Events Pre-1600 1132 – Battle of Nocera between Ranulf II of Alife and Roger II of Sicily. 1148 – Louis VII of France lays siege to Damascus during the Second Crusade. 1304 – Wars of Scottish Independence: Fall of Stirling Castle: King Edward I of England takes the stronghold using the War Wolf. 1411 – Battle of Harlaw, one of the bloodiest battles in Scotland, takes place. 1412 – Behnam Hadloyo becomes Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Mardin. 1487 – Citizens of Leeuwarden, Netherlands, strike against a ban on foreign beer. 1534 – French explorer Jacques Cartier plants a cross on the Gaspé Peninsula and takes possession of the territory in the name of Francis I of France. 1567 – Mary, Queen of Scots, is forced to abdicate and be replaced by her one-year-old son James VI.
1601–1900 1701 – Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founds the trading post at Fort Pontchartrain, which later becomes the city of Detroit. 1712 – War of the Spanish Succession: The French under Marshal Villars win a decisive victory over Eugene of Savoy at Denain.* 1847 – After 17 months of travel, Brigham Young leads 148 Mormon pioneers into Salt Lake Valley, resulting in the establishment of Salt Lake City. 1847 – Richard March Hoe, American inventor, patents the rotary-type printing press. 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Kernstown: Confederate General Jubal Early defeats Union troops led by General George Crook in an effort to keep them out of the Shenandoah Valley. 1866 – Reconstruction: Tennessee becomes the first U.S. state to be readmitted to Congress following the American Civil War.
1901–present 1901 – O. Henry is released from prison in Columbus, Ohio, after serving three years for embezzlement from a bank. 1910 – The Ottoman Empire captures the city of Shkodër, putting down the Albanian Revolt of 1910. 1911 – Hiram Bingham III re-discovers Machu Picchu, "the Lost City of the Incas". 1915 – The passenger ship capsizes while tied to a dock in the Chicago River. A total of 844 passengers and crew are killed in the largest loss of life disaster from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes. 1922 – The draft of the British Mandate of Palestine is formally confirmed by the Council of the League of Nations; it came into effect on 26 September 1923. 1923 – The Treaty of Lausanne, settling the boundaries of modern Turkey, is signed in Switzerland by Greece, Bulgaria and other countries that fought in World War I. 1924 – Themistoklis Sofoulis becomes Prime Minister of Greece. 1927 – The Menin Gate war memorial is unveiled at Ypres. 1929 – The Kellogg–Briand Pact, renouncing war as an instrument of foreign policy, goes into effect (it is first signed in Paris on August 27, 1928, by most leading world powers). 1935 – The Dust Bowl heat wave reaches its peak, sending temperatures to 109 °F (43 °C) in Chicago and 104 °F (40 °C) in Milwaukee. 1943 – World War II: Operation Gomorrah begins: British and Canadian aeroplanes bomb Hamburg by night, and American planes bomb the city by day. By the end of the operation in November, 9,000 tons of explosives will have killed more than 30,000 people and destroyed 280,000 buildings. 1950 – Cape Canaveral Air Force Station begins operations with the launch of a Bumper rocket. 1959 – At the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, U.S. vice president Richard Nixon and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev have a "Kitchen Debate". 1963 – The ship Bluenose II is launched in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. The schooner is a major Canadian symbol. 1966 – Michael Pelkey makes the first BASE jump from El Capitan along with Brian Schubert. Both came out with broken bones. BASE jumping has now been banned from El Cap. 1967 – During an official state visit to Canada, French President Charles de Gaulle declares to a crowd of over 100,000 in Montreal: Vive le Québec libre! ("Long live free Quebec!"); the statement angered the Canadian government and many Anglophone Canadians. 