Events

• 1098 – Fighters of the First Crusade defeat Kerbogha of Mosul.
• 1575 – Sengoku period of Japan: The combined forces of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu are victorious in the Battle of Nagashino.
• 1635 – Guadeloupe becomes a French colony.
• 1651 – The Battle of Berestechko between Poland and Ukraine starts.
• 1745 – A New England colonial army captures the French fortifications at Louisbourg (New Style).
• 1776 – American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Sullivan’s Island ends with the American victory, leading to the commemoration of Carolina Day.
• 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Thomas Hickey, Continental Army private and bodyguard to General George Washington, is hanged for mutiny and sedition.
• 1778 – American Revolutionary War: The American Continentals engage the British in the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse resulting in standstill and British withdrawal under cover of darkness.
• 1797 – French troops disembark in Corfu, beginning French rule in the Ionian Islands.
• 1807 – Second British invasion of the Río de la Plata; John Whitelocke lands at Ensenada in an attempt to recapture Buenos Aires, but is defeated by the locals.
• 1865 – The Army of the Potomac is disbanded.
• 1881 – The Austro-Serbian Alliance of 1881 is secretly signed.
• 1882 – The Anglo-French Convention of 1882 marks the territorial boundaries between Guinea and Sierra Leone.
• 1902 – The US Congress passes the Spooner Act, authorising President Theodore Roosevelt to acquire rights from Colombia for the Panama Canal.
• 1914 – Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are assassinated in Sarajevo; this is the casus belli of World War I.
• 1917 – World War I: Greece joins the Allied powers.
• 1919 – The Treaty of Versailles is signed, ending the state of war between Germany and the Allies of World War I.
• 1921 – Serbian King Alexander I proclaims the new constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, known thereafter as the Vidovdan Constitution.
• 1922 – The Irish Civil War begins with the shelling of the Four Courts in Dublin by Free State forces.
• 1926 – Mercedes-Benz is formed by Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz merging their two companies.
• 1936 – The Japanese puppet state of Mengjiang is formed in northern China.
• 1940 – Romania cedes Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union after facing an ultimatum.
• 1942 – World War II: Nazi Germany starts its strategic summer offensive against the Soviet Union, codenamed Case Blue.
• 1945 – Poland’s Soviet-allied Provisional Government of National Unity is formed over a month after V-E Day.
• 1948 – Cold War: The Tito-Stalin Split results in the expulsion of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia from the Cominform.
• 1950 – Korean War: Suspected communist sympathizers (between 60,000 and 200,000) are executed in the Bodo League massacre.
• 1950 – Korean War: Packed with its own refugees fleeing Seoul and leaving their 5th Division stranded, South Korean forces blow up the Hangang Bridge in an attempt to slow North Korea’s offensive.
  • The city falls later that day.
• 1950 – Korean War: North Korean Army conducts the Seoul National University Hospital massacre.
• 1976 – The Angolan court sentences US and UK mercenaries to death sentences and prison terms in the Luanda Trial.
• 1987 – For the first time in military history, a civilian population is targeted for chemical attack when Iraqi warplanes bombed the Iranian town of Sardasht.
• 1989 – On the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, Slobodan Milošević delivers the Gazimestan speech at the site of the historic battle.
• 2001 – Slobodan Milošević is extradited to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague to stand trial.
• 2004 – Iraq War: Sovereign power is handed to the interim government of Iraq by the Coalition Provisional Authority, ending the US-led rule of that nation.
• 2009 – Honduran president Manuel Zelaya is ousted by a local military coup following a failed request to hold a referendum to rewrite the Honduran Constitution.
  • This was the start of the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis.

People (Births)

• 1560 – Giovanni Paolo Lascaris, Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller (d. 1657).
• 1719 – Étienne François, duc de Choiseul, French general and politician, Prime Minister of France (d. 1785).
• 1880 – John Meyers, American swimmer and water polo player (d. 1971).
• 1883 – Pierre Laval, French soldier and politician, 101st Prime Minister of France (d. 1945).
• 1891 – Carl Spaatz, American general (d. 1974).
• 1913 – George Lloyd, English soldier and composer (d. 1998).
• 1913 – Walter Oesau, German colonel and pilot (d. 1944).
• 1914 – Aribert Heim, Austrian SS physician and Nazi war criminal (d. 1992).
• 1931 – Lucien Victor, Belgian cyclist (d. 1995).
• 1938 – Leon Panetta, American lawyer and politician, 23rd United States Secretary of Defence.
• 1942 – Hans-Joachim Walde, German decathlete (d. 2013).
• 1942 – Frank Zane, American professional bodybuilder and author.
• 1946 – Robert Asprin, American soldier and author (d. 2008).
• 1952 – Pietro Mennea, Italian sprinter and politician (d. 2013).
• 1962 – Ann-Louise Skoglund, Swedish hurdler.
• 1967 – Zhong Huandi, Chinese runner.
• 1969 – Fabrizio Mori, Italian hurdler.
• 1987 – Sonata Tamošaitytė, Lithuanian hurdler.
• 1992 – Elaine Thompson, Jamaican sprinter.
• 1996 – Larissa Werbicki, Canadian rower.

People (Deaths)

• 202 – Yuan Shao, Chinese warlord.
• 1497 – James Tuchet, 7th Baron Audley, English rebel leader (b. c. 1463).
• 1575 – Yonekura Shigetsugu, Japanese samurai.
• 1716 – George FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Northumberland, English general and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire (b. 1665).
• 1798 – John Henry Colclough, Irish revolutionary (b. c. 1769).
• 1813 – Gerhard von Scharnhorst, Prussian general and politician, Prussian Minister of War (b. 1755).
• 1880 – Texas Jack Omohundro, American soldier and hunter (b. 1846).
• 1940 – Italo Balbo, Italian air marshal and politician (b. 1896).
• 1944 – Friedrich Dollmann, German general (b. 1882).
• 1960 – Jake Swirbul, American businessman, co-founded the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation (b. 1898).
• 1971 – Franz Stangl, Austrian SS officer (b. 1908).
• 1981 – Terry Fox, Canadian runner and activist (b. 1958).
• 2005 – Michael P. Murphy, American lieutenant, Medal of Honour recipient (b. 1976).
• 2006 – George Unwin, English pilot and commander (b. 1913).
• 2007 – Eugene B. Fluckey, American admiral, Medal of Honour recipient (b. 1913).
• 2013 – David Rubitsky, American sergeant, veteran of WWII (b. 1917).