Events Pre-1600 258 – Pope Sixtus II is arrested while celebrating mass and then beheaded with several of his deacons. 686 – The Umayyad forces suffer a decisive defeat against the pro-Alid forces under Ibrahim ibn al-Ashtar in the battle of Khazir. 768 – Antipope Constantine II is deposed and blinded by the Lombard troops of primicerius Christopher. 1284 – The Republic of Pisa is defeated in the Battle of Meloria by the Republic of Genoa, thus losing its naval dominance in the Mediterranean. 1538 – Bogotá, Colombia, is founded by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada. 1585 – Toyotomi Hideyoshi is officially appointed kampaku (Imperial Regent).Berry, M. E. (1982). Hideyoshi. Harvard University Press, pp. 178–179.
1601–1900 1661 – The Treaty of The Hague is signed by Portugal and the Dutch Republic. 1777 – American Revolutionary War: The bloody Battle of Oriskany prevents American relief of the Siege of Fort Stanwix. 1787 – Sixty proof sheets of the Constitution of the United States are delivered to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1806 – Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, declares the moribund empire to be dissolved, although he retains power in the Austrian Empire. 1819 – Norwich University is founded in Vermont as the first private military school in the United States. 1824 – Peruvian War of Independence: Patriot forces led by Simón Bolívar defeat the Spanish Royalist army in the Battle of Junín. 1825 – The Bolivian Declaration of Independence is proclaimed. 1861 – Britain imposes the Lagos Treaty of Cession to suppress slavery in what is now Nigeria. 1862 – American Civil War: The Confederate ironclad is scuttled on the Mississippi River after suffering catastrophic engine failure near Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 1870 – Franco-Prussian War: The Battle of Spicheren is fought, resulting in a German victory. 1870 – Franco-Prussian War: The Battle of Wörth results in a decisive German victory. 1890 – At Auburn Prison in New York, murderer William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed by electric chair.
1901–present 1901 – Kiowa land in Oklahoma is opened for white settlement, effectively dissolving the contiguous reservation. 1914 – World War I: U-boat campaign: Two days after the United Kingdom had declared war on Germany over the German invasion of Belgium, ten German U-boats leave their base in Heligoland to attack Royal Navy warships in the North Sea. 1914 – World War I: Serbia declares war on Germany; Austria declares war on Russia. 1915 – World War I: Battle of Sari Bair: The Allies mount a diversionary attack timed to coincide with a major Allied landing of reinforcements at Suvla Bay. 1917 – World War I: Battle of Mărășești between the Romanian and German armies begins. 1926 – Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim across the English Channel. 1926 – First public screening using the Vitaphone process 1940 – Estonia is annexed by the Soviet Union. 1942 – Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands becomes the first reigning queen to address a joint session of the United States Congress. 1945 – World War II: Hiroshima, Japan is devastated when the atomic bomb "Little Boy" is dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay. Around 70,000 people are killed instantly, and some tens of thousands die in subsequent years from burns and radiation poisoning. 1956 – After going bankrupt in 1955, the American broadcaster DuMont Television Network makes its final broadcast, a boxing match from St. Nicholas Arena in New York in the Boxing from St. Nicholas Arena series. 1958 – Law of Permanent Defense of Democracy, outlawing the Communist Party of Chile and banning 26,650 persons from the electoral lists,Adam Feinstein, Pablo Neruda: A Passion for Life url is repealed in Chile. 1960 – Cuban Revolution: Cuba nationalizes American and foreign-owned property in the nation. 1962 – Jamaica becomes independent from the United Kingdom. 1965 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law. 1986 – A low-pressure system that redeveloped off the New South Wales coast dumps a record 328 millimeters (13 inches) of rain in a day on Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. 1990 – Gulf War: The United Nations Security Council orders a global trade embargo against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. 1991 – Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. WWW makes its first appearance as a publicly available service on the Internet. 1991 – Takako Doi, chair of the Social Democratic Party, becomes Japan's first female speaker of the House of Representatives. 1996 – NASA announces that the ALH 84001 meteorite, thought to originate from Mars, contains evidence of primitive life-forms. 1997 – Korean Air Flight 801 crashed at Nimitz Hill, Guam, killing 229 of the 254 people on board. 2001 – Erwadi fire incident: Twenty-eight mentally ill persons tied to a chain are burnt to death at a faith based institution at Erwadi, Tamil Nadu. 2008 – A military junta led by Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz stages a coup d'état in Mauritania, overthrowing president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. 2010 – Flash floods across a large part of Jammu and Kashmir, India, damages 71 towns and kills at least 255 people. 2011 – War in Afghanistan: A United States military helicopter is shot down, killing 30 American special forces members and a working dog, seven Afghan soldiers, and one Afghan civilian. It was the deadliest single event for the United States in the War in Afghanistan. 2012 – NASA's Curiosity rover lands on the surface of Mars. 2015 – A suicide bomb attack kills at least 15 people at a mosque in the Saudi city of Abha.