1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 11 splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean. 1974 – Watergate scandal: The United States Supreme Court unanimously rules that President Richard Nixon does not have the authority to withhold subpoenaed White House tapes and they order him to surrender the tapes to the Watergate special prosecutor. 1977 – End of a four-day-long Libyan–Egyptian War. 1980 – The Quietly Confident Quartet of Australia wins the men's 4 x 100 metre medley relay at the Moscow Olympics, the only time the United States has not won the swimming event at Olympic level. 1982 – Heavy rain causes a mudslide that destroys a bridge at Nagasaki, Japan, killing 299. 1983 – The Black July anti-Tamil riots begin in Sri Lanka, killing between 400 and 3,000. Black July is generally regarded as the beginning of the Sri Lankan Civil War. 1983 – George Brett, playing for the Kansas City Royals against the New York Yankees, has a game-winning home run nullified in the "Pine Tar Incident". 1987 – US supertanker collides with mines laid by IRGC, causing a 43-square-meter dent in the body of the oil tanker. 1987 – Hulda Crooks, at 91 years of age, climbs Mt. Fuji. Crooks became the oldest person to climb Japan's highest peak. 1998 – Russell Eugene Weston Jr. bursts into the United States Capitol and opens fire, killing two police officers. He is later ruled to be incompetent to stand trial. 1999 – Air Fiji flight 121 crashes while en route to Nadi, Fiji, killing all 17 people on board. 2001 – The Bandaranaike Airport attack is carried out by 14 Tamil Tiger commandos, resulting in military and civilian casualties and destroyed aircraft. 2009 – Aria Air Flight 1525 crashes at Mashhad International Airport, killing 16. 2012 – Syrian civil war: The People's Protection Units (YPG) capture the city of Girkê Legê. 2013 – Santiago de Compostela derailment: A high-speed train derails in Spain rounding a curve with an speed limit at , killing 78 passengers. 2014 – Air Algérie Flight 5017 loses contact with air traffic controllers 50 minutes after takeoff. It was travelling between Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and Algiers. The wreckage is later found in Mali. All 116 people on board are killed. 2019 – Boris Johnson becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after defeating Jeremy Hunt in a leadership contest, succeeding Theresa May. 2024 – A Saurya Airlines Bombardier CRJ200 crashes during takeoff from Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal, killing 18. 2025 – Angara Airlines Flight 2311 crashes on approach to Tynda Airport, killing all 48 people on board.
Births Pre-1600 1242 – Christina von Stommeln, German Roman Catholic mystic, ecstatic, and stigmatic (died 1312) 1468 – Catherine of Saxony, Archduchess of Austria (died 1524) 1529 – Charles II, Margrave of Baden-Durlach (died 1577) 1561 – Maria of the Palatinate-Simmern (died 1589) 1574 – Thomas Platter the Younger, Swiss physician and author (died 1628)
1601–1900 1660 – Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury, English politician, Lord High Treasurer (died 1718)Stuart Handley, 'Talbot, Charles, duke of Shrewsbury (1660–1718)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008, accessed 8 October 2018. 1689 – Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, son of Queen Anne of Great Britain and Prince George of Denmark (died 1700) 1725 – John Newton, English sailor and priest (died 1807) 1757 – Vladimir Borovikovsky, Ukrainian-Russian painter (died 1825) 1783 – Simón Bolívar, Venezuelan commander and politician, second President of Venezuela, and liberation leader for much of South America (died 1830) 1786 – Joseph Nicollet, French mathematician and explorer (died 1843) 1794 – Johan Georg Forchhammer, Danish mineralogist and geologist (died 1865) 1802 – Alexandre Dumas, French novelist and playwright (died 1870) 1803 – Adolphe Adam, French composer and critic (died 1856) 1803 – Alexander J. Davis, American architect (died 1892) 1821 – William Poole, American boxer and gangster (died 