Events

• 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.
• 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 replaced by her 1-year-old son James VI.
• 1701 – Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founds the trading post at Fort Pontchartrain, which later becomes the city of Detroit.
• 1783 – The Kingdom of Georgia and the Russian Empire sign the Treaty of Georgievsk.
• 1814 – War of 1812: General Phineas Riall advances toward the Niagara River to halt Jacob Brown’s American invaders.
• 1823 – In Maracaibo, Venezuela, the naval Battle of Lake Maracaibo takes place, where Admiral José Prudencio Padilla defeats the Spanish Navy, thus culminating the independence for the Gran Colombia.
• 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, patented 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 US state to be readmitted to the Union following the American Civil War.
• 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”.
• 1922 – The draft of the British Mandate of Palestine was 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.
• 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 27 August 1928, by most leading world powers).
• 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”.
• 1977 – End of a four-day-long Libyan–Egyptian War.
• 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.
• 1987 – US supertanker SS Bridgeton collides with mines laid by IRGC causing a 43-square-meter dent in the body of the oil tanker.
• 2001 – Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the last Tsar of Bulgaria when he was a child, is sworn in as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, becoming the first monarch in history to regain political power through democratic election to a different office.
• 2001 – The Bandaranaike Airport attack is carried out by 14 Tamil Tiger commandos. Eleven civilian and military aircraft are destroyed and 15 are damaged. All 14 commandos are shot dead, while seven soldiers from the Sri Lanka Air Force are killed. In addition, three civilians and an engineer die. This incident slowed the Sri Lankan economy.
• Simón Bolívar Day (Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, and Bolivia).
• Navy Day (Venezuela).

People (Births)

• 1783 – Simón Bolívar, Venezuelan commander and politician, 2nd President of Venezuela (d. 1830).
• 1857 – Juan Vicente Gómez, Venezuelan general and politician, 27th President of Venezuela (d. 1935).
• 1909 – John William Finn, American lieutenant, Medal of Honour recipient (d. 2010).
• 1916 – John D. MacDonald, American colonel and author (d. 1986).
• 1931 – Éric Tabarly, French commander (d. 1998).

People (Deaths)

• 1997 – William J. Brennan Jr., American colonel and jurist (b. 1906).
• 2013 – Garry Davis, American pilot and activist, created the World Passport (b. 1921).