Events
48 BC - Battle of Dyrrhachium, Julius Caesar barely avoids a catastrophic defeat to Pompey in Macedon.
988 - The city of Dublin is founded on the banks of the river Liffey.
1212 - The most severe of several early fires of London burns most of the city to the ground.
1460 - Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick defeats the king's Lancastrian forces and takes King Henry VI prisoner in the Battle of Northampton.
1553 - Lady Jane Grey takes the throne of England.
1584 - William I of Orange is assassinated in his home in Delft, Holland by Balthasar Gérard.
1645 - English Civil War: The Battle of Langport takes place.
1778 - American Revolution: Louis XVI of France declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain.
1789 - Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Mackenzie River delta.
1796 - Carl Friedrich Gauss discovers that every positive integer is representable as a sum of at most three triangular numbers.
1800 - The British Indian Government establishes the Fort William College to promote Urdu, Hindi and other vernaculars of sub continent.
1806 - The Vellore Mutiny is the first instance of a mutiny by Indian sepoys against the British East India Company.
1821 - The United States takes possession of its newly-bought territory of Florida from Spain.
1832 - U.S.President Andrew Jackson vetoes a bill that would re-charter the Second Bank of the United States.
1850 - Millard Fillmore is inaugurated as the 13th President of the United States upon the death of President Zachary Taylor, 16 months into his term.
1877 - The then villa of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico formally receives its city charter from the Royal Crown of Spain.
1890 - Wyoming is admitted as the 44th U.S. state.
1913 - Death Valley, California hits 134 °F (~56.7 °C), which is the highest temperature recorded in the United States.
1925 - The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS), the official news agency of the Soviet Union, is established.
1925 - Meher Baba begins his silence of 44 years. His followers still observe Silence Day on this date in commemoration.
1925 - Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called "Monkey Trial" begins with John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher, is accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.
1938 - Howard Hughes sets a new record by completing a 91 hour airplane flight around the world.
1940 - World War II: Vichy France government is established.
1940 - World War II: Battle of Britain - The German Luftwaffe begin to hit British convoys in the English Channel thus starting the battle (this start date is contested, though).
1941 - Jedwabne Pogrom is a massacre of Jewish people living in and near the village of Jedwabne in Poland.
1942 - The diplomatic relations between the Netherlands and the Soviet Union are established.
1943 - World War II: The launching of Operation Husky begins the Italian Campaign.
1947 - Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah is recommended as the first Governor General of Pakistan by then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Clement Attlee.
1951 - Korean War: At Kaesong, armistice negotiations begin.
1958 - Alaska, highest tsunami wave ever recorded at Lituya Bay, at 524 m high.
1962 - Telstar, the world's first communications satellite, is launched into orbit.
1967 - Uruguay becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
1968 - Maurice Couve de Murville becomes Prime Minister of France.
1973 - The Bahamas gain full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations.
1973 - National Assembly of Pakistan passes a resolution on Bangladesh recognition.
1976 - The Seveso disaster occurs in Italy.
1976 - One American and three British mercenaries are executed in Angola following the Luanda Trial.
1978 - World News Tonight premieres on ABC.
1978 - Mauritania, President Moktar Ould Daddah is ousted in a bloodless coup d'état.
1985 - Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior is bombed and sunk in Auckland, New Zealand Harbor by French DGSE agents.
1991 - Boris Yeltsin begins his 5-year term as the first elected President of Russia.
1991 - The South African cricket team is readmitted into the International Cricket Council (ICC) following the end of Apartheid.
1992 - In Miami, Florida, former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega is sentenced to 40 years in prison for drug and racketeering violations.
1997 - London, scientists report their DNA analysis findings from a Neandertal skeleton which support the out of Africa theory of human evolution placing an "African Eve" at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
1997 - Spain, Partido Popular member Miguel Ángel Blanco is kidnapped in the Basque city of Ermua by ETA members, sparking widespread protests.
1998 - Roman Catholic sex abuse cases: The Diocese of Dallas agrees to pay $23.4 million to nine former altar boys who claimed they were sexually abused by former priest Rudolph Kos.
1999 - The United States women's national soccer team team wins the FIFA Women's World Cup in Pasadena, California at The Rose Bowl.
