Battle of Vercellae
101 BC Battle of Vercellae: Roman army under Gaius Marius defeats the Cimbri in Cisalpine Gaul, ending the Celto-Germanic threat on Italy's border with over 100,000 Cimbri killed
Battle of Alexandria
30 BC Battle of Alexandria: Mark Antony achieves a minor victory over Octavian, but most of his army subsequently deserts, leading to Octavian's invasion of Egypt
- 579 Benedict I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
- 657 St Vitalian begins his reign as Catholic Pope succeeding Eugene I
762 The Abbasid caliph al-Mansur founds the city of Baghdad near the ancient city of Ctesiphon
Barbarossa Crowned King
1178 Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa is crowned King of Burgundy at Arles
- 1419 First Defenestration of Prague: Anti-Catholic Hussites, followers of executed reformer Jan Hus, storm Prague Town Hall and throw the judge, mayor, and several city council members out the windows. They die in the fall or are killed by the crowd outside.
- 1537 Resistance of Bomy: French-Dutch ceasefire
- 1538 St Augustine's Abbey, one of the most important monasteries in England, is dissolved as its Abbot John Essex and 30 monks leave voluntarily before it is ransacked [1]
- 1601 Spanish garrison of Rheinberg surrenders to Earl Maurice
- 1618 Prince Maurits' troops pull into Utrecht
- 1619 House of Burgesses in Virginia forms, first elected American governing body
Newcastle Propositions
1646 English Parliament sets King Charles I Newcastle Propositions
- 1650 William II of Orange occupies Amsterdam
De Witt Takes Power
1653 Johan de Witt is sworn in as the Grand Pensionary of Holland
- 1655 Dutch troops occupy Fort Assahudi, Seram
- 1656 Battle of Warsaw: Swedish King Charles X Gustav defeats Polish-Lithuanian King Jan II Casimir and reoccupies Warsaw
- 1678 English troops land in Flanders
- 1715 Spanish gold and silver fleet disappears off St. Lucie, Florida
- 1733 Society of Freemasons opens first American lodge in Boston
- 1739 Caspar Wistar begins glass manufacturing in Allowaystown, New Jersey
- 1756 Bartolomeo Rastrelli presents the newly built Catherine Palace to Empress Elizabeth and her courtiers in Russia
End of Cook’s Second Voyage
1775 Captain James Cook with HMS Resolution safely returns to England at the end of his second voyage
- 1792 Five hundred Marseillais men sing France's national anthem for the first time
- 1809 British armed force of 39,000 lands in Walcheren
Execution of Hidalgo
1811 Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, leader of the Mexican insurgency, is executed after being found guilty of treason by the Spanish military in Chihuahua, Mexico
- 1822 James Varick becomes the first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
Rossini Takes Paris Stage
1824 Italian composer Gioachino Rossini becomes manager of Théâtre Italien in Paris, France
- 1825 Malden Island is discovered in the central Pacific by British warship HMS Blonde
- 1826 Javanese Prince Diponegoro mounts a surprise attack on the Dutch colony, killing 82
- 1836 First English-language newspaper published in Hawaii
- 1844 First US yacht club, New York Yacht Club, is organized by John Cox Stevens and eight friends aboard the Gimcrack
- 1847 Yucatán Caste War breaks out as Maya forces attack the town of Tepich, ordering all non-Maya to be killed in revenge for killings by Governor Méndez. War unofficially ends in 1901.
