Events Pre-1600 70 – Titus ends the siege of Jerusalem after destroying Herod's Temple. 1057 – Elderly Byzantine Emperor Michael VI Bringas abdicates after just one year on the throne. 1060 – The Mirdasids defeat the Fatimid Caliphate at the Battle of al-Funaydiq, signalling the definitive loss of Aleppo for the Fatimids. 1282 – Peter III of Aragon lands at Trapani to intervene in the War of the Sicilian Vespers. 1363 – The five-week Battle of Lake Poyang begins, in which the forces of two Chinese rebel leaders (Chen Youliang and Zhu Yuanzhang) meet to decide who will supplant the Yuan dynasty. 1464 – Paul II succeeds Pius II as pope of the Catholic Church. 1535 – With the papal bull Eius qui immobilis, Pope Paul III excommunicates King Henry VIII of England from the Catholic Church for approving the Acts of Supremacy,; although the bull is likely never published. 1574 – Guru Ram Das becomes the Fourth Sikh Guru/Master. 1590 – Tokugawa Ieyasu enters Edo Castle. (Traditional Japanese date: August 1, 1590) 1594 – King James VI of Scotland holds a masque at the baptism of Prince Henry at Stirling Castle.Martin Wiggins & Catherine Richardson, British Drama 1533–1642: A Catalogue: 1590–1597, vol. 3 (Oxford, 2013), p. 247.
1601–1900 1721 – The Great Northern War between Sweden and Russia ends in the Treaty of Nystad. 1727 – Anne, eldest daughter of King George II of Great Britain, is given the title Princess Royal. 1757 – Battle of Gross-Jägersdorf: Russian force under Field Marshal Stepan Fyodorovich Apraksin beats a smaller Prussian force commanded by Field Marshal Hans von Lehwaldt, during the Seven Years' War.Peter H. Wilson, The Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire. Penguin, 2016, pp. 478–479. 1791 – sinks after having run aground on the outer Great Barrier Reef the previous day. 1799 – The entire Dutch fleet is captured by British forces under the command of Sir Ralph Abercromby and Admiral Sir Charles Mitchell during the War of the Second Coalition. 1800 – Gabriel Prosser postpones a planned slave rebellion in Richmond, Virginia, but is arrested before he can make it happen. 1808 – The convention of Cintra allows the defeated French troops to be transported out of Iberia on British ships, including their loot. 1813 – First Battle of Kulm: French forces are defeated by an Austrian-Prussian-Russian alliance. 1813 – Creek War: Fort Mims massacre: Creek "Red Sticks" kill over 500 settlers (including over 250 armed militia) in Fort Mims, north of Mobile, Alabama. 1835 – Australia: Melbourne, Victoria is founded. 1836 – The city of Houston is founded by Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen. 1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Richmond: Confederates under Edmund Kirby Smith rout Union forces under General William "Bull" Nelson. 1873 – Austrian explorers Julius von Payer and Karl Weyprecht discover the archipelago of Franz Josef Land in the Arctic Sea. 1896 – Philippine Revolution: After Spanish victory in the Battle of San Juan del Monte, eight provinces in the Philippines are declared under martial law by the Spanish Governor-General Ramón Blanco y Erenas.