2000 - A leaking southern Nigerian petroleum pipeline explodes, killing about 250 villagers scavenging gasoline.
2000 - EADS, the world's second largest aerospace group is formed by the merger of Aérospatiale-Matra, DASA, and CASA.
2002 - At a Sotheby's auction, Peter Paul Rubens' painting The Massacre of the Innocents is sold for £49.5million (US$76.2 million) to Kenneth, Lord Thomson.
2003 - A Neoplan bus, owned by Kowloon Motor Bus, collides with a truck, falls off a bridge on Tuen Mun Road, Hong Kong, and plunges into the underlying valley, killing 21 people. This is the deadliest traffic accident to date in Hong Kong.
2005 - Hurricane Dennis slams into the Florida Panhandle causing billions of dollars in damage.
2006 - Pakistan International Flight PK-688 crashes in Multan, Pakistan shortly after takeoff, killing all 45 people on board.
Births
1970 - Helen Sjöholm, Swedish singer and actress
1970 - Gary LeVox, American singer (Rascal Flatts)
1970 - Jason Orange, UK pop singer and dancer (Take That)
1970 - John Simm, British actor
1971 - Adam Foote, Canadian ice hockey player
1971 - Gregory Goodridge, Barbadian footballer
1972 - Peter Serafinowicz, British comedian and actor
1972 - Sofia Vergara, Colombian actress
1972 - Tilo Wolff, German musician (Lacrimosa)
1974 - Chiwetel Ejiofor, English actor
1975 - Alain Nasreddine, Canadian ice hockey player
1975 - Stefán Karl Stefánsson, Icelandic actor
1976 - Elijah Blue Allman, American musician (Deadsy)
1976 - Adrian Grenier, American actor
1976 - Ludovic Giuly, French footballer
1976 - Brendon Lade, Australian rules footballer
1976 - Edmílson Gomes, Brazilian footballer
1977 - Gwendoline Yeo, American actress
1978 - Jesse Lacey, American musician (Brand New)
1979 - Mvondo Atangana, Cameroon footballer
1980 - Thomas Ian Nicholas, American actor
1980 - Alejandro Millán, Mexican singer and songwriter
1980 - Adam Petty, American race car driver (d. 2000)
1980 - Jessica Simpson, American singer
1980 - Orlando Jordan, American wrestler
1982 - Alex Arrowsmith, American musician
1983 - Kim Heechul, Korean Singer
1982 - Sebastian Mila, Polish footballer
1984 - Maria Julia Mantilla Garcia, Miss World 2004
1985 - Mario Gómez, German footballer
Deaths
1970 - Bjarni Benediktsson, Icelandic foreign and later prime minister (b. 1908)
1972 - Lovie Austin, American jazz pianist (b. 1887)
1978 - John D Rockefeller III, American businessman (b. 1906)
1978 - Joe Davis, English snooker player (b. 1901)
1979 - Arthur Fiedler, American conductor (b. 1894)
1981 - Ken Rex McElroy, American hog rustler (b. 1936)
1987 - John H. Hammond, American record producer (b. 1910)
1989 - Mel Blanc, American voice actor (b. 1908)
1993 - Sam Rolfe, American screenwriter (b. 1924)
2000 - Vakkom Majeed, Indian Freedom fighter, Travancore-Cochin Legislative member (b. 1909)
2000 - Justin Pierce, English-American actor and skateboarder (b. 1975)
2002 - Jean-Pierre Côté, French Canadian politician and Lieutenant Governor of Quebec (b. 1926)
2003 - Winston Graham, English writer (b. 1908)
2003 - Hartley Shawcross, British prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials (b. 1902)
2003 - Bishnu Maden, Nepalese politician
2005 - A.J. Quinnell, English writer (b. 1940)
2005 - Freda Wright-Sorce, American radio performer (b. 1955)
2005 - Freddy Soto, American comedian and actor (b. 1970)
2005- Jimmy Franklin and Bobby Younkin, airshow performers
2006 - Shamil Basayev, Chechen rebel (b. 1965)
2007 - Abdul Rashid Ghazi, radical Pakistani cleric (b. 1951)
2007 - Doug Marlette, American cartoonist (b. 1949)
48 BC - Battle of Dyrrhachium, Julius Caesar barely avoids a catastrophic defeat to Pompey in Macedon.
988 - The city of Dublin is founded on the banks of the river Liffey.