1855) 1826 – Jan Gotlib Bloch, Polish theorist and activist (died 1902) 1851 – Friedrich Schottky, Polish-German mathematician and theorist (died 1935) 1856 – Émile Picard, French mathematician and academic (died 1941) 1857 – Henrik Pontoppidan, Danish journalist and author, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1943) 1857 – Juan Vicente Gómez, Venezuelan general and politician, 27th President of Venezuela (died 1935) 1860 – Princess Charlotte of Prussia (died 1919) 1860 – Alphonse Mucha, Czech painter and illustrator (died 1939) 1863 – Tommy McCarthy, American baseball player (died 1922) 1864 – Frank Wedekind, German actor and playwright (died 1918) 1867 – E. F. Benson, English novelist (died 1940) 1867 – Fred Tate, English cricketer and coach (died 1943) 1874 – Oswald Chambers, Scottish minister and author (died 1917) 1877 – Calogero Vizzini, Italian mob boss (died 1954) 1878 – Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany, Irish author, poet, and playwright (died 1957) 1880 – Ernest Bloch, Swiss-American composer and educator (died 1959) 1884 – Maria Caserini, Italian actress (died 1969) 1886 – Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Japanese author (died 1965) 1888 – Arthur Richardson, Australian cricketer and coach (died 1973) 1889 – Agnes Meyer Driscoll, American cryptanalyst (died 1971) 1892 – Alice Ball, African American chemist (developed treatment for leprosy) (died 1916) 1895 – Robert Graves, English poet, novelist, critic (died 1985) 1897 – Amelia Earhart, American pilot and author (died 1937) 1899 – Chief Dan George, Canadian actor (died 1981) 1900 – Zelda Fitzgerald, American author, visual artist and ballet dancer (died 1948)
1901–present 1909 – John William Finn, American lieutenant, Medal of Honor recipient (died 2010) 1910 – Harry Horner, American director and production designer (died 1994) 1912 – Essie Summers, New Zealand author (died 1998) 1913 – Britton Chance, American biologist and sailor (died 2010) 1914 – Frances Oldham Kelsey, Canadian pharmacologist and physician (died 2015) 1914 – Ed Mirvish, American-Canadian businessman and philanthropist (died 2007) 1914 – Alan Waddell, Australian walker (died 2008) 1915 – Enrique Fernando, Filipino lawyer and jurist, 13th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines (died 2004) 1916 – John D. MacDonald, American colonel and author (died 1986) 1917 – Robert Farnon, Canadian trumpet player, composer, and conductor (died 2005) 1917 – Jack Moroney, Australian cricketer (died 1999) 1918 – Ruggiero Ricci, American violinist and educator (died 2012) 1919 – Robert Marsden Hope, Australian lawyer and judge (died 1999) 1919 – Kenneth S. Kleinknecht, NASA manager (died 2007) 1920 – Bella Abzug, American lawyer and politician (died 1998) 1920 – Constance Dowling, American model and actress (died 1969) 1921 – Giuseppe Di Stefano, Italian tenor and actor (died 2008) 1921 – Billy Taylor, American pianist and composer (died 2010) 1922 – Madeleine Ferron, Canadian radio host and author (died 2010) 1924 – Wilfred Josephs, English composer (died 1997) 1924 – Aris Poulianos, Greek anthropologist and archaeologist (died 2021) 1926 – Grace Glueck, American arts journalist (died 2022) 1927 – Alex Katz, American painter and sculptor 1927 – Zara Mints, Russian-Estonian philologist and academic (died 1990) 1928 – Keshubhai Patel, Indian politician, tenth Chief Minister of Gujarat (died 2020) 1930 – Alfred Balk, American journalist and author (died 2010) 1931 – Ermanno Olmi, Italian director, screenwriter, and cinematographer (died 2018) 1931 – Éric Tabarly, French commander (died 1998) 1932 – William Ruckelshaus, American attorney and civil servant (died 2019) 1932 – Gustav Andreas Tammann, German astronomer and academic (died 2019) 1933 – Doug Sanders, American golfer (died 2020) 1934 – Willie Davis, American football player (died 2020) 1934 – P. S. Soosaithasan, Sri Lankan accountant and politician (died 2017) 1935 – Aaron Elkins, American author and academic 1935 – Pat Oliphant, Australian cartoonist (died 2026)