2011 – Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi is overthrown after the National Transitional Council forces take control of Bab al-Azizia compound during the 2011 Libyan Civil War.
79 – Mount Vesuvius begins stirring, on feast day of Vulcan, Roman god of fire (goes on to destroy Pompeii) [approx date]
406 – Battle at Florence: Stilicho’s Roman army beats Radagaisus’ Barbarians
1305 – Scottish leader and national hero, William Wallace, was executed in London
1500 – Governor Francisco De Bobadilla arrives in the Indies, soon after arrests and sends former Governor Christopher Columbus back to Spain in chains
1784 – Eastern Tennessee settlers declare their area an independent state & name it Franklin; a year later the Continental Congress rejects it
1793 – French Revolution: The National Convention adopts the levée en masse, conscripting all able-bodied men between 18 and 25 for military service during the French Revolutionary Wars
1799 – Napoleon leaves Egypt for France en route to seize power.
1838 – The first class graduated from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, MA. It was one of the first colleges for women.
1839 – Hong Kong was taken by the British in a war with China.
1869 – 1st carload of rail freight (boots & shoes) arrives in San Francisco, from Boston after a 16-day trip
1872 – 1st Japanese commercial ship visits San Francisco, carrying tea
1902 – Fannie Merrit Farmer opened her cooking school, Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery, in Boston, MA.
1914 – Tsingtao, China, was bombarded as Japan declared war on Germany in World War I.
1917 – Race riot in Houston Texas (2 blacks & 11 whites killed)
1921 – Austria and the US formally end war; the US does the same with Germany on the 25th, and Hungary on the 29th
1927 – Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed for the murders of two men during a 1920 robbery, despite worldwide protests.
1929 – Arabs attack Jews in Israel
1939 – Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agree the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact and secretly divide Poland between themselves, setting the stage for World War II
1942 – Battle of Stalingrad: 600 Luftwaffe planes bomb Stalingrad (40,000 die)
1944 – During World War II, Romanian prime minister Ion Antonescue was dismissed. Soon after the country would abandon the Axis and join the Allies.
1952 – The security pact of the Arab League went into effect.
1961 – East Germany imposed new curbs on travel between West & East Berlin
1962 – The first live TV program was relayed between the U.S. and Europe through the U.S. Telstar satellite.
1966 – First Photograph of the Earth Taken From the Orbit of the Moon
1982 – The parliament of Lebanon elected Bashir Bemayel president. He was assassinated three weeks later.
1983 – The U.S. announced that it was nearly ready for a test flight of an anti-satellite missile.
1987 – 15-year old boy hijacks KLM B737, demands $1 billion
1987 – Robert Jarvik and Marilyn Mach vos Savant were married. The event was called the “Union of Great Minds” since Savant had an IQ of 228 and Jarvik was the inventor of the artificial heart.
1989 – The Baltic Way – two million people form a human chain across Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania in a peaceful pro-independence demonstration against Soviet occupation
1990 – President Saddam Hussein appeared on Iraqi state television with a group of Western detainees that he referred to as “guests.” He told the group that they were being held “to prevent the scourge of war.”
1990 – Armenia Declares Independence From the Soviet Union
1996 – Osama bin Laden issues message entitled “A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places”
1996 – U.S. President Clinton imposed limits on peddling cigarettes to children.
1998 – Protestors in Sudan carried a sign that bore the resemblance of Monica Lewinsky and the words “No War for Monika.” The anti-U.S. demonstration was in Khartoum, Sudan.
1999 – Robert Bogucki was rescued after getting lost in the Great Sandy Desert of Australia on July 11. During the 43 day ordeal Bogucki lost 44 pounds.
2005 – Hurricane Katrina forms over the Bahamas, later becoming a category 5 hurricane
2006 – Natascha Kampusch, who was abducted at the age of 10, managed to escape from her captor Wolfgang Priklopil, after 8 years of captivity.
2007 – Hashtag invented and first used in a tweet by US product designer Chris Messina
2010 – Manila hostage crisis, which occurred at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila, where a dismissed police officer took hostage a tour bus full of Chinese nationals.
2011 – Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi is overthrown after the National Transitional Council forces take control of Bab al-Azizia compound during the 2011 Libyan Civil War.
2013 – 50 people are killed in mosque bombings in Tripoli, Lebanon
2013 – 26 people are killed and 55 are injured by a suicide bombing in Baghdad, Iraq
2015 – Destruction by IS of the 1st century AD temple of Baalshamin in ancient ruins of Palmyra confirmed by Syrian officials
2020 – US black man Jacob Blake shot and injured by police in front of his children in Kenosha, Wisconsin, prompting violent protests
2021 – Video evidence of a Seychelles giant tortoise hunting and eating a bird revealed for the first time, tortoises previously thought to be herbivores
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
