- AD 64 – The Great Fire of Rome causes widespread devastation and rages on for six days, destroying half of the city.[1]
- 484 – Leontius, Roman usurper, is crowned Eastern emperor at Tarsus (modern Turkey). He is recognized in Antioch and makes it his capital.
- 711 – Umayyad conquest of Hispania: Battle of Guadalete: Umayyad forces under Tariq ibn Ziyad defeat the Visigoths led by King Roderic.
- 939 – Battle of Simancas: King Ramiro II of León defeats the Moorish army under Caliph Abd-al-Rahman III near the city of Simancas.
- 998 – Arab–Byzantine wars: Battle of Apamea: Fatimids defeat a Byzantine army near Apamea.
- 1333 – Wars of Scottish Independence: Battle of Halidon Hill: The English win a decisive victory over the Scots.
- 1544 – Italian War of 1542–46: The first Siege of Boulogne begins.
- 1545 – The Tudor warship Mary Rose sinks off Portsmouth; in 1982 the wreck is salvaged in one of the most complex and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology.
- 1553 – Lady Jane Grey is replaced by Mary I of England as Queen of England after only nine days on the throne.
- 1588 – Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Gravelines: The Spanish Armada is sighted in the English Channel.
- 1701 – Representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy sign the Nanfan Treaty, ceding a large territory north of the Ohio River to England.
- 1702 – Great Northern War: A numerically superior Polish-Saxon army of Augustus II the Strong, operating from an advantageous defensive position, is defeated by a Swedish army half its size under the command of King Charles XII in the Battle of Klissow.
- 1817 – Unsuccessful in his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Hawaii for the Russian-American Company, Georg Anton Schäffer is forced to admit defeat and leave Kauai.
- 1821 – Coronation of George IV of the United Kingdom.
- 1832 – The British Medical Association is founded as the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association by Sir Charles Hastings at a meeting in the Board Room of the Worcester Infirmary.
- 1843 – Brunel’s steamship the SS Great Britain is launched, becoming the first ocean-going craft with an iron hull and screw propeller, becoming the largest vessel afloat in the world.
- 1845 – Great New York City Fire of 1845: The last great fire to affect Manhattan begins early in the morning and is subdued that afternoon. The fire kills four firefighters and 26 civilians and destroys 345 buildings.
- 1848 – Women’s rights: A two-day Women’s Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York.
- 1863 – American Civil War: Morgan’s Raid: At Buffington Island in Ohio, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan‘s raid into the north is mostly thwarted when a large group of his men are captured while trying to escape across the Ohio River.
- 1864 – Taiping Rebellion: Third Battle of Nanking: The Qing dynasty finally defeats the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
- 1870 – Franco-Prussian War: France declares war on Prussia.
- 1900 – The first line of the Paris Métro opens for operation.
- 1903 – Maurice Garin wins the first Tour de France.[2]
- 1916 – World War I: Battle of Fromelles: British and Australian troops attack German trenches as part of the Battle of the Somme.
- 1936 – Spanish Civil War: The CNT and UGT call a general strike in Spain – mobilizing workers’ militias against the Nationalist forces.
- 1940 – World War II: Battle of Cape Spada: The Royal Navy and the Regia Marina clash; the Italian light cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni sinks, with 121 casualties.
- 1940 – Field Marshal Ceremony: First occasion in World War II that Adolf Hitler appoints field marshals due to military achievements.
- 1940 – World War II: Army order 112 forms the Intelligence Corps of the British Army.
- 1942 – World War II: The Second Happy Time of Hitler’s submarines comes to an end, as the increasingly effective American convoy system compels them to return to the central Atlantic.
- 1943 – World War II: Rome is heavily bombed by more than 500 Allied aircraft, inflicting thousands of casualties.
- 1947 – Prime Minister of the shadow Burmese government, Bogyoke Aung San and eight others are assassinated.
- 1947 – Korean politician Lyuh Woon-hyung is assassinated.
- 1952 – Opening of the Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland.[3]
- 1961 – Tunisia imposes a blockade on the French naval base at Bizerte; the French would capture the entire town four days later.
- 1963 – Joe Walker flies a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 106,010 meters (347,800 feet) on X-15 Flight 90. Exceeding an altitude of 100 km, this flight qualifies as a human spaceflight under international convention.
- 1964 – Vietnam War: At a rally in Saigon, South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Khánh calls for expanding the war into North Vietnam.
- 1969 – Chappaquiddick incident: U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy crashes his car into a tidal pond at Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, killing his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne.[4]
- 1972 – Dhofar Rebellion: British SAS units help the Omani government against Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman rebels in the Battle of Mirbat.
- 1976 – Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal is created.
- 1977 – The world’s first Global Positioning System (GPS) signal was transmitted from Navigation Technology Satellite 2 (NTS-2) and received at Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at 12:41 a.m. Eastern time (ET).[5]
- 1979 – The Sandinista rebels overthrow the government of the Somoza family in Nicaragua.
- 1979 – The oil tanker SS Atlantic Empress collides with another oil tanker, causing the largest ever ship-borne oil spill.
- 1980 – Opening of the Summer Olympics in Moscow.[6]
- 1981 – In a private meeting with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, French President François Mitterrand reveals the existence of the Farewell Dossier, a collection of documents showing the Soviet Union had been stealing American technological research and development.
- 1982 – In one of the first militant attacks by Hezbollah, David S. Dodge, president of the American University of Beirut, is kidnapped.[7]
- 1983 – The first three-dimensional reconstruction of a human head in a CT is published.
- 1985 – The Val di Stava dam collapses killing 268 people in Val di Stava, Italy.
- 1989 – United Airlines Flight 232 crashes in Sioux City, Iowa killing 111.
- 1992 – A car bomb kills Judge Paolo Borsellino and five members of his escort.
- 1997 – The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army resumes a ceasefire to end their 25-year paramilitary campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland.
- 2014 – Gunmen in Egypt’s western desert province of New Valley Governorate attack a military checkpoint, killing at least 21 soldiers. Egypt reportedly declares a state of emergency on its border with Sudan.
-Source: wikipedia