- 1863 Indian Wars: Chief Pocatello of the Shoshone tribe signs the Treaty of Box Elder, promising to stop harassing emigrant trails in southern Idaho and northern Utah
"Eye-for-Eye" Order
1863 President Abraham Lincoln issues "eye-for-an-eye" order to shoot a rebel prisoner for every Black prisoner shot
- 1864 Battle of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania: Confederate forces under McCausland burn the town of Chambersburg
Siege of Petersburg
1864 US Civil War, Siege of Petersburg: Union General Ambrose Burnside fails in an attack on Petersburg, Virginia, in the Battle of the Crater
- 1865 Pope Pius IX visits Suriname
- 1866 New Orleans's Democratic government orders police to raid an integrated Republican Party meeting, killing 40 people and injuring 150
- 1869 World's first oil tanker, "The Charles," departs the United States for Europe, carrying 7,000 barrels of oil
- 1870 Staten Island Ferry "Westfield" burns, killing 100
- 1870 The Republic of Klipdrift is proclaimed by Transvaal President Andries Pretorius after the discovery of diamonds in South Africa in 1866, resulting in a flood of treasure hunters; ownership of the diamond fields was contested by the Boer republics
- 1872 Mahlon Loomis patents wireless telegraphy
- 1874 Boston and Philadelphia are the first baseball teams to play outside the US in the British Isles
- 1878 German antisemitism begins during the Reichstag election
- 1884 Nonpareil Jack Dempsey fights George Fulljames in what is possibly the first middleweight fight with boxing gloves
- 1900 British Parliament passes several progressive social acts: the Mines Act, the Workmen's Compensation Act, and the Railway Act
- 1902 Anti-Jewish rioters attack the funeral procession of Rabbi Jacob Joseph in NYC
- 1905 Dutch Covenant of Worker's Union, NVV, forms
- 1907 Filipinos elect their first legislature, which will meet on 16 October
- 1907 French forces start bombarding Casablanca and land troops to occupy the Atlantic coast region of Morocco following attacks on foreigners
- 1907 Russia and Japan sign an agreement guaranteeing freedom of China while recognizing each other's special interests
- 1908 Around the World Automobile Race ends in Paris
- 1909 French chemist Eugène Schueller founds L'Oréal with his new range of hair dyes
- 1909 John Heydler becomes president of baseball's National League
- 1913 Conclusion of the Second Balkan War
General Mobilization
1914 After initial reluctance, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia is persuaded to decree a general mobilization in response to Austria-Hungary's mobilization a few days earlier; "Think of the thousands and thousands of men who will be sent to their deaths!" he claims
- 1914 French troops withdraw 10 km from the German border
John French Takes Command
1914 John French appointed Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force
- 1916 German saboteurs blow up a munitions plant on Black Tom Island, New Jersey
- 1917 Board of Commissioners of Cleveland Metroparks holds its first meeting
- 1921 The Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) forms; the party changes its name to the South African Communist Party (SACP) in 1953 after it is forced underground
- 1923 New Zealand claims Ross Dependency in Antarctica
- 1926 Albanian boundaries deduced
- 1930 First broadcast of "Death Valley Days" on NBC Radio
- 1930 First FIFA World Cup Final, Estadio Centenario, Montevideo, Uruguay: Uruguay beats Argentina 4-2 in the inaugural event
- 1932 X Summer Olympic Games open in Los Angeles, California
1935 First Penguin Books published, starting the paperback revolution
- 1937 Phillies' Dolph Camilli plays first base and registers no putouts
- 1937 Soviet Politburo issues NKVD Order No. 00447 during the Great Purge to repress property-owning kulaks and anti-Soviets; 269,100 are arrested, with 76,000 executed
- 1941 German occupiers forbid the political parties SDAP, VDB, ARP, RKSP, CHU, and SGP in the Netherlands
Women's Navy Auxiliary Agency
1942 Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill creating the United States Naval Reserve (Women's Reserve), better known as WAVES
