Events
708
– Copper coins are minted in Japan for the first
time (Traditional Japanese date: August 10, 708).
1350 – Battle of Winchelsea (or Les Espagnols
sur Mer): The English naval fleet under King Edward
III defeats a Castilian fleet of 40 ships.
1475 – The Treaty of Picquigny ends a brief war
between France and England.
1498 – Vasco da Gama decides to depart Calicut
and return to Portugal.
1521 – The Ottoman Turks capture Nándorfehérvár,
now known as Belgrade.
1526 – Battle of Mohács: The Ottoman Turks led
by Suleiman the Magnificent defeat and kill the
last Jagiellonian king of Hungary and Bohemia.
1541 – The Ottoman Turks capture Buda, the capital
of the Hungarian Kingdom.
1655 – Warsaw falls without resistance to a small
force under the command of Charles X Gustav of
Sweden during The Deluge.
1756 – Frederick the Great attacks Saxony, beginning
the Seven Years' War.
1758 – The first American Indian Reservation is
established, at Indian Mills, New Jersey.
1778 – American Revolutionary War: British and
American forces battle indecisively at the Battle
of Rhode Island.
1786 – Shays' Rebellion, an armed uprising of
Massachusetts farmers, begins in response to high
debt and tax burdens.
1825 – Portugal recognizes the Independence of
Brazil.
1831 – Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic
induction.
1833 – The United Kingdom legislates the abolition
of slavery in its empire.
1835 – The city of Melbourne, Australia is founded.
1842 – Treaty of Nanking signing ends the First
Opium War.
1861 – American Civil War: US Navy squadron captures
forts at Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina.
1869 – The Mount Washington Cog Railway opens,
making it the world's first rack railway.
1871 – Emperor Meiji orders the Abolition of the
han system and the establishment of prefectures
as local centers of administration. (Traditional
Japanese date: July 14, 1871).
1885 – Gottlieb Daimler patents the world's first
internal combustion motorcycle, the Reitwagen
1898 – The Goodyear tire company is founded.
1903 – The Russian battleship Slava, the last
of the five Borodino-class battleships, is launched.
1907 – The Quebec Bridge collapses during construction,
killing 75 workers.
1910 – The Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910, also known
as the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty, becomes
effective, officially starting the period of Japanese
rule in Korea.
1911 – Ishi, considered the last Native American
to make contact with European Americans, emerges
from the wilderness of northeastern California.
1915 – US Navy salvage divers raise F-4, the first
U.S. submarine sunk in accident.
1916 – The United States passes the Philippine
Autonomy Act.
1918 – Bapaume taken by the New Zealand Division
in the Hundred Days Offensive.
1922 – The first radio advertisement is broadcast
on WEAF-AM in New York City.
1930 – The last 36 remaining inhabitants of St
Kilda are voluntarily evacuated to other parts
of Scotland.
1941 – Tallinn, the Capital of Estonia is occupied
by Nazi Germany following an occupation by the
Soviet Union.
1943 – German-occupied Denmark scuttles most of
its navy; Germany dissolves the Danish government.
1944 – Slovak National Uprising takes place as
60,000 Slovak troops turn against the Nazis.
1949 – Soviet atomic bomb project: The Soviet
Union tests its first atomic bomb, known as First
Lightning or Joe 1, at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan.
1950 – Korean War: British troops arrive in Korea
to bolster the US presence there.
1958 – United States Air Force Academy opens in
Colorado Springs, Colorado.
1965 – The Gemini V spacecraft returns to Earth,
landing in the Atlantic ocean.
1966 – The Beatles perform their last concert
before paying fans at Candlestick Park in San
Francisco.
1970 – Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam
War, East Los Angeles, California. Police riot
kills three people, including journalist Ruben
Salazar.
1982 – The synthetic chemical element Meitnerium,
atomic number 109, is first synthesized at the
Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt,
Germany.
1991 – Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union suspends
all activities of the Soviet Communist Party.
1991 – Libero Grassi, an Italian businessman from
Palermo is killed by the Mafia after taking a
solitary stand against their extortion demands.
1996 – Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801, a Vnukovo
Airlines Tupolev Tu-154, crashes into a mountain
on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen, killing all
141 aboard.
1997 – At least 98 villagers are killed by the
Armed Islamic Group of Algeria GIA in the Rais
massacre, Algeria.
2003 – Ayatollah Sayed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim,
the Shia Muslim leader in Iraq, is assassinated
in a terrorist bombing, along with nearly 100
worshippers as they leave a mosque in Najaf.
2005 – Hurricane Katrina devastates much of the
U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida
Panhandle, killing more than 1,836 and causing
over $80 billion in damage.
2007 – 2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons
incident: six US cruise missiles armed with nuclear
warheads are flown without proper authorization
from Minot Air Force Base to Barksdale Air Force
Base.
Holidays
and observances
Christian
Feast Day:
Beheading of St. John the Baptist
Sabina
August 29 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Slovak National Uprising Anniversary (Slovakia)
The first day of Thoth, the first day of the Egyptian
calendar.
For details, contact Datacentre
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