1212 - The most severe of several early fires of London burns most of the city to the ground.
1460 - Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick defeats the king's Lancastrian forces and takes King Henry VI prisoner in the Battle of Northampton.
1553 - Lady Jane Grey takes the throne of England.
1584 - William I of Orange is assassinated in his home in Delft, Holland by Balthasar Gérard.
1645 - English Civil War: The Battle of Langport takes place.
1778 - American Revolution: Louis XVI of France declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain.
1789 - Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Mackenzie River delta.
1796 - Carl Friedrich Gauss discovers that every positive integer is representable as a sum of at most three triangular numbers.
1800 - The British Indian Government establishes the Fort William College to promote Urdu, Hindi and other vernaculars of sub continent.
1806 - The Vellore Mutiny is the first instance of a mutiny by Indian sepoys against the British East India Company.
1821 - The United States takes possession of its newly-bought territory of Florida from Spain.
1832 - U.S.President Andrew Jackson vetoes a bill that would re-charter the Second Bank of the United States.
1850 - Millard Fillmore is inaugurated as the 13th President of the United States upon the death of President Zachary Taylor, 16 months into his term.
1877 - The then villa of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico formally receives its city charter from the Royal Crown of Spain.
1890 - Wyoming is admitted as the 44th U.S. state.
1913 - Death Valley, California hits 134 °F (~56.7 °C), which is the highest temperature recorded in the United States.
1925 - The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS), the official news agency of the Soviet Union, is established.
1925 - Meher Baba begins his silence of 44 years. His followers still observe Silence Day on this date in commemoration.
1925 - Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called "Monkey Trial" begins with John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher, is accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.
1938 - Howard Hughes sets a new record by completing a 91 hour airplane flight around the world.
1940 - World War II: Vichy France government is established.
1940 - World War II: Battle of Britain - The German Luftwaffe begin to hit British convoys in the English Channel thus starting the battle (this start date is contested, though).
1941 - Jedwabne Pogrom is a massacre of Jewish people living in and near the village of Jedwabne in Poland.
1942 - The diplomatic relations between the Netherlands and the Soviet Union are established.
1943 - World War II: The launching of Operation Husky begins the Italian Campaign.
1947 - Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah is recommended as the first Governor General of Pakistan by then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Clement Attlee.
1951 - Korean War: At Kaesong, armistice negotiations begin.
1958 - Alaska, highest tsunami wave ever recorded at Lituya Bay, at 524 m high.
1962 - Telstar, the world's first communications satellite, is launched into orbit.
1967 - Uruguay becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
1968 - Maurice Couve de Murville becomes Prime Minister of France.
1973 - The Bahamas gain full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations.
1973 - National Assembly of Pakistan passes a resolution on Bangladesh recognition.
1976 - The Seveso disaster occurs in Italy.
1976 - One American and three British mercenaries are executed in Angola following the Luanda Trial.
1978 - World News Tonight premieres on ABC.
1978 - Mauritania, President Moktar Ould Daddah is ousted in a bloodless coup d'état.
1985 - Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior is bombed and sunk in Auckland, New Zealand Harbor by French DGSE agents.
1991 - Boris Yeltsin begins his 5-year term as the first elected President of Russia.
1991 - The South African cricket team is readmitted into the International Cricket Council (ICC) following the end of Apartheid.
1992 - In Miami, Florida, former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega is sentenced to 40 years in prison for drug and racketeering violations.
1997 - London, scientists report their DNA analysis findings from a Neandertal skeleton which support the out of Africa theory of human evolution placing an "African Eve" at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
1997 - Spain, Partido Popular member Miguel Ángel Blanco is kidnapped in the Basque city of Ermua by ETA members, sparking widespread protests.
1998 - Roman Catholic sex abuse cases: The Diocese of Dallas agrees to pay $23.4 million to nine former altar boys who claimed they were sexually abused by former priest Rudolph Kos.
1999 - The United States women's national soccer team team wins the FIFA Women's World Cup in Pasadena, California at The Rose Bowl.
