- 554 Ravenna becomes the seat of the Byzantine military governor in Italy
- 1183 Taira no Munemori and the Taira clan take young Emperor Antoku and the three sacred treasures and flee to western Japan to escape the Minamoto clan (Traditional Japanese date: 25th Day of the 7th Month of the 2nd Year of Juei)
1281 During Kublai Khan‘s second Mongol invasion of Japan, his invading Chinese fleet of 3,500 vessels disappears in a typhoon near the Japanese coast
Historic Publication
1457 Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer publish the Mainz Psalter, the first printed book with a complete date
Columbus Lands at the Orinoco
1498 Christopher Columbus lands at the mouth of the Orinoco River in what is now Venezuela
Elizabeth I Turns Down the Netherlands
1585 Queen Elizabeth I of England refuses sovereignty of the Netherlands
- 1590 Publication of Christopher Marlowe’s play “Tamburlaine the Great” is recorded by the Stationers’ Company of London (likely first performed in 1587)
First Dutch Expedition Returns
1597 Cornelis de Houtman‘s Dutch fleet arrives back in Holland, the first Dutch visit to Java
- 1624 Dutch Nassau fleet abandons its blockade of the Spanish-held port of Callao near Lima in Peru after three months [1]
- 1636 Spanish troops occupy Corbie near Amiens
- 1642 Abel Tasman’s ships, Heemskerck and Zeehaen, depart from Batavia to search for Terra Australis, becoming the first Europeans to reach Tasmania and New Zealand
- 1678 Battle of Mons: French repel William of Orange
- 1743 Prussian army occupies Saxony, beginning the Second Silesian War
- 1756 The French capture Fort Oswego, New York
- 1758 Battle of Zorndorf: Prussia defeats Russia, with thousands killed
- 1762 The English fleet occupies Havana
- 1765 Massachusetts colonists challenge British rule by an elm tree (Liberty Tree)
- 1782 Suriname forbids selling enslaved mothers without their babies
- 1790 Sweden and Russia sign the Treaty of Väräla
- 1813 The British warship Pelican attacks and captures US war brigantine Argus
- 1816 Great Britain annexes Tristan da Cunha
- 1820 The first US eye hospital, the NY Eye Infirmary, opens in New York City
- 1824 General Lafayette returns to the US
- 1825 Dutch King William I expels foreign students
- 1842 Second Seminole War is declared over by US Army Colonel Worth after nearly seven years; more than 3,000 Seminole Nation survivors are relocated from Florida to Oklahoma, with only about 300 allowed to remain [1]
- 1846 The Cape Girardeau meteorite, a 2.3 kg chondrite-type meteorite, strikes near the town of Cape Girardeau in Missouri
- 1848 Oregon Territory is created
- 1861 79th NY troops mutiny
- 1861 Martial Law is declared in St. Louis, Missouri, due to pro-secession sentiment surging throughout Missouri after the Battle of Wilson’s Creek
Lincoln Meets Black Leaders
1862 Abraham Lincoln receives the first group of African Americans to confer with a US president
- 1864 Confederate General Joe Wheeler besieges Dalton, Georgia, but withdraws on August 15, 1864
- 1864 Second day of the Second Battle of Deep Bottom, Virginia: Federal assault
- 1873 Field & Stream begins publishing
- 1875 Society of Real Afrikaners establishes in Paarl
- 1876 Prairie View State University is formed
- 1885 British Criminal Law Amendment Act raises the age of consent from 13 to 16 and protects against child prostitution
- 1885 Japan’s first patent is issued to Zuisho Hotta for anticorrosive paint used on ship hulls
Colonists Reach Masvingo
1890 Cecil Rhodes‘ British colonists reach Masvingo (Fort Victoria), the oldest colonial settlement in Zimbabwe
- 1893 France introduces motor vehicle registration, including a driving test
- 1894 Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge demonstrates wireless telegraphy (radio) using Morse code at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Oxford University
- 1897 Anosimena is captured by French troops from Menabe defenders in Madagascar
- 1900 First electric tram in Netherlands (Leidseplein-Brouwersgracht)
- 1901 First claimed powered flight by Gustave Whitehead in his No. 21 aircraft near Bridgeport, Connecticut
- 1901 SS Islander hits an iceberg near Alaska and sinks, killing 70
- 1905 Ngindo-rebellion killed 5 RC German clergymen in East-Africa
- 1908 Race riot in Springfield, Illinois; a white mob attacks a Black neighborhood when lynching plans are thwarted by local police, resulting in at least 17 people dying over two days; the event is a catalyst for the formation of the civil rights organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) [1]
- 1908 The first beauty contest is held in Folkestone, England
- 1909 Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana, home of the Indy 500, holds its first motorized competition – motorcycle races
- 1910 6th International Congress of Esperantists held in Washington, D.C.
