Events Pre-1600 684 – Battle of Marj Rahit: Umayyad partisans defeat the supporters of Ibn al-Zubayr and cement Umayyad control of Syria. 707 – Princess Abe accedes to the imperial Japanese throne as Empress Genmei. 1136 – Following the surrender of Baghdad, Seljuk Sultan Mas'ud replaces Abbasid caliph Al-Rashid Billah with his uncle Al-Muqtafi. 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. 1492 – The first grammar of the Spanish language (Gramática de la lengua castellana) is presented to Queen Isabella I. 1572 – The Huguenot King Henry III of Navarre marries the Catholic Margaret of Valois, ostensibly to reconcile the feuding Protestants and Catholics of France. 1590 – John White, the governor of the Roanoke Colony, returns from a supply trip to England and finds his settlement deserted.
1601–1900 1612 – The trials of the Pendle witches and Samlesbury witches, one of England's most famous witch trials, begin at the Lancaster Assizes. 1634 – Father Urbain Grandier, accused and convicted of sorcery, is burned alive in Loudun, France. 1721 – The city of Shamakhi in Safavid Shirvan is sacked. 1759 – Beginning of the battle of Lagos, in which a British fleet defeats a French fleet trying to slip through Gibraltar. 1783 – A huge fireball meteor is seen across Great Britain as it passes over the east coast. 1809 – The Senate of Finland is established in the Grand Duchy of Finland after the official adoption of the Statute of the Government Council by Tsar Alexander I of Russia.Titus Hjelm & George Maude: Historical Dictionary of Finland, p. 296. 1826 – Major Gordon Laing becomes the first European to enter Timbuktu. 1838 – The Wilkes Expedition, which would explore the Puget Sound and Antarctica, weighs anchor at Hampton Roads. 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. 1877 – American astronomer Asaph Hall discovers Phobos, one of Mars's moons. (Table II, p. 220: first observation of Phobos on 18 August 1877.38498) 1891 – A major hurricane strikes Martinique, leaving 700 dead.
1901–present 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 – The first British Track and Field championships for women are held in London, Great Britain. 1933 – The Volksempfänger is first presented to the German public at a radio exhibition; the presiding Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, delivers an accompanying speech heralding the radio as the 'eighth great power'. 1937 – A lightning strike starts the Blackwater Fire of 1937 in Shoshone National Forest, killing 15 firefighters within three days and prompting the United States Forest Service to develop their smokejumper program. 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, takes place. At that point, it is 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. 1945 – Soviet-Japanese War: Battle of Shumshu: Soviet forces land at Takeda Beach on Shumshu Island and launch the Battle of Shumshu; the Soviet Union's Invasion of the Kuril Islands commences. 1949 – Kemi strike: Two protesters die in the scuffle between the police and the strikers' protest procession in Kemi, Finland. 1950 – Julien Lahaut, the chairman of the Communist Party of Belgium, is assassinated. The Party newspaper blames royalists and Rexists. 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, placing first among the 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. 1973 – Aeroflot Flight A-13 crashes after takeoff from Baku-Bina International Airport in Azerbaijan, killing 56 people and injuring eight. 1976 – The Korean axe murder incident in Panmunjom results in the deaths of two US Army officers. 1976 – The Soviet Union's robotic probe Luna 24 successfully lands on the Moon. 1977 – Steve Biko is arrested at a police roadblock under 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. 1993 – American International Airways Flight 808 crashes at Leeward Point Field at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, injuring the three crew members. 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 was documented in the film Dear Zachary and led to reform of Canada's bail laws. 2005 – A massive power blackout hits the Indonesian island of Java; affecting almost 100 million people, it is one of the largest and most widespread power outages in history. 2008 – The President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, resigns under threat of impeachment. 2008 – War of Afghanistan: The Uzbin Valley ambush occurs. 2011 – A terrorist attack on Israel's Highway 12 near the Egyptian border kills 16 and injures 40. 2017 – The Turku terror attack occurs in Finland when a knifeman kills two and injures eight. 2019 – One hundred activists, officials, and other concerned citizens in Iceland hold a funeral for Okjökull glacier, which has completely melted after having once covered six square miles (15.5 km2).
