2011 – Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched for the last time
1099 – First Crusade: 15,000 starving Christian soldiers march in religious procession around Jerusalem as its Muslim defenders look on
1497 – Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama departs on his first voyage, will become the 1st European to reach India by sea
1663 – King Charles II of England granted a charter to Rhode Island.
1693 – Uniforms for police in New York City were authorized.
1709 – Peter the Great defeated Charles XII at Poltava, in the Ukraine, The Swedish empire was effectively ended.
1741 – Theologian Jonathan Edwards preaches perhaps the most famous of all American sermons “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” at Enfield, Connecticut, part of the Great Awakening
1755 – Britain broke off diplomatic relations with France as their disputes in the New World intensified.
1776 – Col. John Nixon gave the first public reading of the U.S. Declaration of Independence to a crowd at Independence Square in Philadelphia.
1777 – Vermont abolishes slavery
1795 – Kent County Free School changed its name to Washington College. It was the first college to be named after U.S. President George Washington. The school was established by an act of the Maryland Assembly in 1723.
1796 – US State Department issues 1st US passport
1800 – Dr Benjamin Waterhouse gives 1st cowpox vaccination in the US to his son to prevent smallpox
1853 – Commodore Matthew C. Perry sails his frigate Susquehanna into Tokyo Bay, opening Japan to Western influence and trade
1865 – C.E. Barnes patented the machine gun.
1870 – US Congress authorizes registration of trademarks
1870 – Governor Holden of North Carolina declares Casswell County to be in a state of insurrection
1881 – Edward Berner, druggist in Two Rivers, WI, poured chocolate syrup on ice cream in a dish. To this time chocolate syrup had only been used for making ice-cream sodas.
1889 – The Wall Street Journal was first published.
1889 – John L. Sullivan defeated Jake Kilrain, in the last championship bare-knuckle fight. The fight lasted 75 rounds.
1898 – The shooting death of crime boss Soapy Smith releases Skagway, Alaska from his iron grip
1908 – Uprisings spread throughout Turkey
1913 – Alfred Carlton Gilbert’s patent for the Erector Set is issued, it becomes one of the most popular toys of all time
1932 – Depression low point of Dow Jones Industrial Average, 41.22
1941 – All Jews living in Baltic States are obligated to wear a Jewish Star
1947 – Demolition work began in New York City for the new permanent headquarters of the United Nations.
1949 – South Africa’s Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act commences, prohibiting marriage or a sexual relationship between White people and people of other races
1950 – General Douglas MacArthur was named commander-in-chief of United Nations forces in Korea.
1953 – Notre Dame announced that the next five years of its football games would be shown in theatres over closed circuit TV.
1963 – All Cuban-owned assets in the United States were frozen.
1966 – US airline strike (until Aug 19th)
1969 – US troop withdrawal begins in Vietnam
1971 – During street disturbances, British soldiers shoot dead two Catholic civilians in Free Derry; riots erupt, the Social Democratic and Labour Party withdraw from Stormont in protest
1975 – Quake damages over 2,000 temples in Pagan Burma, 20-foot-high seated Buddha of Thandawgya decapitated
1979 – Voyager 2 takes 1st ever photo of Jupiter’s satellite Adrastea
1981 – Senate confirms Sandra Day O’Conner to Supreme Court (99-0)
1994 – Kim Jong-il takes office as the Supreme Leader of North Korea
1997 – The Mayo Clinic and the U.S. government warned that the diet-drug combination known as “fen-phen” could cause serious heart and lung damage.
1997 – NATO invited Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to join the alliance in 1999.
1999 – Allen Lee Davis is executed by electrocution by the state of Florida, the last use of the electric chair for capital punishment in Florida
2008 – American businessman T. Boone Pickens announces his “Pickens Plan”, an energy policy that moves away from imported oil
2010 – The Solar Impulse completed the first 24-hour flight by a solar powered plane.
2011 – Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched for the last time
2012 – Tens of thousands protest over election corruption in Mexico City after Enrique Peña Nieto’s win in the country’s presidential election
2013 – 42 people killed, hundreds injured after the Egyptian army raids a sit-in protest in Cairo
2018 – Eritrea and Ethiopia announce re-establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries after almost 20 years in Asmara, Eritrea
2020 – US government issues directive that more than 1 million international students will be stripped of their visas if their courses entirely online
2021 – US President Joe Biden says US troops will withdraw from Afghanistan by August 31, despite increased Taliban gains across the country
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