- 1942 German occupiers set a night curfew on Jews in the Netherlands
- 1942 German SS kills 25,000 Jews in Minsk, Belorussia
- 1943 US 45th Infantry Division occupies San Stefano di Camastra in Sicily
- 1944 WWII: US 30th division reaches the suburbs of Saint-Lô, Normandy with heavy battles also occurring at Tessy-sur-Vire and Villebaudon
1945 After delivering the atomic bomb across the Pacific, cruiser USS Indianapolis is torpedoed and sunk by Japanese submarine I-58, killing 880 of the crew, many of whom are attacked by sharks, inspiring the movie "Jaws"
- 1946 First rocket attains 100 mi (167 km) altitude in White Sands, New Mexico
- 1947 Cincinnati Reds pitcher Ewell Blackwell's record-breaking 16-game winning streak ends with a 5-4 loss to the New York Giants
- 1948 Czech distance running legend Emil Zátopek wins the 10,000 m at the London Olympics with an Olympic record of 29:59.6
- 1948 Professional wrestling premieres on US prime-time TV (DuMont Television Network)
- 1949 British warship HMS Amethyst escapes down the Yangtze River after being refused safe passage by Chinese Communists following a 3-month standoff
- 1951 Ty Cobb testifies before the Emanuel Celler committee, denying that the reserve clause makes peons of baseball players
Frick Blocks Interleague Deals
1952 Ford Frick sets a waiver rule to bar inter-league deals until all clubs in the same league get the right to bid
- 1954 Bob Kennedy hits the first grand slam for the new Baltimore Orioles
Presley Joins Memphis Federation
1954 Elvis Presley joins the Memphis Federation of Musicians Local 71
- 1954 Fifth British Empire Games and Commonwealth Games open in Vancouver, Canada
In God We Trust
1956 President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a law officially designating "In God We Trust" as the national motto of the United States
- 1959 In his MLB debut, SF Giants future Baseball Hall of Fame first baseman Willie McCovey goes 4-for-4 in a 7-2 win over Philadelphia Phillies at Seal Stadium
- 1960 First AFL preseason game: Boston Patriots defeat Bills in Buffalo 28-7
- 1963 American singer Barbra Streisand opens for pianist Liberace at the International Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada
Soviets Grant Philby Asylum
1963 Soviet officials announce they have granted political asylum to British spy Kim Philby after his escape to Moscow
- 1964 South Vietnamese commandos attack North Vietnamese radar and military installations on Hòn Mê and Hòn Ngư Islands in the Gulf of Tonkin
From the Steeples and the Mountains
1965 Charles Ives's composition "From the Steeples and the Mountains" premieres at Lincoln Center, performed by the New York Philharmonic more than 60 years after its composition
- 1965 Duke Ellington's orchestral piece "The Golden Broom and the Green Apple" premieres with the New York Philharmonic led by Lukas Foss at the Lincoln Center in NYC
- 1965 MLB Milwaukee Brewers manager Bobby Bragan says his pitchers threw 75 to 80 spitballs in a 9-2 loss to the San Francisco Giants
Medicare Bill
1965 US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Medicare and Medicaid Act, which takes effect in 1966
- 1966 Beatles' "Yesterday... and Today" album goes to #1 and stays at #1 for 5 weeks
- 1966 FIFA World Cup Final, Wembley Stadium, London: Striker Geoff Hurst scores a hat trick as England beats West Germany 4-2 after extra time
- 1966 US airplanes bomb the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam
- 1967 Race riot in Milwaukee kills four
- 1968 Washington shortstop Ron Hansen makes the eighth unassisted triple play in MLB history and the first in 41 years as the Senators lose 10-1 to the Cleveland Indians
- 1969 Astros Denis Menke and Jim Wynn hit grand slams in the ninth inning against the Mets
- 1969 KAEC TV channel 19 in Lufkin, Texas (ABC) begins broadcasting
- 1970 30,000 people arrive to attend the Powder Ridge Rock Festival in Middlefield, Connecticut, despite its cancellation due to local residents' opposition
- 1970 Hurricane Celia kills 31 in Cuba, Florida, and Texas
- 1970 Riots hit Belfast, North Ireland