1901–present 1909 – Burgess Shale fossils are discovered by Charles Doolittle Walcott. 1914 – World War I: Germans defeat the Russians in the Battle of Tannenberg. 1916 – Ernest Shackleton completes the rescue of all of his men stranded on Elephant Island in Antarctica. 1917 – Vietnamese prison guards led by Trịnh Văn Cấn mutiny at the Thái Nguyên penitentiary against local French authority. 1918 – Fanni Kaplan shoots and seriously injures Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, which, along with the assassination of Bolshevik senior official Moisei Uritsky days earlier, prompts the decree for Red Terror. 1922 – Battle of Dumlupınar: The final battle in the Greco-Turkish War (Turkish War of Independence). 1936 – The RMS Queen Mary wins the Blue Riband by setting the fastest transatlantic crossing. 1940 – The Second Vienna Award reassigns the territory of Northern Transylvania from Romania to Hungary. 1941 – The Tighina Agreement, a treaty regarding administration issues of the Transnistria Governorate, is signed between Germany and Romania. 1942 – World War II: The Battle of Alam el Halfa begins. 1945 – The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong comes to an end. 1945 – The Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Douglas MacArthur, lands at Atsugi Air Force Base. 1945 – The Allied Control Council, governing Germany after World War II, comes into being. 1959 – South Vietnamese opposition figure Phan Quang Dan is elected to the National Assembly despite soldiers being bussed in to vote for President Ngo Dinh Diem's candidate. 1962 – Japan conducts a test of the NAMC YS-11, its first aircraft since World War II and its only successful commercial aircraft from before or after the war. 1963 – The Moscow–Washington hotline between the leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union goes into operation. 1967 – Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African American Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. 1974 – A Belgrade–Dortmund express train derails at the main train station in Zagreb killing 153 passengers. 1974 – A powerful bomb explodes at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries headquarters in Marunouchi, Tokyo. Eight are killed, 378 are injured. Eight left-wing activists are arrested on May 19, 1975, by Japanese authorities. 1974 – The Third World Population Conference ends in Bucharest, Romania. At the end of the ceremony, the UN-Romanian Demographic Centre is inaugurated. 1981 – President Mohammad-Ali Rajai and Prime Minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar of Iran are assassinated in a bombing. The office of Iran's Prosecutor General blames the People's Mujahedin of Iran. 1983 – Aeroflot Flight 5463 crashes into Dolan Mountain while approaching Almaty International Airport in present-day Kazakhstan, killing all 90 people on board. 1983 – STS-8: The Space Shuttle Challenger takes off on the first night launch of the shuttle program. Guion Bluford becomes the first African-American in space on this mission. 1984 – STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery takes off on its maiden voyage. 1991 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Azerbaijan declares independence from Soviet Union. 1992 – The 11-day Ruby Ridge standoff ends with Randy Weaver surrendering to federal authorities. 1995 – Bosnian War: NATO launches Operation Deliberate Force against Bosnian Serb forces. 1998 – Second Congo War: Armed forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and their Angolan and Zimbabwean allies recapture Matadi and the Inga dams in the western DRC from RCD and Rwandan troops. 2002 – Rico Linhas Aéreas Flight 4823 crashes on approach to Rio Branco International Airport, killing 23 of the 31 people on board. 2008 – A Conviasa Boeing 737 crashes into Illiniza Volcano in Ecuador, killing all three people on board. 2014 – Prime Minister of Lesotho Tom Thabane flees to South Africa as the army allegedly stages a coup. 2021 – The last remaining American troops leave Afghanistan, ending U.S. involvement in the war. 2023 – Gabonese coup d'état: After Ali Bongo Ondimba's reelection, a military coup ousts him, ending 56 years of Bongo family rule in Gabon.
