Events

• 410 – The Visigoths under king Alaric I begin to pillage Rome.
• 1185 – Sack of Thessalonica by the Normans.
• 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.
• 1643 – A Dutch fleet establishes a new colony in the ruins of Valdivia in southern Chile.
• 1682 – William Penn receives the area that is now the state of Delaware, and adds it to his colony of Pennsylvania.
• 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 (refer to Napoleonic Wars).
• 1814 – War of 1812: 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.
• 1941 – World War II: The Holocaust: Adolf Hitler orders the cessation of Nazi Germany’s systematic T4 euthanasia programme of the mentally ill and the handicapped due to protests, although killings continue for the remainder of the war.
• 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 Organisation (NATO) goes into effect.
• 1954 – The Communist Control Act goes into effect, outlawing the American Communist Party.
• 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).
• 1890 – Duke Kahanamoku, American swimmer, actor, and surfer (d. 1968).
• 1915 – James Tiptree Jr. (Alice Bradley Sheldon), American psychologist and science fiction author (d. 1987).
• 1919 – Tosia Altman, member of the Polish resistance in World War II (d. 1943).
• 1942 – Max Cleland, American captain and politician.
• 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.
• 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).
• 1680 – Thomas Blood, Irish colonel (b. 1618).
• 1804 – Peggy Shippen, American wife of Benedict Arnold and American Revolutionary War spy (b. 1760).
• 1832 – Richard Weymouth, British Royal Navy commander (b. 1780/81).
• 1841 – John Ordronaux, French-American soldier (b. 1778).
• 1967 – Henry J. Kaiser, American businessman, founded Kaiser Shipyards and Kaiser Aluminum (b. 1882).
• 1974 – Alexander P. de Seversky, Russian-American pilot and businessman, co-founded Republic Aviation (b. 1894).
• 1979 – Hanna Reitsch, German soldier and pilot (b. 1912).
• 2000 – Andy Hug, Swiss martial artist and kick-boxer (b. 1964).
• 2006 – Rocco Petrone, American soldier and engineer (b. 1926).
• 2012 – Dadullah, Pakistani Taliban leader (b. 1965).