- 1911 General Leconte appointed temporary President of Haiti
- 1911 United States Senate leaders rotate the office of President pro tempore of the Senate among leading candidates to fill the vacancy left by William P. Frye’s death
- 1912 2,500 US Marines invade Nicaragua; the US remains until 1925
British Expeditionary Force Lands
1914 British Expeditionary Force led by Field Marshal John French and General Henry Wilson lands in France
- 1915 British transport Royal Edward is sunk by a German U-boat, killing 1,000
- 1917 China declares war on Germany and Austria
- 1919 Chicago White Sox outfielder Happy Felsch ties the MLB record with four outfield assists in a game during a 15-6 loss to the Boston Red Sox
- 1920 Little Entente is formed by Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania
- 1920 VII Summer Olympic Games open in Antwerp, Belgium; first time Olympic Oath is voiced, doves are released to symbolize peace, and Olympic Flag is flown
- 1921 Tuvan People’s Republic declares independence with the support of Soviet Russia
- 1922 First “old-time” musicians’ radio broadcast (Jenkins-WSB Atlanta)
- 1925 Moccasin Powerhouse along the Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct in California is completed
- 1925 Mount Rushmore Monument is first proposed
- 1928 Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s “The Front Page” premieres in New York City
- 1929 Jewish Agency for Palestine is formed
- 1932 Brooklyn Dodgers reliever Johnny Quinn, 49, becomes the oldest pitcher to win an MLB game in a 2-1, 10th-inning victory over the NY Giants at the Polo Grounds
- 1932 Philips makes its 1 millionth radio
- 1932 X Summer Olympic Games close at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
- 1935 Social Security Act becomes law
- 1936 American swimmers Adolph Kiefer and Al Vande Weghe quinella the 100 m backstroke at the Berlin Olympics
- 1936 Rainey Bethea is hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky in the last public execution in the United States
- 1936 The Berlin Olympics rowing competition concludes with Germany winning 5 of 7 gold medals, although the United States wins the coveted eights gold
- 1937 China declares war on Japan
- 1937 Detroit Tigers score an MLB record 36 runs in a doubleheader vs. St. Louis Browns at Navin Field; win 16-1 and 20-7
- 1937 The Appalachian Trail is formally completed, traversing 2,000 miles and 14 US states from Georgia to Maine
- 1938 BBC’s first feature film on TV (The Student of Prague)
- 1939 First night MLB game in the city of Chicago is played at Comiskey Park; White Sox beat St. Louis Browns 5-2
- 1943 First allied air raid on Borneo
- 1943 Quadrant Conference over strike in Pacific Ocean is held in Quebec, Canada, August 14-24
- 1943 US 45th Division occupies Falcone, 40 km outside of Messina
- 1944 Canada and Poland begin Operation Tractable, attempting to encircle the strategic French town of Falaise
- 1944 Operation Tractable: New Canadian offensive
- 1944 Soviet offensive at Vistula
Viet Minh Launches Uprising
1945 Ho Chi Minh‘s Viet Minh movement launch a coordinated uprising against French rule across Vietnam following the Japanese surrender
1945 Japan’s government notifies the Allies that it has accepted the Potsdam Declaration
1945 V-J Day, the Empire of Japan surrenders unconditionally to the Allies, ending World War II (August 15 in Japan and other countries depending on the time zone)
- 1947 Pakistan gains independence from the United Kingdom
Record English Dismissal
1948 Australian fast bowler Ray Lindwall takes 6-20 as England is dismissed for a record low of 52 in the fifth cricket Test at the Oval; Don Bradman is out for 0 in his final Test innings
- 1948 XIV Olympic Games close at Wembley Stadium, London
- 1949 Military coup in Syria under colonel Sami Hinnawi
The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis
1952 Alan Turing‘s groundbreaking paper on mathematical biology “The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis” is published [1]
