Events

• 1147 – Seljuk Turks defeat German crusaders under Conrad III at the Battle of Dorylaeum.
• 1147 – Reconquista: After a siege of four months, crusader knights reconquer Lisbon.
• 1415 – Hundred Years’ War: Henry V of England, with his lightly armoured infantry and archers, defeats the heavily armoured French cavalry in the Battle of Agincourt.
• 1616 – Dutch sea-captain Dirk Hartog makes the second recorded landfall by a European on Australian soil, at the later-named Dirk Hartog Island off the West Australian coast.
• 1747 – War of the Austrian Succession: A British fleet under Admiral Edward Hawke defeats the French at the Second Battle of Cape Finisterre.
• 1812 – War of 1812: The American frigate, USS United States, commanded by Stephen Decatur, captures the British frigate HMS Macedonian.
• 1822 – Greek War of Independence: The First Siege of Missolonghi begins.
• 1854 – The Battle of Balaclava takes place during the Crimean War.
  • It is soon memorialised in verse as The Charge of the Light Brigade.
• 1900 – The United Kingdom annexes the Transvaal.
• 1911 – The Xinhai Revolution spreads to Guangzhou, where the Qing general Feng-shan is assassinated by the Chinese Assassination Corps.
• 1917 – Old Style date of the October Revolution in Russia.
• 1940 – Benjamin O. Davis Sr. is named the first African American general in the United States Army.
• 1944 – World War II: Heinrich Himmler orders a crackdown on the Edelweiss Pirates, a loosely organised youth culture in Nazi Germany that had assisted army deserters and others to hide from the Third Reich.
• 1944 – World War II: The USS Tang under Richard O’Kane (the top American submarine ace of the war) is sunk by the ship’s own malfunctioning torpedo.
• 1944 – World War II: The final attempt of the Imperial Japanese Navy to win the war climaxes at the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
• 1945 – Fifty years of Japanese administration of Taiwan formally ends when the Republic of China assumes control.
• 1949 – The Battle of Guningtou in the Taiwan Strait begins.
• 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: Adlai Stevenson shows the United Nations Security Council reconnaissance photographs of Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba.
• 1971 – The People’s Republic of China replaces the Republic of China at the United Nations.
• 1973 – Egypt and Israel accept United Nations Security Council Resolution 339.
• 1983 – The United States and its Caribbean allies invade Grenada, six days after Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and several of his supporters are executed in a coup d’état.
• 1997 – After a civil war, Denis Sassou Nguesso proclaims himself President of the Republic of the Congo.
• Armed Forces Day (Romania).

People (Births)

• 1612 – James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, Scottish soldier (d. 1650).
• 1755 – François Joseph Lefebvre, French military commander (d. 1820).
• 1772 – Géraud Duroc, French general and diplomat (d. 1813).
• 1779 – Pedro Velarde y Santillán, Spanish artillery captain (d. 1808).
• 1789 – Carlos María de Alvear, Argentine soldier and statesman (d. 1852).
• 1800 – Thomas Babington Macaulay, English poet, historian, and politician, Secretary at War (d. 1859).
• 1867 – Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki, Polish general (d. 1937).
• 1874 – Huang Xing, Chinese revolutionary leader and statesman (d. 1916).
• 1883 – Nikolay Krestinsky, Russian revolutionary and politician (d. 1938).
• 1888 – Richard E. Byrd, American admiral and pilot (d. 1957).
• 1895 – Levi Eshkol, Ukrainian-Israeli soldier and politician, 3rd Prime Minister of Israel (d. 1969).
• 1895 – Arthur Schmidt, German officer (d. 1987).
• 1897 – Erwin von Lahousen, German Abwehr official (d. 1955).
• 1900 – William Stevenson, American track and fielder (d. 1985).
• 1903 – Piet van der Horst, Dutch cyclist (d. 1983).
• 1908 – Gotthard Handrick, German fighter pilot and Olympic athlete (d. 1978).
• 1913 – Klaus Barbie, German SS captain (d. 1991).
• 1919 – Beate Uhse-Rotermund, German pilot and entrepreneur (d. 2001).
• 1919 – Raoul Remy, French cyclist (d. 2002).
• 1929 – Claude Rouer, French cyclist (d. 2021).
• 1935 – Rusty Schweickart, American soldier, pilot, and astronaut.
• 1937 – Vendramino Bariviera, Italian cyclist (d. 2001).
• 1948 – Sigleif Johansen, Norwegian biathlete.
• 1952 – Samir Geagea, Lebanese commander and politician.
• 1958 – Kornelia Ender, East German swimmer.
• 1970 – Peter Aerts, Dutch kick-boxer and mixed martial artist.
• 1972 – Rodolfo Falcón, Cuban swimmer.
• 1978 – Markus Pöyhönen, Finnish sprinter.
• 1985 – Kara Lynn Joyce, American swimmer.
• 1986 – Ekaterina Shumilova, Russian biathlete.
• 1990 – Mattia Cattaneo, Italian cyclist.
• 1990 – Asha Philip, British sprinter.
• 1992 – Davide Formolo, Italian cyclist.
• 1994 – Matteo Lodo, Italian rower.

People (Deaths)

• 1230 – Gilbert de Clare, 5th Earl of Gloucester, English soldier (b. 1180).
• 1415 – Michael de la Pole, 3rd Earl of Suffolk, English soldier (b. 1394).
• 1806 – Henry Knox, American general and politician, 2nd United States Secretary of War (b. 1750).
• 1941 – Franz von Werra, Swiss-German captain and pilot (b. 1914).
• 1971 – Mikhail Yangel, Soviet missile designer (b. 1911).
• 1973 – Abebe Bikila, Ethiopian runner (b. 1932).
• 1979 – Gerald Templer, English field marshal and politician, British High Commissioner in Malaya (b. 1898).
• 1994 – Kara Hultgreen, American lieutenant and pilot (b. 1965).
• 2000 – Mochitsura Hashimoto, Japanese commander (b. 1909).
• 2013 – Nicholas Hunt, Welsh-English admiral (b. 1930).
• 2016 – Bob Hoover, USAF, Test, and Airshow pilot (b. 1922).