Births Pre-1600 1334 – Peter of Castile (died 1369) 1574 – Albert Szenczi Molnár, Hungarian writer and translator (died 1634)
1601–1900 1609 – Sir Alexander Carew, 2nd Baronet, English politician (died 1644) 1609 – Artus Quellinus the Elder, Flemish sculptor (died 1668) 1627 – Itō Jinsai, Japanese philosopher (died 1705) 1716 – Capability Brown, English landscape architect (died 1783) 1720 – Samuel Whitbread, English brewer and politician, founded Whitbread (died 1796) 1748 – Jacques-Louis David, French painter and illustrator (died 1825) 1768 – Joseph Dennie, American author and journalist (died 1812) 1797 – Mary Shelley, English novelist and playwright (died 1851) 1812 – Agoston Haraszthy, Hungarian-American businessman, founded Buena Vista Winery (died 1869) 1818 – Alexander H. Rice, American businessman and politician, 30th Governor of Massachusetts (died 1895) 1820 – George Frederick Root, American songwriter (Battle Cry of Freedom) (died 1895) 1822 – Adolph Strauch, Prussian American landscape architect (died 1883) 1839 – Gulstan Ropert, French-American bishop and missionary (died 1903) 1842 – Grand Duchess Alexandra Alexandrovna of Russia (died 1849) 1844 – Emily Ruete/Salama bint Said, also called Sayyida Salme, a Princess of Zanzibar and Oman (died 1924) 1848 – Andrew Onderdonk, American surveyor and contractor (died 1905) 1850 – Marcelo H. del Pilar, Filipino journalist and lawyer (died 1896) 1852 – Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Dutch chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1911) 1852 – J. Alden Weir, American painter and academic (died 1919) 1855 – Evelyn De Morgan, English painter (died 1919) 1856 – Carl David Tolmé Runge, German mathematician, physicist, and spectroscopist (died 1927) 1858 – Ignaz Sowinski, Galician architect (died 1917) 1860 – Isaac Levitan, Russian painter and illustrator (died 1900) 1870 – Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna of Russia (died 1891) 1871 – Ernest Rutherford, New Zealand-English physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1937) 1883 – Theo van Doesburg, Dutch artist (died 1931) 1884 – Theodor Svedberg, Swedish chemist and physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1971) 1885 – Tedda Courtney, Australian rugby league player and coach (died 1957) 1887 – Paul Kochanski, Polish violinist and composer (died 1934) 1890 – Samuel Frederick Henry Thompson, English captain and pilot (died 1918) 1893 – Huey Long, American lawyer and politician, 40th Governor of Louisiana (died 1935) 1896 – Raymond Massey, Canadian-American actor and playwright (died 1983) 1898 – Shirley Booth, American actress and singer (died 1992)
1901–present 1901 – John Gunther, American journalist and author (died 1970) 1901 – Roy Wilkins, American journalist and activist (died 1981) 1903 – Bhagwati Charan Verma, Indian author (died 1981) 1906 – Joan Blondell, American actress and singer (died 1979) 1906 – Olga Taussky-Todd, Austrian mathematician (died 1995) 1907 – Leonor Fini, Argentine painter, illustrator, and author (died 1996) 1907 – Bertha Parker Pallan, American archaeologist (died 1978) 1907 – John Mauchly, American physicist and co-founder of the first computer company (died 1980) 1908 – Fred MacMurray, American actor (died 1991) 1909 – Virginia Lee Burton, American author and illustrator (died 1968) 1910 – Roger Bushell, South African-English soldier and pilot (died 1944) 1912 – Edward Mills Purcell, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1997) 1912 – Nancy Wake, New Zealand-English captain (died 2011) 1913 – Richard Stone, English economist and statistician, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1991) 1915 – Princess Lilian, Duchess of Halland (died 2013) 1915 – Robert Strassburg, American composer, conductor, and educator (died 2003) 1916 – Shailendra, Pakistani-Indian songwriter (died 1968) 1917 – Dan Enright, American television producer (died 1992) 1917 – Denis Healey, English soldier and politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (died 2015) 1917 – Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich of Russia (died 1992) 1918 – Harold Atcherley, English businessman (died 2017) 1918 – Billy Johnson, American baseball player (died 2006) 1918 – Ted Williams, American baseball player and manager (died 2002) 1919 – Maurice Hilleman, American microbiologist and vaccinologist (died 2005) 1919 – Wolfgang Wagner, German director and manager (died 2010) 1919 – Kitty Wells, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2012) 1920 – Arnold Green, Estonian soldier and politician (died 2011) 1922 – Lionel Murphy, Australian jurist and politician, 22nd Attorney-General of Australia (died 1986) 1922 – Regina Resnik, American soprano and actress (died 2013) 1923 – Barbara Ansell, English physician and author (died 2001)