End of the Western Roman Empire
476 Orestes, father of Emperor Romulus Augustulus is captured and executed by Odoacer and his followers
Hudson Explores Delaware Bay
1609 English explorer Henry Hudson is the first European to sail into Delaware Bay - names it South Bay
Emperor Ferdinand II
1619 Ferdinand II elected Holy Roman Emperor (rules till 1637)
Herschel Discovers Enceladus
1789 William Herschel discovers Saturn's moon Enceladus
Horse in Race Against a Train
1830 1st American built locomotive, "Tom Thumb" races a horse-drawn car from Stockton and Stokes stagecoach company from Baltimore to Ellicott Mills. Let history record that due to mechanical problems the horse won!
Britain Abolishes the Slave Trade
1833 Britain's Slavery Abolition Act gains royal assent
- 1837 Pharmacists John Lea & William Perrins manufacture Worcestershire Sauce
- 1840 Nine Jewish prisoners are released from Damascus jails
- 1845 Scientific American magazine publishes its first issue
- 1849 Venice under Daniele Manin surrenders to Austrians under Radetsky, having been under siege since July 20 after proclaiming independence
Lohengrin
1850 Richard Wagner's opera "Lohengrin" premieres at Weimar, Germany
- 1859 A geomagnetic storm causes the Aurora Borealis to shine so brightly that it is seen clearly over parts of USA, Europe, and even as far afield as Japan
- 1861 American Civil War: Battle of Fort Hatteras, North Carolina, 1st combined operation of Union Army and Navy results in Union domination of strategically important North Carolina Sounds
- 1862 Battle of Groveton, Virginia (Manassas Plains) [->AUG 19]
- 1862 Battle of Thoroughfare Gap, Virginia
- 1862 Belle Boyd released from Old Capital Prison in Washington, D.C.
- 1867 The United States formally takes control of Midway Atoll, years after it was sighted and claimed by Captain N.C. Brooks
1st Photograph of a Tornado
1884 First known photograph of a tornado is made near Howard, South Dakota
- 1884 MLB pitcher Mickey Welsh makes record for most consecutive batters struck out to begin a game, striking out the 1st 9 men he faces
- 1898 Caleb Bradham renames his carbonated soft drink "Pepsi-Cola".
- 1907 United Parcel Service is founded by James E. Casey in Seattle, Washington.
- 1910 Nicholas I of Montenegro again proclaims himself king (first assumed power 1860) after his reign interrupted by Turkish rule
- 1911 45.7 cm rainfall at St George, Georgia (state record)
Peace Palace Opens
1913 Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands opens the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, an international law administrative building housing the Permanent Court of Arbitration [1]
- 1914 World War I: Battle of Helgoland Bight (North Sea); British fleet decisively beats Germans, nearly 800 die, and over 200 wounded
Evacuation of Amiens
1914 World War I: British General John French orders civilian evacuation of Amiens, France as German forces push in from Belgium
Battle of Tannenberg
1914 World War I: Third day of Battle of Tannenberg, near Allenstein, East Prussia (present-day Poland); violent German vs. Russian battles
Suspension of Tris Speaker
1918 Tris Speaker suspended for season due to assault on umpire Tom Connolly
- 1920 American swimmer Norman Ross wins his 2nd of 3 gold medals at the Antwerp Olympics; beats teammate Ludwig Langer in the men's 400m freestyle; also wins 1,500m and 4 x 200m freestyle relay
World Record 300m
1920 Ethelda Bleibtrey leads an American medal sweep of the Antwerp Olympic women's 300m freestyle with a world record swim of 4:34.0
- 1921 2nd Pan-African Congress meets (London, Brussels & Paris)
- 1922 Albert von Tilzer & Neville Fleesons musical "The Gingham Girl" premieres in NYC
- 1922 WEAF in NYC airs 1st radio commercial (Queensboro Realty-$100 for 10 mins)
- 1924 Georgian opposition stages the August Uprising against the Soviet Union
- 1925 Meteorite falls on Ellemeet, Schouwen, Devil Island
- 1926 Indian Emil Levsen pitches complete doubleheader victory (Red Sox)
- 1929 English cricket all-rounder Frank Woolley scores 176 for Kent v Middlesex at Lord's; his 100th first-class hundred
- 1937 Toyota Motors becomes an independent company
- 1938 Mauthausen concentration camp opens in Austria
- 1938 Northwestern University awards honorary degree to dummy Charlie McCarthy
- 1938 On Connie Mack Day at Philadelphia's Shibe Park, the A's win a doubleheader
Monty Takes Command
1939 Gen Bernard Montgomery ("Monty") becomes commander of 3rd "Iron" Infantry division
- 1939 Journalist Care Hollingworth observes the “large numbers of troops, literally hundreds of tanks, armored cars and field guns” Germany had aligned along the Polish border. Three days later, Hitler invades Poland and WWII begins.