Births
Pre-1600 1305 – Ashikaga Takauji, Japanese Shōgun (died 1358) 1450 – Marko Marulić, Croatian poet and author (died 1524) 1458 – Lorenzo Pucci, Catholic cardinal (died 1531) 1497 – Francesco Canova da Milano, Italian composer (died 1543) 1542 – Charles Neville, 6th Earl of Westmorland (died 1601) 1579 – Countess Charlotte Flandrina of Nassau (died 1640) 1587 – Virginia Dare, granddaughter of Governor John White of the Colony of Roanoke, first child born to English parents in the Americas (date of death unknown) 1596 – Jean Bolland, Flemish priest and hagiographer (died 1665)
1601–1900 1605 – Henry Hammond, English churchman and theologian (died 1660) 1606 – Maria Anna of Spain (died 1646) 1629 – Agneta Horn, Swedish writer (died 1672) 1657 – Ferdinando Galli-Bibiena, Italian architect and painter (died 1743) 1685 – Brook Taylor, English mathematician and theorist (died 1731) 1692 – Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon (died 1740) 1700 – Baji Rao I, first Peshwa of Maratha Empire (died 1740) 1720 – Laurence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers, English politician (died 1760) 1750 – Antonio Salieri, Italian composer and conductor (died 1825) 1754 – François, marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat, French general and engineer (died 1833) 1774 – Meriwether Lewis, American soldier, explorer, and politician (died 1809) 1792 – John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1878) 1803 – Nathan Clifford, American lawyer, jurist, and politician, 19th United States Attorney General (died 1881) 1807 – B. T. Finniss, Australian politician, 1st Premier of South Australia (died 1893) 1819 – Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia (died 1876) 1822 – Isaac P. Rodman, American general and politician (died 1862) 1830 – Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria from 1848-1916 (died 1916) 1831 – Ernest Noel, Scottish businessman and politician (died 1931) 1834 – Marshall Field, American businessman, founded Marshall Field's (died 1906) 1841 – William Halford, English-American lieutenant, Medal of Honor recipient (died 1919) 1855 – Alfred Wallis, English painter and illustrator (died 1942) 1856 – Ahad Ha'am, Hebrew essayist and journalist and pre-state Zionist thinker (died 1927) 1857 – Libert H. Boeynaems, Belgian-American bishop and missionary (died 1926) 1866 – Mahboob Ali Khan, 6th Nizam of Hyderabad (died 1911) 1869 – Carl Rungius, German-American painter and educator (died 1959) 1870 – Lavr Kornilov, Russian general and explorer (died 1918) 1879 – Alexander Rodzyanko, Russian general (died 1970) 1885 – Nettie Palmer, Australian poet and critic (died 1964) 1887 – John Anthony Sydney Ritson, English rugby player, mines inspector, engineer and professor of mining (died 1957) 1890 – Walther Funk, German economist and politician, Reich Minister of Economics, convicted Nuremberg war criminal (died 1960) 1893 – Burleigh Grimes, American baseball player and manager (died 1985) 1893 – Ernest MacMillan, Canadian conductor and composer (died 1973) 1896 – Jack Pickford, Canadian-American actor and director (died 1933) 1898 – Clemente Biondetti, Italian race car driver (died 1955) 1900 – Ruth Bonner, Soviet Communist activist, sentenced to a labor camp during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge (died 1987) 1900 – Ruth Norman, American religious leader (died 1993)
1901–present 1902 – Adamson-Eric, Estonian painter (died 1968) 1902 – Margaret Murie, American environmentalist and author (died 2003) 1903 – Lucienne Boyer, French singer (died 1983) 1904 – Max Factor, Jr., American businessman (died 1996) 1905 – Enoch Light, American bandleader, violinist, and recording engineer (died 1978) 1906 – Marcel Carné, French director and screenwriter (died 1996) 1906 – Curtis Jones, American blues pianist and singer (died 1971) 1908 – Edgar Faure, French historian and politician, 139th Prime Minister of France (died 1988) 1908 – Olav H. Hauge, Norwegian poet and gardener (died 1994) 1908 – Bill Merritt, New Zealand cricketer and sportscaster (died 1977) 1909 – Gérard Filion, Canadian businessman and journalist (died 2005) 1910 – Herman Berlinski, Polish-American pianist, composer, and conductor (died 2001) 1910 – Robert Winters, Canadian colonel, engineer, and politician, 26th Canadian Minister of Public Works (died 1969) 1911 – Amelia Boynton Robinson, American activist (died 2015) 1911 – Klara Dan von Neumann, Hungarian computer scientist and programmer (died 1963) 1911 – Maria Ulfah Santoso, Indonesian politician and women's rights activist (died 1988) 1912 – Otto Ernst Remer, German general (died 1997) 1913 – Romain Maes, Belgian cyclist (died 1983) 1914 – Lucy Ozarin, United States Navy lieutenant commander and psychiatrist (died 2017) 1915 – Max Lanier, American baseball player and manager (died 2007) 1916 – Neagu Djuvara, Romanian historian, journalist, and diplomat (died 2018) 1916 – Moura Lympany, English pianist (died 2005)