Events

• 410 – The Visigoths under king Alaric I begin to pillage Rome.
• 1185 – Sack of Thessalonica by the Normans.
• 1215 – Pope Innocent III issues a bull declaring Magna Carta invalid.
• 1482 – The town and castle of Berwick upon Tweed is captured from Scotland by an English army.
• 1516 – The Ottoman Empire under Selim I defeats the Mamluk Sultanate and captures present-day Syria at the Battle of Marj Dabiq.
• 1608 – The first official English representative to India lands in Surat.
• 1643 – A Dutch fleet establishes a new colony in the ruins of Valdivia in southern Chile.
• 1690 – Job Charnock of the East India Company establishes a factory in Calcutta, an event formerly considered the founding of the city (in 2003 the Calcutta High Court ruled that the city’s foundation date is unknown).
• 1743 – The War of the Hats: The Swedish army surrenders to the Russians in Helsinki, ending the war and starting Lesser Wrath.
• 1781 – American Revolutionary War: A small force of Pennsylvania militia is ambushed and overwhelmed by an American Indian group, which forces George Rogers Clark to abandon his attempt to attack Detroit.
• 1789 – The first naval battle of the Svensksund began in the Gulf of Finland.
• 1812 – Peninsular War: A coalition of Spanish, British, and Portuguese forces succeed in lifting the two-and-a-half-year-long Siege of Cádiz.
• 1814 – British troops invade Washington, D.C. and during the Burning of Washington the White House, the Capitol and many other buildings are set ablaze.
• 1816 – The Treaty of St. Louis is signed in St. Louis, Missouri.
• 1820 – Constitutionalist insurrection at Oporto, Portugal.
• 1821 – The Treaty of Córdoba is signed in Córdoba, now in Veracruz, Mexico, concluding the Mexican War of Independence from Spain.
• 1870 – The Wolseley expedition reaches Manitoba to end the Red River Rebellion.
• 1898 – Count Muravyov, Foreign Minister of Russia presents a rescript that convoked the First Hague Peace Conference.
• 1909 – Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.
• 1914 – World War I: German troops capture Namur.
• 1914 – World War I: The Battle of Cer ends as the first Allied victory in the war.
• 1937 – Spanish Civil War: the Basque Army surrenders to the Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie following the Santoña Agreement.
• 1937 – Spanish Civil War: Sovereign Council of Asturias and León is proclaimed in Gijón.
• 1942 – World War II: The Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Japanese aircraft carrier Ryūjō is sunk, with the loss of seven officers and 113 crewmen. The US carrier USS Enterprise is heavily damaged.
• 1944 – World War II: Allied troops begin the attack on Paris.
• 1949 – The treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization goes into effect.
• 1963 – Buddhist crisis: As a result of the Xá Lợi Pagoda raids, the US State Department cables the United States Embassy, Saigon to encourage Army of the Republic of Vietnam generals to launch a coup against President Ngô Đình Diệm if he did not remove his brother Ngô Đình Nhu.
• 1970 – Vietnam War protesters bomb Sterling Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, leading to an international manhunt for the perpetrators.
• 1989 – Colombian drug barons declare “total war” on the Colombian government.
• 1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
• 1991 – Ukraine declares itself independent from the Soviet Union.
  • Independence Day or Den’ Nezalezhnosti, celebrates the independence of Ukraine from the Soviet Union in 1991.

People (Births)

• 1845 – James Calhoun, American lieutenant (d. 1876).
• 1888 – Valentine Baker, Welsh co-founder of the Martin-Baker Aircraft Company (d. 1942).
• 1919 – Tosia Altman, member of the Polish resistance in World War II (d. 1943).
• 1942 – Max Cleland, American captain and politician.
• 1944 – Gregory Jarvis, American captain, engineer, and astronaut (d. 1986).
• 1947 – Roger De Vlaeminck, Belgian cyclist and coach.
• 1947 – Vladimir Masorin, Russian admiral.
• 1948 – Kim Sung-il, South Korean commander and pilot.
• 1964 – Salizhan Sharipov, Kyrgyzstani-Russian lieutenant, pilot, and astronaut.
• 1969 – Jans Koerts, Dutch cyclist.
• 1973 – Inge de Bruijn, Dutch swimmer.
• 1976 – Simon Dennis, English rower and academic.
• 1991 – Wang Zhen, Chinese race walker.

People (Deaths)

• 948 – Zhang Ye, Chinese general and chancellor.
• 1572 – Gaspard II de Coligny, French admiral (b. 1519).
• 1572 – Charles de Téligny, French soldier and diplomat (b. 1535).
• 1759 – Ewald Christian von Kleist, German poet and soldier (b. 1715).
• 1804 – Peggy Shippen, American wife of Benedict Arnold and American Revolutionary War spy (b. 1760).
• 1841 – John Ordronaux, French-American soldier (b. 1778).
• 1967 – Henry J. Kaiser, American businessman, founded Kaiser Shipyards and Kaiser Aluminum (b. 1882).
• 1979 – Hanna Reitsch, German soldier and pilot (b. 1912).
• 2006 – Rocco Petrone, American soldier and engineer (b. 1926).