- 1952 Mátyás Rákosi is appointed premier of Hungary
- 1953 20th NFL Chicago All-Star Game: Detroit 24, All-Stars 10 (93,818 attendees)
- 1953 KXLF TV channel 4 in Butte, MT (CBS/ABC) begins broadcasting
- 1954 WGR TV (now WGRZ) TV channel 2 in Buffalo, NY (NBC) begins broadcasting
- 1958 Canadian Football League plays its first game (Winnipeg 29, Edmonton 21)
- 1958 Cleveland Indian Vic Power steals home twice in one game
- 1958 KLM Super Constellation crashes west of Ireland, killing 99
- 1959 26th NFL Chicago All-Star Game: Baltimore 29, All-Stars 0 (70,000 attendees)
- 1959 The first American Football League meeting is held in Chicago; charter memberships are handed to Dallas, New York, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis-Saint Paul; the AFL is named the following week
- 1960 Australian driver Jack Brabham clinches his second consecutive F1 World Drivers’ Championship by winning the Portuguese Grand Prix at Boavista
- 1960 UN peacekeeping troops are deployed to the Republic of Congo
- 1961 Philadelphia Phillies lose 9-2 to Chicago Cubs for their 17th straight defeat; 11th consecutive time an opposing pitcher throws a complete game against the Phillies
- 1962 A US mail truck in Plymouth, Massachusetts, is robbed of more than $1.5 million
- 1962 French and Italian workers break through at Mont Blanc Vehicular Tunnel
X-15 Space Plane
1962 NASA civilian test pilot Joseph A. Walker takes the experimental space plane X-15 to 60,000 meters
1965 The Beatles tape an appearance for the US variety show “The Ed Sullivan Show”
- 1966 Cleveland Stadium’s first rock concert: The Beatles headline, and fans break through barriers and rush the stage, causing a 30-minute delay while order is restored
- 1966 First US lunar orbiter begins orbiting Moon
- 1967 Belgian embassy in Kinshasa, Congo, plundered
- 1967 British pirate radio station Radio 270, broadcast from an offshore lugger, is forced to close down
Mia Farrow’s Famous Haircut
1967 Celebrity hairdresser Vidal Sassoon cuts actress Mia Farrow’s hair into the famous pixie cut, costing $5,000; in reality, it is just a publicity stunt, as Farrow had previously cut her own hair
- 1967 Pirate radio station, Wonderful Radio London, closes down
- 1967 Radio Scotland and Radio Swinging Holland go off the air
- 1968 Montreal Expos officially become a member of NL
- 1969 British Army deploys on the streets of Northern Ireland, beginning Operation Banner
- 1969 Irish nationalists hold protests throughout Northern Ireland in response to events in Derry, and some of these become violent
- 1969 NY Mets fall 9½ games back and later win pennant
- 1970 City University of New York inaugurates open admissions
- 1970 Steven Stills is arrested for drug possession
- 1971 Bahrain proclaims independence after 110 years of British rule
- 1971 British begin internment without trial in Northern Ireland
- 1971 Cardinals’ Bob Gibson, 35, no-hits Pirates, 11-0
- 1971 France performs a nuclear test
- 1972 A Catholic civilian is shot dead during an IRA attack on a British Army patrol in Belfast, Northern Ireland
- 1972 Two British soldiers are killed by an IRA booby trap bomb in Belfast, Northern Ireland
- 1973 US ends secret bombing of Cambodia
- 1974 Congress authorizes US citizens to own gold
- 1974 Turkish army attacks Nicosia Cyprus
- 1974 US performs a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1974 USSR performs an underground nuclear test
- 1975 King Olav V of Norway opens Svalbard Airport near Longyearbyen, the northernmost airport in the world with scheduled public flights
Dmitri Shostakovich Buried
1975 Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich is buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow
- 1976 10,000 Northern Ireland women demonstrate for peace in Belfast
- 1976 Stiff Records releases its first single, “So It Goes,” by rocker Nick Lowe
- 1977 77,691 people see NY Cosmos beat Fort Lauderdale Strikers 8-3 at Giants Stadium
- 1979 A rainbow is seen in the north of Wales for a three-hour duration