2000 - A leaking southern Nigerian petroleum pipeline explodes, killing about 250 villagers scavenging gasoline.
2000 - EADS, the world's second largest aerospace group is formed by the merger of Aérospatiale-Matra, DASA, and CASA.
2002 - At a Sotheby's auction, Peter Paul Rubens' painting The Massacre of the Innocents is sold for £49.5million (US$76.2 million) to Kenneth, Lord Thomson.
2003 - A Neoplan bus, owned by Kowloon Motor Bus, collides with a truck, falls off a bridge on Tuen Mun Road, Hong Kong, and plunges into the underlying valley, killing 21 people. This is the deadliest traffic accident to date in Hong Kong.
2005 - Hurricane Dennis slams into the Florida Panhandle causing billions of dollars in damage.
2006 - Pakistan International Flight PK-688 crashes in Multan, Pakistan shortly after takeoff, killing all 45 people on board.
Births
1970 - Helen Sjöholm, Swedish singer and actress
1970 - Gary LeVox, American singer (Rascal Flatts)
1970 - Jason Orange, UK pop singer and dancer (Take That)
1970 - John Simm, British actor
1971 - Adam Foote, Canadian ice hockey player
1971 - Gregory Goodridge, Barbadian footballer
1972 - Peter Serafinowicz, British comedian and actor
1972 - Sofia Vergara, Colombian actress
1972 - Tilo Wolff, German musician (Lacrimosa)
1974 - Chiwetel Ejiofor, English actor
1975 - Alain Nasreddine, Canadian ice hockey player
1975 - Stefán Karl Stefánsson, Icelandic actor
1976 - Elijah Blue Allman, American musician (Deadsy)
1976 - Adrian Grenier, American actor
1976 - Ludovic Giuly, French footballer
1976 - Brendon Lade, Australian rules footballer
1976 - Edmílson Gomes, Brazilian footballer
1977 - Gwendoline Yeo, American actress
1978 - Jesse Lacey, American musician (Brand New)
1979 - Mvondo Atangana, Cameroon footballer
1980 - Thomas Ian Nicholas, American actor
1980 - Alejandro Millán, Mexican singer and songwriter
1980 - Adam Petty, American race car driver (d. 2000)
1980 - Jessica Simpson, American singer
1980 - Orlando Jordan, American wrestler
1982 - Alex Arrowsmith, American musician
1983 - Kim Heechul, Korean Singer
1982 - Sebastian Mila, Polish footballer
1984 - Maria Julia Mantilla Garcia, Miss World 2004
1985 - Mario Gómez, German footballer
Deaths
1970 - Bjarni Benediktsson, Icelandic foreign and later prime minister (b. 1908)
1972 - Lovie Austin, American jazz pianist (b. 1887)
1978 - John D Rockefeller III, American businessman (b. 1906)
1978 - Joe Davis, English snooker player (b. 1901)
1979 - Arthur Fiedler, American conductor (b. 1894)
1981 - Ken Rex McElroy, American hog rustler (b. 1936)
1987 - John H. Hammond, American record producer (b. 1910)
1989 - Mel Blanc, American voice actor (b. 1908)
1993 - Sam Rolfe, American screenwriter (b. 1924)
2000 - Vakkom Majeed, Indian Freedom fighter, Travancore-Cochin Legislative member (b. 1909)
2000 - Justin Pierce, English-American actor and skateboarder (b. 1975)
2002 - Jean-Pierre Côté, French Canadian politician and Lieutenant Governor of Quebec (b. 1926)
2003 - Winston Graham, English writer (b. 1908)
2003 - Hartley Shawcross, British prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials (b. 1902)
2003 - Bishnu Maden, Nepalese politician
2005 - A.J. Quinnell, English writer (b. 1940)
2005 - Freda Wright-Sorce, American radio performer (b. 1955)
2005 - Freddy Soto, American comedian and actor (b. 1970)
2005- Jimmy Franklin and Bobby Younkin, airshow performers
2006 - Shamil Basayev, Chechen rebel (b. 1965)
2007 - Abdul Rashid Ghazi, radical Pakistani cleric (b. 1951)
2007 - Doug Marlette, American cartoonist (b. 1949)