- 1939 Netherland mobilizes
- 1939 Sammy Fain and Jack Yellen's musical "George White's Scandals" premieres in NYC
- 1940 French colonies Cameroon and Congo-Brazzaville support Gen De Gaulle
- 1941 8th NFL Chicago All-Star Game: Chicago Bears 37, All-Stars 13 (98,203)
- 1941 Last meeting of resistance fighter Comte d'Estienne d'Orves
- 1942 9th NFL Chicago All-Star Game: Chicago Bears 21, All-Stars 0 (101,100)
- 1942 Gunther Hagg (Sweden) sets world record for 3,000m (8:01.2)
- 1942 Transport #25 departs with French Jews to nazi-Germany
Mussolini Transferred
1943 Benito Mussolini transferred from La Maddalena Sardinia to Gran Sasso
- 1943 Denmark declares a universal strike against Nazi occupiers
- 1944 Last German troops in Marseille surrendered & Toulon cleared
- 1944 US air raid on Ambon Island, Dutch East Indies
The Killers
1946 Film noir "The Killers" premieres, directed by Robert Siodmak, starring Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, based on a story by Ernest Hemingway
Music History
1949 Riot prevents Paul Robeson from singing near Peekskill, New York
- 1950 Earle & Roy Mack, purchase 54% of the Philadelphia A's from Connie Mack Jr
- 1951 Braves sell pitcher Johnny Sain to the Yankees for $50,000
- 1951 Pirates snap NY Giants 16 game winning streak
- 1952 German & Israeli reach accord about recovery payments
- 1952 Yakov Malik succeeds Valerian Zorin as Soviet Foreign Minister
- 1955 1st NFL preseason sudden death football, Rams beats Giants 23-17
Murder of Emmett Till
1955 Chicago black teenager Emmett Till is kidnapped, beaten and shot dead by white men in Money, Mississippi; his killers are eventually acquitted, but the case helps ignite the US civil rights movement.
- 1956 17th Venice Film Festival opens. No Golden Lion awarded
- 1957 US Senator James Thurmond (Rep, SC) begins 24-hr filibuster against civil rights bill
- 1958 American baseball player Nellie Fox sets record for consecutive games without striking out (98)
- 1960 White Sox Ted Kluzewski's 3-run HR is disallowed as umpire called time
- 1962 55.9 cm rainfall at Hackberry, Louisiana (state record)
- 1962 Dr Geza De Kaplany tortures his wife with acid to punish her for supposed infidelity
Ya Ya (Parts 1 + 2)
1962 Tony Sheridan & Beat Brothers (The Beatles) record "Ya Ya (Parts 1 + 2)" in Hamburg, Germany
- 1963 Evergreen Point Floating Bridge connecting Seattle & Bellevue opens
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
1963 Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I have a dream" speech addressing the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom civil rights march at Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.
- 1964 Race riot in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania sparked by police reaction to domestic dispute fueled traffic tie-up; riot and looting continues for 3 days, with 2 killed, hundreds injured and $4M of damage in the city's North Philadelphia neighborhood
- 1964 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1964 US weather satellite Nimbus 1 launched
- 1965 1st Subway sandwich shop opens in Bridgeport, Connecticut
- 1967 Asif Iqbal & Intikhab Alam make 190 stand for 9th wkt v England
- 1967 MLB Boston Red Sox sign 1st free-agent outfielder Ken Harrelson for $75,000 bonus
- 1967 WCBS-AM (880) radio in NYC begins its all-news format; the AM station was knocked off the air just beforehand, moving the debut to the FM sister station (101.1)
- 1968 Northern Irish MP Gerry Fitt tables a House of Commons motion criticising the Royal Ulster Constabulary at Dungannon, "citizens of Northern Ireland should be allowed the same rights of peaceful demonstration as those in other parts of the United Kingdom"
- 1968 Police & anti-war demonstrators clash at Chicago's Democratic National Convention
- 1970 "I'll Be There" single by The Jackson 5 is released (Billboard Song of the Year 1970)
- 1970 Phillies Larry Bowa steals home for 2nd time in 1970
- 1971 The US dollar is allowed to float against the Japanese yen for the first time.
