Events
79
– Mount Vesuvius begins stirring, on the feast
day of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire.
406 – Radagaisus is executed after he is defeated
by the Roman army under Stilicho.
476 – Odoacer, chieftain of the Germanic tribes
(Herulic - Scirian foederati), is proclaimed rex
Italiae ("king of Italy") by his troops.
1305 – Sir William Wallace is executed for High
Treason at Smithfield in London.
1328 – Battle of Cassel: French troops stop an
uprising of Flemish farmers.
1514 – Battle of Chaldiran ended with a decisive
victory for the Sultan Selim I, Ottoman Empire,
over the Shah Ismail I, Safavids founder.
1541 – French explorer Jacques Cartier lands near
Quebec City in his third voyage to Canada.
1555 – Calvinists are granted rights in the Netherlands.
1572 – Mob violence against Huguenots in Paris
– St. Bartholomew's Day massacre.
1595 – Michael the Brave confronts the Ottoman
army in the Battle of Calugareni.
1650 – Colonel George Monck of the English Army
forms Monck's Regiment of Foot, which will later
become the Coldstream Guards.
1708 – Meidingnu Pamheiba is crowned King of Manipur.
1765 – Beginning of Burmese–Siamese War (1765–1767)
1775 – King George III declares that the American
colonies exist in 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 wasn’t accepted into the
United States, and only lasted for four years.
1799 – Napoleon leaves Egypt for France en route
to seize power.
1813 – At the Battle of Grossbeeren, the Prussians
under Von Bülow repulse the French army.
1839 – The United Kingdom captures Hong Kong as
a base as it prepares for war with Qing China.
The ensuing 3-year conflict will later be known
as the First Opium War.
1858 – The Round Oak rail accident occurs in Brierley
Hill in the Black Country, England. It is 'Arguably
the worst disaster ever to occur on British railways'.
1864 – The Union Navy captures Fort Morgan, Alabama,
thus breaking Confederate dominance of all ports
on the Gulf of Mexico.
1866 – Austro-Prussian War ends with the Treaty
of Prague.
1873 – Albert Bridge in Chelsea, London opened.
1896 – Officially recognised date of the Cry of
Pugad Lawin, the start of the Philippine Revolution
is made in Pugad Lawin (Quezon City), in the province
of Manila (actual date and location is disputed).
1904 – The automobile tire chain is patented.
1914 – World War I: Japan declares war on Germany
and bombs Qingdao, China.
1914 – World War I: the Battle of Mons; the British
Army begins withdrawal.
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 4 survive.
1923 – Capt. Lowell Smith and Lt. John P. Richter
performed the first mid-air refueling on De Havilland
DH-4B, setting an endurance flight record of 37
hours.
1927 – Sacco and Vanzetti are executed.
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.
1938 – English cricketer Len Hutton sets a world
record for the highest individual Test innings
of 364, during a Test match against Australia.
1939 – World War II: 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: Kharkov liberated as a result
of the Battle of Kursk.
1944 – World War II: Marseille liberated.
1944 – World War II King Michael of Romania dismisses
the pro-Nazi government of General Antonescu,
who is arrested. Romania switches sides from the
Axis to the Allies (see King Michael's Coup)
1944 – Freckleton Air Disaster – A United States
Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator bomber crashes
into a school in Freckleton, England killing 61
people.
1946 – Ordinance No. 46 of the British Military
Government constitutes the German Land (state)
of Schleswig-Holstein.
1948 – World Council of Churches is formed.
1954 – First flight of the C-130 Hercules transport
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 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".
1977 – The Gossamer Condor wins the Kremer prize
for human powered flight.
1982 – Bachir Gemayel is elected Lebanese President
amidst the raging civil war.
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 (Baltic Way).
1989 – 1,645 Australian domestic airline pilots
resign after the airlines threaten to fire them
and sue them over a dispute.
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 Germany and East Germany announce
that they will unite on October 3.
1994 – Eugene Bullard, The only black pilot in
World War I, is posthumously commissioned as Second
Lieutenant in the United States Air Force.
1996 – Osama bin Laden issues message entitled
'A declaration of war against the Americans occupying
the land of the two holy places.'
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 10, managed to escape from her captor
Wolfgang Priklopil, after 8 years of captivity.
2007 – The skeletal remains of Alexei Nikolaevich,
Tsarevich of Russia, and his sister Anastasia
are found near Yekaterinburg, Russia.
2010 – Manila hostage crisis, in which 8 hostages
were killed
2011 – A 5.8 earthquake occurred in Mineral, Virginia,
the earthquake was felt as far north as Ontario
and as far south as Atlanta, Georgia. Damaged
occurred to monuments in Washington D.C. and the
resulted damage was estimated at $100 Million.
2011 – Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is overthrown
after the National Transitional Council forces
take control of Bab al-Azizia compound during
the 2011 Libyan civil war.
Holidays
and observances
Black
Ribbon Day
Christian Feast Day:
Philip Benitius
Rose of Lima
Éogan of Ardstraw
Tydfil
Leave-Taking of the Feast of the Dormition of
the Theotokos (Eastern Catholic Churches)
August 23 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism
and Nazism (European Union)
Father's Day (Nepal)
Flag Day (Ukraine)
International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave
Trade and its Abolition (International)
Umhlanga Day (Swaziland)
Vulcanalia (Roman Empire)
For details, contact Datacentre
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