Events

• AD 23 – Rebels sack the Chinese capital Chang’an during a peasant rebellion.
• 1302 – The Byzantine–Venetian War comes to an end.
• 1363 – Battle of Lake Poyang: In one of the largest naval battles in history, Zhu Yuanzhang’s rebels defeat rival Chen Youliang.
• 1511 – Formation of the Holy League of Aragon, the Papal States and Venice against France.
• 1582 – The Gregorian Calendar is introduced by Pope Gregory XIII.
• 1597 – Governor Gonzalo Méndez de Canço begins to suppress a native uprising against his rule in what is now the state of Georgia.
• 1602 – Eighty Years’ War and the Anglo-Spanish War: A fleet of Spanish galleys are defeated by English and Dutch galleons in the English Channel.
• 1636 – Thirty Years’ War: The Swedish Army defeats the armies of Saxony and the Holy Roman Empire at the Battle of Wittstock.
• 1693 – Nine Years’ War: Piedmontese troops are defeated by the French.
• 1777 – American Revolutionary War: Troops under George Washington are repelled by British troops under William Howe.
• 1795 – Napoleon first rises to prominence by suppressing counter-revolutionary rioters threatening the National Convention (refer to French Revolutionary Wars).
• 1824 – Mexico adopts a new constitution and becomes a federal republic.
• 1830 – The Belgian Revolution takes legal form when the provisional government secedes from the Netherlands.
• 1853 – The Crimean War begins when the Ottoman Empire declares war on the Russian Empire.
• 1917 – World War I: The Battle of Broodseinde is fought between the British and German armies in Flanders.
• 1918 – World War I: An explosion kills more than 100 people and destroys a Shell Loading Plant in New Jersey.
• 1925 – Great Syrian Revolt: Rebels led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji captured Hama from the French Mandate of Syria.
• 1925 – S2, a Finnish Sokol class torpedo boat, sinks during a fierce storm near the coast of Pori in the Gulf of Bothnia, taking with it the whole crew of 53.
• 1936 – The Metropolitan Police and various anti-fascist organisations violently clash in the Battle of Cable Street.
• 1957 – Sputnik 1 becomes the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.
• 1966 – Basutoland becomes independent from the United Kingdom and is renamed Lesotho.
• 1992 – The Rome General Peace Accords end a 16-year civil war in Mozambique.
• 1993 – Battle of Mogadishu occurs killing 18 US Special Forces, two UN Peacekeepers and at least 600 Somalian militia men and civilians.
• 1993 – Tanks bombard the Russian parliament, while demonstrators against President Yeltsin rally outside.
• 2001 – Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 crashes after being struck by an errant Ukrainian missile.
  • Seventy-eight people are killed.
• 2017 – Joint Nigerian-American Special Forces are ambushed by Islamic State militants outside the village of Tongo Tongo.
• Day of Peace and Reconciliation (Mozambique).
• Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Lesotho from the United Kingdom in 1966.

People (Births)

• 1694 – Lord George Murray, Scottish Jacobite General (d. 1760).
• 1768 – Francisco José de Caldas, Colombian naturalist, executed by royalists in the war of independence (d. 1816).
• 1822 – Rutherford B. Hayes, American general, lawyer, and politician, 19th President of the United States (d. 1893).
• 1881 – Walther von Brauchitsch, German field marshal (d. 1948).
• 1892 – Engelbert Dollfuss, Austrian soldier and politician, 14th Federal Chancellor of Austria (d. 1934).
• 1896 – Dorothy Lawrence, English reporter, who secretly posed as a man to become a soldier during World War I (d. 1964).
• 1903 – Pierre Garbay, French general (d. 1980).
• 1924 – Donald J. Sobol, American soldier and author (d. 2012).
• 1942 – Karl W. Richter, American lieutenant and pilot (d. 1967).
• 1946 – Chuck Hagel, American sergeant and politician, 24th United States Secretary of Defence.
• 1946 – Michael Mullen, American admiral.
• 1952 – Anita DeFrantz, American rower and sports administrator.
• 1960 – Henry Worsley, English colonel and explorer (d. 2016).
• 1964 – Yvonne Murray, Scottish runner.
• 1967 – Nick Green, Australian rower.
• 1984 – Karolina Tymińska, Polish heptathlete.
• 1990 – Sergey Shubenkov, Russian hurdler.

People (Deaths)

• 1189 – Gerard de Ridefort, Grand Master of the Knights Templar.
• 1743 – John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, Scottish commander and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Surrey (b. 1678).
• 1749 – Baron Franz von der Trenck, Austrian soldier (b. 1711).
• 1851 – Manuel Godoy, Spanish general and politician, Prime Minister of Spain (b. 1767).
• 1943 – Irena Iłłakowicz, German-Polish lieutenant (b. 1906).
• 1955 – Alexander Papagos, Greek general and politician, 152nd Prime Minister of Greece (b. 1883).
• 1997 – Otto Ernst Remer, German general (b. 1912).
• 2004 – Gordon Cooper, American colonel, engineer, and astronaut (b. 1927).
• 2007 – Qassem Al-Nasser, Jordanian general (b. 1925).
• 2009 – Günther Rall, German general and pilot (b. 1918).
• 2013 – John Cloudsley-Thompson, Pakistani-English commander (b. 1921).
• 2013 – Võ Nguyên Giáp, Vietnamese general and politician, 3rd Minister of Defence for Vietnam (b. 1911).
• 2013 – Nicholas Oresko, American sergeant, Medal of Honour recipient (b. 1917).