1776 – Battle of Long Island: In what is now Brooklyn, New York, British forces under General William Howe defeated Americans under General George Washington.
1793 – French Revolutionary Wars: The city of Toulon revolted against the French Republic and admitted the British and Spanish fleets to seize its port, leading to the Siege of Toulon by French Revolutionary forces.
1810 – Napoleonic Wars: The French Navy defeated the British Royal Navy, which prevented them from taking the harbor of Grand Port on Île de France.
1832 – Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk tribe of Native Americans, surrendered to U.S. authorities, thus ending the Black Hawk War.
1859 – Petroleum was discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania which led to the world’s first commercially successful oil well.
1881 – The Georgia hurricane made landfall near Savannah, Georgia, resulting in an estimated 700 deaths.
1883 – Eruption of Krakatoa: Four enormous explosions almost completely destroyed the island of Krakatoa and caused years of climate change.
1893 – The Sea Islands hurricane struck the United States near Savannah, Georgia, and killed between 1,000 and 2,000 people.
1915 – Attempted assassination of Bishop Patrick Heffron, bishop of the Diocese of Winona by Rev. Louis M. Lesches.
1916 – World War I: The Kingdom of Romania declared war on Austria-Hungary, and entered the war as one of the Allied nations.
1918 – Mexican Revolution: Battle of Ambos Nogales: U.S. Army forces skirmish against Mexican Carrancistas in the only battle of World War I fought on American soil.
1928 – The Kellogg–Briand Pact outlawing war was signed by fifteen nations. Ultimately sixty-one nations signed it.
1939 – First flight of the turbojet-powered Heinkel He 178, the world’s first jet aircraft.
1943 – World War II: Aerial bombardment by the Luftwaffe razed to the ground the village of Vorizia in Crete.
1953 – “Roman Holiday”, starring Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck, and Eddie Albert, was released.
1955 – “Guinness Book of World Records” was first published.
1956 – The nuclear power station at Calder Hall in the United Kingdom was connected to the national power grid becoming the world’s first commercial nuclear power station to generate electricity on an industrial scale.
1958 – USSR launched Sputnik 3 with two dogs aboard.
1962 – The Mariner 2 unmanned space mission was launched to Venus by NASA.
1964 – Walt Disney’s “Mary Poppins” starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke premiered in Los Angeles.
1965 – The Beatles spent an evening with Elvis Presley.
1970 – Jimi Hendrix created his last studio recording at Electric Lady Studios in New York, an instrumental called “Slow Blues”.
1975 – Veronica & Colin Scargill (England) completed a tandem bicycle ride, a record 18,020 miles around the world.
1980 – A massive bomb planted by extortionist John Birges exploded at Harvey’s Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada after a failed disarming attempt by the FBI. Although the hotel was damaged, no one was injured.
1984 – US President Ronald Reagan announced the ‘Teacher in Space’ project.
1990 – “No Fences”, the second studio album by Garth Brooks, was released. It was the Billboard Album of the Year in 1991.
2003 – Mars made its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, passing 34,646,418 miles (55,758,005 km) distant.
2004 – Hong Kong martial arts film “Hero” starring Jet Li opened in the US and became the first Chinese-language film to go to #1 at US box office.
2006 – Comair Flight 5191 crashed on takeoff from Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky bound for Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta. Of the passengers and crew, 49 of 50 were confirmed dead in the hours following the crash.
2012 – First interplanetary human voice recording was broadcast from the Mars Rover Curiosity.
2019 – Race car driver Jessi Combs died while setting a new fastest women’s land speed record of 522.783 mph at Alvord Desert, Oregon (posthumously awarded 2020).
2020 – Hurricane Laura made landfall in Louisiana near the Texas border as a category 4 storm with 150 mph winds. It killed at least 16 people.