Events

• 312 – Constantine the Great enters Rome after his victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, stages a grand adventus in the city, and is met with popular jubilation.
  • Maxentius’ body is fished out of the Tiber and beheaded.
• 1467 – Battle of Brustem: Charles the Bold defeats Prince-Bishopric of Liège.
• 1618 – English adventurer, writer, and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded for allegedly conspiring against James I of England.
• 1658 – Second Northern War: Naval forces of the Dutch Republic defeat the Swedes in the Battle of the Sound.
• 1665 – Portuguese forces defeat the Kingdom of Kongo and decapitate King António I of Kongo, also known as Nvita a Nkanga.
• 1863 – Eighteen countries meet in Geneva and agree to form the International Red Cross.
• 1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Wauhatchie: Forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant repel a Confederate attack led by General James Longstreet.
  • Union forces thus open a supply line into Chattanooga, Tennessee.
• 1888 – The Convention of Constantinople is signed, guaranteeing free maritime passage through the Suez Canal during war and peace.
• 1914 – Ottoman entry into World War I.
• 1918 – The German High Seas Fleet is incapacitated when sailors mutiny on the night of the 29th-30th, an action which would trigger the German Revolution of 1918-1919.
• 1923 – Turkey becomes a republic following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
• 1941 – World War II: The Holocaust: In the Kaunas Ghetto, over 10,000 Jews are shot by German occupiers at the Ninth Fort, a massacre known as the “Great Action”.
• 1942 – World War II: The Holocaust: In the United Kingdom, leading clergymen and political figures hold a public meeting to register outrage over Nazi Germany’s persecution of Jews.
• 1944 – World War II: The Dutch city of Breda is liberated by 1st Polish Armoured Division.
• 1944 – World War II: The Soviet Red Army enters Hungary.
• 1948 – Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Safsaf massacre: Israeli soldiers capture the Palestinian village of Safsaf in the Galilee; afterwards, between 52 and 64 villagers are massacred by the IDF.
• 1955 – The Soviet battleship Novorossiysk strikes a World War II mine in the harbor at Sevastopol.
• 1956 – Suez Crisis begins: Israeli forces invade the Sinai Peninsula and push Egyptian forces back toward the Suez Canal.
• 1964 – The United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar is renamed the United Republic of Tanzania.
• 1969 – The first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.
• 1980 – Demonstration flight of a secretly modified C-130 for an Iran hostage crisis rescue attempt ends in crash landing at Eglin Air Force Base’s Duke Field, Florida leading to cancellation of Operation Credible Sport.
• 1985 – Major General Samuel K. Doe is announced the winner of the first multi-party election in Liberia.

People (Births)

• 1507 – Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Spanish general (d. 1582).
• 1704 – John Byng, English admiral and politician, 11th Commodore Governor of Newfoundland (d. 1757).
• 1866 – Antonio Luna, Filipino general and politician (d. 1899).
• 1879 – Franz von Papen, German soldier and politician, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1969).
• 1883 – Victor Hochepied, French swimmer and water polo player (d. 1966).
• 1898 – Alan Barker, English soldier (d. 1984).
• 1921 – Bill Mauldin, American soldier and cartoonist (d. 2003).
• 1923 – Gerda van der Kade-Koudijs, Dutch runner, hurdler, and long jumper (d. 2015).
• 1930 – Bertha Brouwer, Dutch sprinter (d. 2006).
• 1981 – Amanda Beard, American swimmer.

People (Death)

• 1618 – Walter Raleigh, English admiral, explorer, and politician, Lieutenant Governor of Jersey (b. 1554).
• 1877 – Nathan Bedford Forrest, American general and KKK leader (b. 1821).
• 1994 – Shlomo Goren, Israeli rabbi, general, and scholar (b. 1918).
• 2013 – John Spence, American soldier and engineer (b. 1918).