- 1980 17,000 workers go on strike at Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland, marking the beginning of the Solidarity movement
- 1981 George Foster hits his 8th home run into the red seats at Riverfront
- 1981 Phillies’ Mike Schmidt hits his 300th career home run off New York Met Mike Scott
- 1982 Atlanta snaps an 11-game losing streak with a 6-5 win over the Padres
- 1982 Iran “Ramadan offensive” in Iraq
- 1983 Ramones guitarist Johnny Ramone suffers a fractured skull from a kick to the head in a fight over a woman in Queens, NYC, and undergoes brain surgery
- 1983 Robert de Castella wins Helsinki marathon (2:10:03)
- 1984 IBM releases PC DOS version 3.0
- 1984 West Indies complete 5-0 series annihilation of England
Michael Jackson Buys Beatles Catalog
1985 Michael Jackson buys ATV Music, including publishing rights to most of the Beatles’ song catalog, for $47.5 million; 10 years later, he sells half of his interest to Sony for $150 million
- 1985 Political violence by the youth begins after the funeral of assassinated Victoria Mxenge, a civil rights lawyer respected and liked by the Congress of South African Students
- 1986 Phillies and Pirates play a six-game series in four days
Baseball Record
1987 Oakland’s Mark McGwire sets the rookie home run record at 39 en route to 49
- 1988 Detroit beats Sox 18-6 at Fenway, ending Boston’s winning streak at 24
- 1990 Angel’s Luis Polonia is 74th to hit an inside-the-park grand slam
- 1990 Denver votes for a 1% sales tax to pay for a baseball franchise
- 1993 Nigerian presidential election
Reggie Jackson Day
1993 NY Yankees retire Jackson’s uniform number 44 on Reggie Jackson Day
- 1993 St. Louis reliever Lee Smith is the fastest to achieve 40 saves
- 1994 MLB pitcher Doc Gooden completes substance abuse rehabilitation at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, California
- 1994 Space telescope Hubble photographs Uranus with its rings
- 1994 Terrorist “Carlos” is arrested in Khartoum, Sudan
- 1995 Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, reports that Iran has been unable to sell 200 million barrels of crude oil per day since the imposition of a unilateral oil embargo by the US
Music History
1995 Seattle rock band Foo Fighters appear on The Late Show with David Letterman in their network television debut, performing their single “This Is A Call”
- 1995 Shannon Faulkner becomes the first woman to attend The Citadel
McVeigh Sentenced to Death
1997 Convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh formally sentenced to death by Oklahoma Court of Appeals
- 1999 New Zealand wins their third Tri Nations Rugby Series as South Africa edges Australia 10-9 in Cape Town; the All Blacks’ only defeat comes in the final round dead rubber, 28-7 against the Wallabies in Sydney
- 2003 Widespread power blackout in the northeastern United States and Canada
- 2004 The Australian women’s 4 x 100 m freestyle relay team of Alice Mills, Lisbeth Lenton, Petria Thomas, and Jodie Henry smashes the world record to take gold in 3:35.94 at the Athens Olympics
- 2007 Coordinated bombings in Yazidi communities in Iraq kill at least 500 people, the second-deadliest terror attack of all time
- 2008 A popular Chinese 1-2 in the 200 m butterfly at the Beijing Olympics with Liu Zige swimming a world record of 2:04.18 to beat teammate Jiao Liuyang
- 2008 Australian women’s 4 x 200 m freestyle relay team of Stephanie Rice, Bronte Barratt, Kylie Palmer, and Linda Mackenzie swim a world record 7:44.31 to beat China and take the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics
- 2008 French swimmer Alain Bernard wins the coveted 100 m freestyle gold medal at the Beijing Olympics, beating Eamon Sullivan of Australia by 0.11 seconds
- 2008 Japanese swimmer Kosuke Kitajima repeats his Athens Olympics 100/200 m breaststroke double at the Beijing Games, winning the 200 m in an Olympic record of 2:07.64
- 2010 First Summer Youth Olympic Games open in Singapore
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