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.
• 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 one-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 Congress 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.
• 1977 – End of a four-day-long Libyan-Egyptian War.
• 1980 – The Quietly Confident Quartet of Australia wins the men’s 4 x 100 metre medley relay at the Moscow Olympics, the only time the United States has not won the event at Olympic level.
• 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 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) causing a 43-square-meter dent in the body of the oil tanker.
• 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.
• 2012 – Syrian civil war: The People’s Protection Units (YPG) capture the city of Girkê Legê.
• Simón Bolívar Day (Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, and Bolivia).
• Navy Day (Venezuela).

People (Births)

• 1783 – Simón Bolívar, Venezuelan commander and politician, second 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).
• 1985 – Aries Merritt, American hurdler.
• 1990 – Travis Mahoney, Australian swimmer.

People (Deaths)

• 1997 – William J. Brennan Jr., American colonel and jurist (b. 1906).
• 2012 – Robert Ledley, American physiologist and physicist, invented the CT scanner (b. 1926).
• 2021 – Dale Snodgrass, United States Naval Aviator and air show performer (b. 1949).