- 1971 38th NFL Chicago All-Star Game: Baltimore 24, All-Stars 17 (52,289 attendees)
- 1971 All Nippon Airways Flight 58 collides with a Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-86F near Shizukuishi, Japan, killing all 162 aboard the Boeing 727
Bangla Desh
1971 George Harrison releases the single "Bangla Desh" to raise awareness and funds for refugees affected by the Bangladesh Liberation War, with proceeds benefiting UNICEF
- 1971 US Apollo 15 (Scott & Irwin) lands on Mare Imbrium on the Moon
- 1973 Texas Rangers' Jim Bibby no-hits first-place Oakland 6-0
Nixon’s Final Impeachment Charge
1974 House Judiciary Committee votes on the third and final charge of "high crimes and misdemeanors" to impeach President Nixon in the Watergate cover-up
- 1975 Murtala Mohammed overthrows General Gowon to become Nigerian Head of State
- 1975 Simon Gray's "Otherwise Engaged" premieres in London
- 1975 US Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa disappears in suburban Detroit; Hoffa legally declared dead in 1982
- 1976 Four Protestant civilians are shot dead at a pub off Milltown Road, Belfast; the attack is claimed by the Republican Action Force
Jenner Wins Decathlon
1976 Future TV personality ("Keeping Up with the Kardashians") and transgender figure, Bruce Jenner (now Caitlin Jenner), sets a world record with 8,618 points to win decathlon gold at the Montreal Olympics
- 1976 Giulio Andreotti is sworn in as the premier of Italy for the second time
- 1976 Japan defeats Russia for Olympic gold in woman's volleyball
I Just Want to Be Your Everything
1977 "I Just Want to Be Your Everything" single by Andy Gibb reaches number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100
- 1978 Expos crush Braves 19-0, collecting 28 hits and tying the National League record with eight home runs
- 1980 American swimmers Mary T. Meagher (2.06.37) and Craig Beardsley (1.58.21) set 200 m butterfly world records at the US National Swimming Championships at Irvine, California
- 1980 Houston Astros pitcher J. R. Richard suffers a stroke and collapses while playing a game of catch before an Astros game, ending his career
- 1980 Vanuatu (New Hebrides) gains independence from Britain and France
- 1981 Belgian Senate accepts laws against racism
- 1981 Simon Gray's play "Quartermaine's Terms" premieres in London
- 1981 UN Human Rights Commission rules Canada violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in the case of Wolastoqiyik woman Sandra Lovelace, who loses her status through marriage [1]
- 1982 Atlanta Braves remove Chief Noc-A-Homa to make room for more seating
- 1982 USSR performs an underground nuclear test
- 1983 Official speed record for a piston-driven aircraft: 832 km/h (517 mph) in California
- 1983 Weightlifter Sergei Didyk of USSR jerks a record 261 kg
- 1984 Alvenus tanker at Cameron, Louisiana, spills 2.8 million gallons of oil
- 1984 Hollie Roffey, aged 10 days, is the youngest person to ever receive a heart transplant and survives 28 days
- 1984 Soap Opera "Santa Barbara" premieres on NBC TV
- 1985 Discovery moves to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the mating of the STS 51-I mission
- 1985 Valerie Lowrance of Texas, 18, is crowned America's Junior Miss
- 1987 An ANC car bomb directed at the headquarters of the Wits Command in Johannesburg, South Africa, kills one person and injures 68
- 1988 ArenaBowl II takes place at Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois: Detroit Drive defeats Chicago Bruisers 24-13, with Steve Griffin named MVP
- 1988 Cincinnati Reds pitcher John Franco sets a record of 13 saves in 1 month
- 1988 Harry Drake shoots an arrow a record 1,873 m
- 1988 Jordanian King Hussein renounces sovereignty over West Bank to the PLO hours after dissolving Jordan's House of Representatives [1]
- 1988 MLB Pitcher John Franco saves a record 13th game during the month of July
- 1988 Ronald J. Dossenbach begins a world-record ride, pedaling across Canada from Vancouver to Halifax in 13 days, 15 hours, and 4 minutes
- 1989 Chile amends its constitution
- 1990 Five Bank of Credit and Commerce members are found guilty of money laundering
