August 15

• August 15, 636
  At the Battle at Yarmuk Islamic forces under Khalid ibn al-Walid beat a Byzantine army under Emperor Heraclius and gain control of Syria and Palestine
• August 15, 718
  The combined Byzantine–Bulgarian forces decisively defeat Umayyad navy using Greek fire after thirteen months of siege of Constantinople, stopping the Arab threat in Eastern Europe
• August 15, 778
  The Basques, an ethnic group from western end of the Pyrenees, beat forces of Charlemagne and Roland, prefect of the Breton March, at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass
• August 15, 1040
  Macbeth kills Duncan I at Pitgaveny and becomes the King of the Scots
• August 15, 1057
  Macbeth, the King of Scotland, is mortally wounded at the Battle of Lumphanan, by Malcolm Canmore, the eldest son of King Duncan I, who was killed by Macbeth 17 years earlier
• August 15, 1261
  Constantinople falls to Michael VIII Palaiologos who transforms the Empire of Nicaea into a restored Byzantine Empire
• August 15, 1511
  Malacca, the capital of the Sultanate of Malacca and center of East Indian spice trade, is captured by Portuguese general Afonso de Albuquerque
• August 15, 1519
  Panama City is founded
• August 15, 1549
  Francis Xavier, a co-founder of the Society of Jesus, lands in Kagoshima with the first Portuguese Jesuit missionary to rich Japan
• August 15, 1598
  Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, leads an Irish force to victory over the British at Battle of Yellow Ford
• August 15, 1649
  Oliver Cromwell lands in Ireland beginning the conquest of Ireland
• August 15, 1760
  Frederick II, king of Prussia, defeats the Austrians at the Battle of Liegnitz
• August 15, 1769
  Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France and continental Europe, is born on the island of Corsica
• August 15, 1799
  Combined army of Austrians and Imperial Russians under Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov beat French Revolutionary Army at Novi Ligure, Italy, recapturing lands taken by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1796
• August 15, 1806
  Construction of Arc de Triomphe, a triumphal arch in Paris, starts by order of Napoleon in honor of the victory at Austerlitz
• August 15, 1865
  Sir Joseph Lister discovers the antiseptic process while working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, which led to a reduction in post-operative infections
• August 15, 1867
  Second Reform Bill extends suffrage in England giving the vote to the working classes
• August 15, 1914
  Panama Canal, one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects, officially opens in Panama, connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean
• August 15, 1935
  Famed American aviator Wiley Post and humorist Will Rogers are killed in plane crash in Alaska
• August 15, 1944
  The Allies launch Operation Anvil, as a second Allied invasion force under Lieutenant-General Jacob Devers lands on the Mediterranean coast of France between Cannes and Toulon
• August 15, 1947
  The greater Indian subcontinent formed by the Partition of India gain independence from the British Empire as Dominion of India, with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru as the first Prime Minister
• August 15, 1948
  Republic of Korea, South Korea, is proclaimed by an anti-Communist Syngman Rhee, who has been backed and appointed by the United States as head of the provisional government
• August 15, 1969
  Woodstock Music and Art Fair, widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history, opens in New York State
• August 15, 1971
  US President Richard Nixon's administration refuses to settle foreign debts in gold at $35 per ounce, dropping the gold standard, and allowing the dollar to float in foreign exchanges, also imposes a 90-day wage and price freeze