Events

• 1364 – Troops of the Republic of Pisa and the Republic of Florence clash in the Battle of Cascina.
• 1571 – La Laguna encomienda, known today as the Laguna province in the Philippines, is founded by the Spaniards as one of the oldest encomiendas (provinces) in the country.
• 1635 – In the Eighty Years’ War, the Spanish capture the strategic Dutch fortress of Schenkenschans.
• 1656 – Second Northern War: Battle of Warsaw begins.
• 1794 – French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just are executed by guillotine in Paris, France.
• 1809 – Peninsular War: Battle of Talavera: Sir Arthur Wellesley’s British, Portuguese and Spanish army defeats a French force led by Joseph Bonaparte (refer to Napoleonic Wars).
• 1821 – José de San Martín declares the independence of Peru from Spain.
• 1854 – USS Constellation (1854), the last all-sail warship built by the United States Navy and now a museum ship in Baltimore Harbour, is commissioned.
• 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Ezra Church: Confederate troops make a third unsuccessful attempt to drive Union forces from Atlanta, Georgia.
• 1914 – In the culmination of the July Crisis, Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, igniting World War I.
• 1915 – The United States begins a 19-year occupation of Haiti.
• 1932 – U.S. President Herbert Hoover orders the United States Army to forcibly evict the “Bonus Army” of World War I veterans gathered in Washington, D.C.
• 1935 – First flight of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress.
• 1942 – World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227. In response to alarming German advances, all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so are to be tried in a military court, with punishment ranging from duty in a shtrafbat battalion, imprisonment in a Gulag, or execution.
• 1943 – World War II: Operation Gomorrah: The Royal Air Force bombs Hamburg, Germany causing a firestorm that kills 42,000 German civilians.
• 1945 – A US Army B-25 bomber crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building killing 14 and injuring 26.
• 1965 – Vietnam War: US President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his order to increase the number of United States troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000.
• 1974 – Spetsgruppa A, Russia’s elite special force, was formed.
• 1984 – Olympic Games: Games of the XXIII Olympiad: The summer Olympics were opened in Los Angeles.
• 2001 – Australian Ian Thorpe becomes the first swimmer to win six gold medals at a single World Championship meeting.
• 2005 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army calls an end to its thirty-year-long armed campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland (refer to The Troubles).
• Fiestas Patrias, celebrates the independence of Peru from Spain by General José de San Martín in 1821.
• Liberation Day (San Marino).

People (Births)

• 1783 – Friedrich Wilhelm von Bismarck, German army officer and writer (d. 1860).
• 1815 – Stefan Dunjov, Bulgarian colonel (d. 1889).
• 1863 – Huseyn Khan Nakhchivanski, Russian general (d. 1919).
• 1930 – Ramsey Muir Withers, Canadian general (d. 2014).
• 1932 – Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, Brazilian colonel (d. 2015).
• 1947 – Peter Cosgrove, Australian general and politician, 26th Governor General of Australia.
• 1951 – Santiago Calatrava, Spanish architect and engineer, designed the Athens Olympic Sports Complex.
• 1954 – Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan colonel and politician, President of Venezuela (d. 2013).
• 1958 – Terry Fox, Canadian runner and activist (d. 1981).
• 1979 – Alena Popchanka, Belarusian-French swimmer and coach.

People (Deaths)

• 938 – Thankmar, half-brother of Otto I (during Siege of Eresburg) (b. c. 908).
• 1488 – Edward Woodville, Lord Scales (at the Battle of St. Aubin-du-Cormier).
• 1527 – Rodrigo de Bastidas, Spanish explorer, founded the city of Santa Marta (b. 1460).
• 1794 – Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, French soldier and politician (b. 1767).
• 1809 – Richard Beckett, English cricketer and British Army captain (b.1772).
• 1835 – Édouard Mortier, duc de Trévise, French general and politician, 15th Prime Minister of France (b. 1768).
• 1844 – Joseph Bonaparte, French diplomat and brother of Napoleon (b. 1768).
• 1967 – Karl W. Richter, American lieutenant and US Air Force pilot (b. 1942).
• 1971 – Lawrence Moore Cosgrave, Canadian colonel and diplomat (b. 1890).
• 2007 – Jim LeRoy, American soldier and pilot (b. 1961).
• 2011 – Abdul Fatah Younis, Libyan general (b. 1944).
• 2013 – Mustafa Adrisi, Ugandan general and politician, 3rd Vice President of Uganda (b. 1922).