- 1990 Soldiers open fire on worshippers in Monrovian church, killing 200-600
- 1990 The first Saturn automobile rolls off the assembly line
Enter Sandman
1991 Heavy metal band Metallica release their single "Enter Sandman"
- 1991 MTV announces it will split into three channels in 1993
- 1991 Red Sox player Carlos Quintana becomes the 11th player to achieve six RBIs in an inning (3rd)
- 1992 Lin Li swims a female world record in the 200m medley with a time of 2:11.65
- 1992 Yael Arad becomes Israel's first Olympic medalist when she wins silver in the women's 61 kg judo in Barcelona; 20th anniversary of the Munich massacre and 500th anniversary of the Alhambra Decree
- 1994 Record 103.8°F (39.9°C) in Preschen, Lusatia, Germany
- 1995 Dominic Cork takes a hat-trick in England's Test cricket win against West Indies at Old Trafford
- 1996 Tommy Lasorda retires as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers
- 1997 Eighteen lives are lost in the Thredbo landslide in New South Wales, Australia
- 1997 Terrorist double suicide bombing in Jerusalem kills 14 people
The Rising
2002 Columbia Records releases Bruce Springsteen's 12th studio album "The Rising," his first new record with the E Street Band since 1985, and it tops the charts in seven countries
Sarbanes-Oxley Act
2002 US President George W. Bush signs the "Sarbanes-Oxley Act" into law, legislation designed to prevent future accounting scandals such as Enron's bankruptcy
2003 The last "old style" Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line in Mexico
Toronto Rocks
2003 Toronto Rocks - SARSStock benefit with performers including The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Rush, The Guess Who, Justin Timberlake, The Flaming Lips, and The Isley Brothers, at Downsview Park; largest concert in Canadian history attracts 450,000 spectators
- 2004 "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle", starring Kal Penn and John Cho, is released
- 2006 Bruce Sutter, relief pitcher for the Cubs, Cardinals, and Braves, is inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York
- 2006 The world's longest running music show "Top of the Pops" is broadcast for the last time on BBC Two after airing for 42 years
- 2009 A bomb explodes in Palma Nova, Mallorca, killing two police officers. Basque separatist group ETA is believed to be responsible.
- 2012 General Motors (Chevrolet) signs a record-breaking 7-year, $559 million sponsorship deal with EPL club Manchester United
- 2012 Indian power grid failure leaves over 300 million without electricity
- 2012 Train fire kills 32 and injures 27 people in Andhra Pradesh, India
- 2013 134 people are killed in tribal conflicts in Darfur, Sudan
- 2013 28 people are killed in a series of bombings in Kano, Nigeria
- 2013 Mamnoon Hussain is elected President of Pakistan
- 2013 Nine children are killed and 20 are injured after a school bus collides with a truck in Hanumangarh, India
- 2013 Wikileaks discloser Bradley (later Chelsea) Manning is convicted of 17 espionage charges
- 2014 Death toll in Gaza reaches 1,346, while 56 Israeli soldiers and 3 civilians are killed
- 2014 The EU and US extend sanctions on Russia to include banks, energy, and defense firms; Moscow denies the allegation that Russia is arming rebels in Eastern Ukraine
- 2015 In Bandar Mahshahr, Iran, the temperature reaches 46°C (115°F), but humidity makes it feel like 73°C (163°F)
- 2016 Air balloon crashes into power lines near Lockhart, Texas, killing all 16 on board
People's Liberation Army Marks Ninety Years
2017 China's President Xi Jinping heads a 12,000-troop parade at the Zhurihe training base in Inner Mongolia to commemorate 90 years since the founding of the People's Liberation Army
- 2017 Fifteen people killed in gunfights with Philippine police, including Reynaldo Parojinog, mayor of Ozamiz in an anti-drug trafficking operation
2017 First centenary of WWI Battle of Passchendaele commemorated at ceremony at Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium
- 2017 Hackers reveal they have stolen data from HBO, including episodes and scripts of Games of Thrones
