonging to the Dave Matthews Band dumps approximately 800 pounds of human waste onto a boat full of passengers. 2007 – An EF2 tornado touches down in Kings County and Richmond County, New York, the most powerful tornado in New York to date and the first in Brooklyn since 1889. 2007 – Space Shuttle program: STS-118 Mission: Endeavour takes off on a mission to the International Space Station. 2008 – A EuroCity express train en route from Kraków, Poland to Prague, Czech Republic strikes a part of a motorway bridge that had fallen onto the railroad track near Studénka railway station in the Czech Republic and derails, killing eight people and injuring 64 others. 2008 – The 29th modern summer Olympic Games take place in Beijing, China until August 24. 2009 – A Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil and Piper PA-32R collide over the Hudson River, killing nine people. 2010 – China Floods: A mudslide in Zhugqu County, Gansu, China, kills more than 1,400 people. 2013 – A suicide bombing at a funeral in the Pakistani city of Quetta kills at least 31 people. 2015 – Eight people are killed in a shooting in Harris County, Texas. 2016 – Terrorists attack a government hospital in Quetta, Pakistan with a suicide blast and shooting, killing between 70 and 94 people, and injuring around 130 others. 2019 – An explosion at the State Central Navy Testing Range in Nyonoksa, Russia, kills five people. 2022 – The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executes a search warrant at former president Donald Trump's residence in Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida. 2023 – Hawaii wildfires: Seventeen thousand acres of land are burned and at least 101 people are killed, with two others missing, when a series of wildfires break out on the island of Maui in Hawaii. 2024 – Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus takes oath as Chief Adviser to form an interim government in Bangladesh.
Births Pre-1600 422 – Casper, ruler of the Maya city of Palenque 1079 – Emperor Horikawa of Japan (died 1107) 1170 – Saint Dominic, founder of the Dominicans (died 1221) 1306 – Rudolf II, Duke of Bavaria (died 1353) 1492 – Matteo Tafuri, Italian alchemist (died 1582) 1518 – Conrad Lycosthenes, French-German scholar and author (died 1561) 1558 – George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, English noble (died 1605)
1601–1900 1605 – Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, English lawyer and politician, Governor of Newfoundland (died 1675) 1640 – Amalia Catharina, German poet and composer (died 1697) 1646 – Godfrey Kneller, German-English painter (died 1723) 1673 – John Ker, Scottish spy (died 1726) 1693 – Laurent Belissen, French composer (died 1762) 1694 – Francis Hutcheson, Irish philosopher and academic (died 1746) 1706 – Johan Augustin Mannerheim, Swedish nobleman and military leader (died 1778) 1709 – Hermann Anton Gelinek, German-Italian monk and violinist (died 1779) 1720 – Carl Fredrik Pechlin, Swedish general and politician (died 1796) 1754 – Hipólito Ruiz López, Spanish botanist (died 1816) 1758 – Friedrich Georg Weitsch, German painter (died 1828) 1790 – Ferenc Kölcsey, Hungarian poet, critic, and politician (died 1838) 1807 – Emilie Flygare-Carlén, Swedish author (died 1892) 1814 – Esther Hobart Morris, American suffragette and judge (died 1902) 1822 – George Stoneman, Jr., United States Army cavalry officer (died 1894) 1839 – Nelson A. Miles, American general (died 1925) 1851 – George Turner, Australian politician, 18th Premier of Victoria (died 1916) 1856 – Thomas Anstey Guthrie, English journalist and author (died 1934) 1857 – Cécile Chaminade, French pianist and composer (died 1944) 1861 – William Bateson, English biologist (originator of term "genetics") (died 1926) 1863 – Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, American painter (died 1930) 1866 – Matthew Henson, American explorer (died 1955) 1874 – Albert Stanley, 1st Baron Ashfield, English businessman and politician, President of the Board of Trade (died 1948) 1875 – Artur Bernardes, Brazilian lawyer and politician, 12th President of Brazil (died 1955) 1876 – Varghese Payyappilly Palakkappilly, Indian-Syrian priest, founded the Sisters of the Destitute (died 1929) 1879 – Bob Smith, American physician and surgeon, co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous (died 1950) 1879 – Emiliano Zapata, Mexican general and politician (died 1919) 1880 – Earle Page, Australian lawyer, academic, and politician, 11th Prime Minister of Australia (died 1961) 1881 – Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist, German field marshal (died 1954) 1882 – Ladislas Starevich, Russian-French animator, screenwriter, and cinematographer (died 1965) 1884 – Sara Teasdale, American poet and educator (died 1933) 1889 – Hans Egede Budtz, Danish actor (died 1968) 1889 – Jack Ryder, Australian cricketer (died 1977) 1891 – Adolf Busch, German violinist and composer (died 1952) 1896 – Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, American author and academic (died 1953) 1898 – Marguerite Bise, French chef (died 1965)
1901–present 1901 – Ernest Lawrence, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1958) 1902 – Paul Dirac, English-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1984) 1904 – Achille Varzi, Italian racing driver (died 1948) 1905 – André Jolivet, French composer (died 1974) 1907 – Benny Carter, American saxophonist, trumpet player, and composer (died 2003)