World Record 100m Relay
1972 American 4 x 100m freestyle relay team of David Edgar, John Murphy, John Heidenreich & Mark Spitz swim a world record 3:26.42 to beat Soviet Union for the gold medal at the Munich Olympics
World Record 200m Medley
1972 Australian teenage swimmer Shane Gould sets a world record 2:23.07 to beat German Kornelia Ender in the 200m individual medley at the Munich Olympics; her first of 3 gold medals at the Games
- 1972 North Korean shooter Ri Ho-jun wins the 50m rifle prone event at the Munich Olympics; his nation's first ever Olympic gold medal
Darling of Munich
1972 Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut becomes media darling at the Munich Olympics; wins gold in the teams all-round ; follows with 2 gold and a silver
- 1972 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
- 1973 "Smoke on the Water" single by British rock band Deep Purple goes gold
- 1973 6.8 quake centered in Oaxaca State in Mexico kills 527
- 1973 Bobby "Boris" Pickett's song "Monster Mash" goes gold
- 1973 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
- 1973 India & Pakistan sign POW accord
Let's Get It On
1973 Tamla/Motown Records releases "Let's Get It On", the 13th studio album by Marvin Gaye
Baseball Record
1977 Nolan Ryan strikes out 300 batters for 5th straight year
- 1977 NY Cosmos defeat Seattle Sounders, 2-1, at Civic Stadium in Portland Ore, winning their 2nd North American Soccer League championship
Baseball History
1977 NY Yankee Ron Guidry faces just 28 men & beats Texas Rangers 1-0
- 1978 Donald Vesco rode 21'-long Kawasaki motorcycle at 318.598 mph
- 1978 Ja'afar Sharif-Emami appointed premier of Iran
- 1979 IRA bomb explodes in Brussels' Great Market
- 1979 Train crash at Nijmegen, 7 die
- 1980 First use of a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine to scan the human body at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Scotland
World Record Mile
1981 Britain's Sebastian Coe sets a then 1-mile word record of 3:47.33
Ronald Reagan is Shot
1981 John Hinckley pleads innocent to attempt to assassinate US President Ronald Reagan
Begin Resigns
1983 Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin announces his resignation
- 1983 Joseph Kreckman sets record of 2,215 clay pigeons shot in an hour
- 1984 USSR performs underground nuclear test
Music History
1986 American rock singer Tina Turner's star unveiled at Hollywood's Walk of Fame; Hollywood, California
- 1986 Bolivia president Victor Paz Estensoro calls state of siege
- 1986 US Navy officer Jerry A Whitworth sentenced to 365 years for spying
Baseball Record
1987 Mike Schmidt passes Ted Williams & Willie McCovey with 522 HRs
- 1988 40th Emmy Awards: Thirtysomething, The Wonder Years & Richard Kiley win
- 1988 70 killed in crash of three Italian air force fighters at air show at Ramstein, Germany
- 1988 88th US Golf Amateur Championship won by Eric Meeks
- 1989 1st regular-season matchup of defending Cy Young Award winners
- 1989 Frank Viola and NY Mets outduel Orel Hershiser and LA Dodgers 1-0
Baseball Record
1990 Cub's Ryne Sandberg is 1st 2nd baseman to hit 30 HRs, consecutively
- 1990 F5 strength tornado hits Plainfield, Illinois, killing 29 and injuring 353
- 1991 Lexington Ave IRT subway train derails at Union Square, 5 die
Baseball Record
1991 Red Tom Browning vs Expo Dennis Martínez both perfect game pitcher
- 1992 Brewers beat Blue Jays 22-2 with AL record 31 hits in 9 innings
- 1992 Test cricket debut of Muttiah Muralitharan, vs Australia at Colombo
- 1993 Dam breaks in Qinghai West China, 223 killed
- 1993 Jakovlev-42 crashes in Tajikistan, 76 killed
- 1993 Long Beach California beats Panama for little league world championship
- 1993 Singapore vice-premier Teng Cheong elected president
- 1994 1st Japanese gay pride parade
- 1994 94th US Golf Amateur Championship won by Tiger Woods
- 1995 Kuwaiti Oil Minister Abdul Mohsen al-Medej announces that his country will increase its oil production capacity to as much as 3.5 million barrels per day by 2005
- 1995 Last day of Test Cricket for Richie Richardson
- 1995 Northants 7-781 declared defeats Nottinghamshire 527 & 157
- 1997 Belgian amusement park riders were stuck upside down for 90 minutes
- 1998 Pakistan's National Assembly passes a constitutional amendment to make the "Qur'an and Sunnah" the "supreme law" but the bill is defeated in the Senate.