- 2017 Largest gathering of people with the same first name: 2,325 people named Ivan in Kupres, Bosnia and Herzegovina [1]
Putin Reacts to American Sanctions
2017 Russian President Vladimir Putin announces American diplomats in Russia cut by 755 in response to American sanctions
- 2017 Venezuelan voting for a new assembly is disrupted by violent protests, killing at least three people
- 2018 Australian Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson resigns after being convicted of concealing sexual abuse
- 2018 British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt mistakenly calls his Chinese-born wife "Japanese" during a meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing
- 2018 Four million people are excluded from the Assam National Register of Citizens in India, prompting fears of deportation and loss of citizenship
2018 Official Malaysian investigation into the disappearance of Flight MH370 is unable to determine what happened
- 2020 Federal law enforcement officers begin a phased withdrawal from Portland amid criticism of their actions to shut down Black Lives Matter protests
- 2020 NASA launches its Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter to Mars aboard an Atlas V 541 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida
- 2020 The US economy posts the largest quarterly fall on record, with GDP down 9.5% for the 3 months to June 30
- 2021 One out of 169 Americans is employed by Amazon in new figures released by the company, making it the US's second-largest employer, with Walmart being the largest, employing one in 100 [1]
Zelenskyy Calls for Evacuations
2022 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calls for the mandatory evacuation of civilians from the eastern Donetsk region amid fierce fighting [1]
- 2023 Évian Championship Women's Golf, Évian Resort GC: Céline Boutier of France wins her first major title by 6 strokes over Canada's defending champion Brooke Henderson
- 2023 Suspected suicide bomber kills 45 people and injures 135 at a rally for the religious political party Jamiat Ulema Islam in Khar, northwestern Pakistan [1]
- 2023 Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warns war is coming back to Russia after a drones attack on Moscow [1]
- 2024 A mob of up to 300 riots in Southport, England, injuring 50 police officers, whipped up by misinformation on social media in the wake of a knife attack at a children's dance event [1]
Haniyeh Assassinated
2024 Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh is assassinated in Iran's capital Tehran
- 2024 Hezbollah senior commander Fuad Shukr is killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut along with three others, injuring 74, in retaliation for a missile strike on the Golan Heights [1]
- 2024 Landslides in the Wayanad region of the Indian state of Kerala kill at least 172 people, with over 227 missing [1]
- 2024 Paul Dans resigns as head of Project 2025, a conservative group blueprint for a Republican presidency launched by the Heritage Foundation, amid criticism of its policies as authoritarian [1] [2]
- 2025 8.8 magnitude earthquake strikes off Russia's far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, triggering tsunami warnings across the Pacific Ocean; evacuations ordered in parts of Japan and Hawaii, as well as alerts being issued in China, New Zealand, the Philippines, and other island countries [1] [2]
- 2025 First Australian-made rocket by Gilmour Space Technologies launches in Queensland, Australia, for 14 seconds before crashing [1]
- 2025 High-resolution images reveal intricate tattoos on a 2,500-year-old female Siberian 'ice mummy' [1]
- 2025 Klyuchevskoy Volcano in Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula erupts [1]
- 2025 Temperature of 41.2°C (106.2°F) in Tamba, Hyogo prefecture, Japan, sets new record for country, eclipsing previous high of 41.1°C set in 2018 and 2020; surpassed less than a week later
- 2025 Town of West Orange, New Jersey co-names Elm Street as “David Cassidy Way” in honor of the "I Think I Love You" singer who lived there at his grandparent’s home, during his childhood