Births Pre-1600 1180 – Emperor Go-Toba of Japan (died 1239) 1504 – Matthew Parker, English archbishop (died 1575) 1572 – Fakhr-al-Din II, Druze emir (died 1635)
1601–1900 1605 – Bulstrode Whitelocke, English lawyer (died 1675) 1609 – Richard Bennett, English-American politician, Colonial Governor of Virginia (died 1675) 1619 – Barbara Strozzi, Italian composer and singer-songwriter (died 1677) 1622 – Tjerk Hiddes de Vries, Dutch admiral (died 1666) 1638 – Nicolas Malebranche, French priest and philosopher (died 1715) 1644 – Louise de La Vallière, French mistress of Louis XIV (died 1710) 1651 – François Fénelon, French archbishop and poet (died 1715) 1656 – Claude de Forbin, French general (died 1733) 1666 – Maria Sophia of Neuburg (died 1699) 1667 – Johann Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician (died 1748) 1697 – Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor (died 1745) 1715 – Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues, French author (died 1747) 1765 – Petros Mavromichalis, Greek general and politician, 2nd Prime Minister of Greece (died 1848) 1766 – William Hyde Wollaston, English chemist and physicist (died 1828) 1768 – Jean-Baptiste Bessières, French general and politician (died 1813) 1775 – Daniel O'Connell, Irish lawyer and politician, Lord Mayor of Dublin (died 1847) 1809 – Alfred, Lord Tennyson, English poet (died 1892) 1826 – Thomas Alexander Browne, English-Australian author (died 1915) 1835 – Hjalmar Kiærskou, Danish botanist (died 1900) 1844 – Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (died 1900) 1844 – James Henry Greathead, South African-English engineer (died 1896) 1848 – Susie Taylor, American writer and first black Army nurse (died 1912) 1846 – Anna Haining Bates, Canadian-American giant (died 1888) 1868 – Paul Claudel, French poet and playwright (died 1955) 1874 – Charles Fort, American author (died 1932) 1877 – Wallace H. White Jr., American lawyer and politician (died 1952) 1880 – Hans Moser, Austrian actor and singer (died 1964) 1881 – Leo Carrillo, American actor (died 1961) 1881 – Alexander Fleming, Scottish biologist, pharmacologist, and botanist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1955) 1881 – Louella Parsons, American journalist (died 1972) 1883 – Constance Georgina Adams, South African botanist (died 1968) 1883 – Scott Nearing, American economist and educator (died 1983) 1886 – Edward Ballantine, American composer and academic (died 1971) 1886 – Florence Goodenough, American child psychologist (died 1959) 1887 – Dudley Benjafield, English racing driver (died 1957) 1889 – George Kenney, Canadian-American general (died 1977) 1889 – John Middleton Murry, English poet and author (died 1957) 1891 – William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim, English field marshal and politician, 13th Governor-General of Australia (died 1970) 1895 – Frank Nicklin, Australian politician, 28th Premier of Queensland (died 1978) 1900 – Cecil Howard Green, English-American geophysicist and businessman, co-founded Texas Instruments (died 2003)
1901–present 1901 – Dutch Schultz, American gangster (died 1935) 1903 – Virginia Foster Durr, American civil rights activist (died 1999) 1904 – Jean Dessès, Greek-Egyptian fashion designer (died 1970) 1904 – Henry Iba, American basketball player and coach (died 1993) 1906 – Vic Dickenson, American trombonist (died 1984) 1908 – Maria Ludwika Bernhard, Polish classical archaeologist and a member of WWII Polish resistance (died 1998) 1908 – Helen Jacobs, American tennis player and commander (died 1997) 1908 – Lajos Vajda, Hungarian painter and illustrator (died 1941) 1909 – Diana Keppel, Countess of Albemarle (died 2013) 1910 – Adoniran Barbosa, Brazilian musician, singer, composer, humorist, and actor (died 1982) 1910 – Charles Crichton, English director, producer, and screenwriter (died 1999) 1911 – Lucille Ball, American actress, television producer and businesswoman (died 1989) 1911 – Norman Gordon, South African cricketer (died 2014) 1911 – Constance Heaven, English author and actress (died 1995) 1912 – Richard C. Miller, American photographer (died 2010) 1914 – Gordon Freeth, Australian lawyer and politician, 24th Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs (died 2001) 1916 – Richard Hofstadter, American historian and academic (died 1970) 1916 – Dom Mintoff, Maltese journalist and politician, 8th Prime Minister of Malta (died 2012) 1917 – Barbara Cooney, American author and illustrator (died 2000) 1917 – Robert Mitchum, American actor (died 1997) 1918 – Norman Granz, American-Swiss record producer and manager (died 2001) 1919 – Pauline Betz, American tennis player (died 2011) 1920 – John Graves, American author (died 2013) 1920 – Ella Raines, American actress (died 1988) 1922 – Freddie Laker, English businessman, founded Laker Airways (died 2006) 1922 – Dan Walker, American lawyer and politician, 36th Governor of Illinois (died 2015) 1923 – Jess Collins, American painter (died 2004) 1923 – Paul Hellyer, Canadian engineer and politician, 16th Canadian Minister of Defence (died 2021) 1924 – Samuel Bowers, American white supremacist, co-founded the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (died 2006) 1924 – Ella Jenkins, American folk singer (died 2024) 1926 – Elisabeth Beresford, English journalist and author (died 2010) 1926 – Frank Finlay, English actor (died 2016) 1926 – Clem Labine, American baseball player and manager (died 2007) 1926 – János Rózsás, Hungarian author (died 2012) 1926 – Norman Wexler, American screenwriter (died 1999) 1928 – Herb Moford, American baseball player (died 2005) 1928 – Andy Warhol, American painter, photographer and film director (died 1987) 1929 – Mike Elliott, Jamaican saxophonist 1929 – Roch La Salle, Canadian politician, 42nd Canadian Minister of Public Works (died 2007) 1930 – Abbey Lincoln, American singer-songwriter and actress (died 2010) 1931 – Chalmers Johnson, American scholar and author (died 2010) 1932 – Michael Deeley, English screenwriter and producer 1932 – Howard Hodgkin, English painter (died 2017) 1932 – Charles Wood, English playwright and screenwriter (died 2020) 1933 – A. G. Kripal Singh, Indian cricketer (died 1987) 1934 – Piers Anthony, English-American soldier and author 1934 – Chris Bonington, English mountaineer and author 1934 – Billy Boston, Welsh rugby player and soldier (died 2026) 1935 – Fortunato Baldelli, Italian cardinal (died 2012)