- 1999 Philip Glass' Symphony No. 5 "Requiem, Bardo, Nirmanakaya", for chorus and orchestra, premieres at the Salzburg Festival led by Dennis Russell Davies, in Salzburg, Austria
- 2003 An electricity blackout cuts off power to around 500,000 people living in south east England and brings 60% of London's underground rail network to a halt.
- 2004 A huge upset at the Athens Olympic Stadium in the men's 4×100m relay; Great Britain 38.07 edges the United States 38.08 to take the gold medal
- 2004 British athlete Kelly Holmes wraps up the 800/1,500m double at the Athens Olympics taking out the 1.5k in 3:57.90
- 2004 Carlos Tevez scores the winner as Argentina beats Paraguay 1-0, maintaining an undefeated record to win the men's football gold medal at the Athens Olympics
- 2004 Led by San Antonio Spurs shooting guard Manu Ginóbili Argentina beats Italy 84-69 for the Olympic basketball gold medal in Athens; star-studded US team takes bronze
- 2004 Moroccan super star athlete Hicham El Guerrouj wraps up the 1,500/5,000m double at the Athens Olympics taking the 5k gold in 13:14.39
- 2004 The diving competition at the Athens Olympics concludes with the Chinese contingent dominant, winning 6 of the 8 gold medals
- 2004 The US women's basketball team goes through the Athens Olympics undefeated to win its 5th Olympic gold medal, beating Australia 74-63 in the final
- 2005 The Tradition Senior Men's Golf, Reserve Vineyards & GC: Loren Roberts wins first of 4 Champions Tour majors with bogey on 2nd playoff hole against Dana Quigley
Venetian Macao Opens
2007 The Venetian Macao, the second-largest casino in the world, opens in Macao, owned by Las Vegas Sands
Oasis Splits Up
2009 British pop-rock band Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher quits the band, citing inability to be with his brother Liam
Mitt Romney Nominated
2012 Mitt Romney is officially nominated as the United States Republican Party's candidate
- 2013 51 people are killed in a series of bombings across Iraq
- 2013 China and Russia walk out of a UN Security Council meeting after the US pushes for immediate action against Syria's use of chemical weapons
- 2017 English actor Ed Skrein pulls out of role in movie “Hellboy” after whitewashing criticism
- 2017 Investigation into German nurse Niels Högel, a serving life sentence for killing two patients, concludes he probably killed 86 more
- 2017 Kenya brings in world's toughest ban on plastic bags with possible US$38,000 fine and four years in jail
- 2017 Matt Vogel makes his debut as the voice of Kermit the Frog in "Muppet Thought of the Week" video
- 2017 North Korea launches missile that flies over Japan, the country's J-Alert warning system warns people to take cover
Aretha Franklin Lies in State
2018 Aretha Franklin lies in state at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit in a 24 carat coffin
- 2018 Chinese ride-sharing firm Didi Chuxing issues public apology after second Hitch passenger killed within three months
- 2018 Puerto Rico raises official death toll of 2017 Hurricane Maria from 64 to 2,975
Johnson Prorogues Parliament
2019 British PM Boris Johnson prorogues parliament, suspending it for 5 weeks to limit opposition to a no deal Brexit, prompting a furious backlash
Greta Sails to NY
2019 Climate change activist Greta Thunberg arrives in New York after sailing across the Atlantic in an emissions-free voyage
- 2019 Discovery of 3.8-million-year-old skull of early human ancestor Australopithecus anamensis, found by Yohannes Haile-Selassie, at Miro Dora, Ethiopia, upends previous evolutionary theory published in journal "Nature"
Italian Coalition Forms
2019 New Italian coalition government formed of anti-establishment Five Star Movement and center-left Democratic Party ousting Matteo Salvini
- 2019 US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand ends her campaign for president
- 2020 Japanese tech company SkyDrive says it has completed the first manned test flight of a flying car
- 2021 MLB Los Angeles Angels pitcher/designated hitter Shohei Ohtani becomes 1st player in team history to reach 20 stolen bases and hit 40 home runs in a season, in 10-2 win over San Diego Padres
Most Expensive Sports Memorabilia
2022 A 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball card sells for $12.6 million at auction, becoming the world's most expensive piece of sporting memorabilia [1]
- 2022 Pakistan appeals for international aid as the death toll from monsoon rain and floods rises to over 1,000 people
Tour Championship
2022 Tour Championship, Men's Golf, East Lake GC: Irishman Rory McIlroy wins $18m with 1 stroke win over Scottie Scheffler & Im Sung-jae; becomes first 3-time winner of the FedEx Cup
