2005 – Hurricane Katrina devastates much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing more than 1,836 and causing over $115 billion in damage
0708 – Copper coins are minted in Japan for the first time
1189 – Ban Kulin wrote The Charter of Kulin, which became a symbolic “”birth certificate”” of Bosnian statehood
1350 – Battle of Winchelsea (or Les Espagnols sur Mer): The English naval fleet under King Edward III defeats a Castilian fleet of 40 ships.
1475 – The Treaty of Picquigny ends a brief war between France and England.
1526 – Battle of Mohcs: The Ottoman Turks led by Suleiman the Magnificent defeat and kill the last Jagiellonian king of Hungary and Bohemia
1533 – Atahualpa, the last Incan king of Peru, is murdered at the request of Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro.
1655 – Warsaw falls without resistance to a small force under the command of Charles X Gustav of Sweden during The Deluge.
1696 – King Louis XIV of France and Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy sign Peace of Turin, a turning point in the War of the League of Augsburg
1708 – Haverhill, Mass destroyed by French & Indians
1756 – Prussian Emperor Frederick II attacks Saxony; beginning of the Seven Years War that will see the English capture Canada
1758 – New Jersey Legislature forms 1st Indian reservation
1786 – Shays’ Rebellion, an armed uprising of Massachusetts farmers, begins in response to high debt and tax burdens
1810 – Over 600 prostitutes counted in Lower Canada
1831 – Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction
1833 – The “Factory Act” was passed in England to settle child labor laws.
1842 – The Treaty of Nanking was signed by the British and the Chinese. The treaty ended the first Opium War and gave the island of Hong Kong to Britain.
1864 – William Huggins discovers chemical composition of nebulae
1882 – English cricketers lose to Australia on English soil for the first time , a mock obituary in the Sporting Times then declares the death of English cricket, saying its ashes will be taken to Australia, the origin of the “”Ashes”” trophy
1886 – In New York City, Chinese Ambassador Li Hung-chang’s chef invented chop suey.
1903 – The Finance Minister, Count Witte, is dismissed in what is seen as a victory for those in Russia who want their country to expand into Manchuria and Korea in defiance of the Japanese
1907 – The Quebec Bridge collapses during construction, killing 75 workers
1910 – Japan changes Korea’s name to Chsen and appoints a governor-general to rule its new colony.
1911 – Ishi, considered the last Native American to make contact with European Americans, emerges from the wilderness of northeastern California.
1916 – Congress creates US Naval Reserve
1917 – Canadian Parliament passes the Compulsory Military Act which is opposed by many French-Canadians from Québec and farmers across the country
1924 – Germany’s Reichstag approves the Dawes Plan, which sought to solve the WWI reparations problem
1930 – The last 36 remaining inhabitants of St Kilda are voluntarily evacuated to other parts of Scotland.
1939 – Chaim Weizmann informs England that Palestine Jews will fight in WW II
1942 – American Jewish conference meets in New York to discuss agenda of Jewish Unity (Rescue vs. Zionist program).
1944 – During the continuing celebration of the liberation of France from the Nazis, 15,000 American troops marched down the Champs Elysees in Paris.
1945 – U.S. General Douglas MacArthur left for Japan to officially accept the surrender of the Japanese.
1949 – At the University of Illinois, a nuclear device was used for the first time to treat cancer patients.
1956 – French government routes troops to Cyprus near Suez crisis
1958 – United States Air Force Academy opens in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
1962 – The lower level of the George Washington Bridge opened.
1965 – Gemini 5, carrying astronauts Gordon Cooper and Charles (“Pete”) Conrad, splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean after eight days in space.
1970 – Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War, East Los Angeles, California. Police riot kills three people, including journalist Ruben Salazar.
1975 – Star in Cygnus goes nova becoming 4th brightest in sky
1982 – The synthetic chemical element Meitnerium, atomic number 109, is first synthesized at the Gesellschaft fr Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, Germany.
1983 – Two U.S. marines were killed in Lebanon by the militia group Amal when they fired mortar shells at the Beirut airport.
1983 – The anchor of the USS Monitor, from the U.S. Civil War, was retrieved by divers.
1990 – Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in a television interview, declared that America could not defeat Iraq.
1991 – The Communist Party in the Soviet Union had its bank accounts frozen and activities were suspended because of the Party’s role in the failed coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev.
1991 – The republics of Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement to stay in the Soviet Union.
1992 – The U.N. Security Council agreed to send troops to Somalia to guard the shipments of food.
1997 – At least 98 villagers are killed by the GIA in the Rais massacre, Algeria
1998 – Northwest Airlines pilots went on strike after their union rejected a last-minute company offer.
2003 – Ayatollah Sayed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the Shia Muslim leader in Iraq, is assassinated in a terrorist bombing, along with nearly 100 worshippers as they leave a mosque in Najaf.
2004 – India test-launched a nuclear-capable missle able to carry a one-ton warhead. The weapon had a range of 1,560 miles.
2005 – Hurricane Katrina devastates much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing more than 1,836 and causing over $115 billion in damage
2007 – A United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident takes place at Minot Air Force Base and Barksdale Air Force Base.
2012 – Banana Spider venom is found to be effective in relieving erectile dysfunction
2012 – Operation Eagle, undertaken by the Egyptian Army, results in the deaths of 11 suspected terrorists and the arrest of another 23
2014 – Riots break out in Guinea following rumours that health workers are deliberately transmitting the Ebola virus to locals
2018 – Germany hands back human remains of Namibian Herero and Nama people murdered during 1904-08 genocide at church service in Berlin
2018 – Russian President Vladimir Putin announces new retirement ages, 60 for women, 65 for men in TV address, amid protests
2019 – Discovery of world’s largest child sacrifice site announced by archaeologists with 227 victims from Chimú culture in Huanchaco, Peru
2020 – Elon Musk unveils pig named Gertrude with coin-sized computer in her brain, part of his Nuralink start-up creating a brain-to-machine interface
2021 – Missile and drone attack on al-Anad airbase in south Yemen kills at least 30 soldiers, one of the deadliest attacks in recent years
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
