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

August 10

• August 10, 843
  Sons of Louis the Pious divide Charlemagne's Empire by Treaty of Verdun, so Charles the Bald receives the western portion, which later became France, Louis the German get eastern lands, later the medieval kingdom of Germany, and Lothair I receives the central part
• August 10, 1497
  John Cabot told King Henry VII of his trip to "Asia" after his return from his first successful journey to the Labrador coast
• August 10, 1500
  Portuguese explorer Diogo Dias discovers Madagascar
• August 10, 1539
  King Francis I of France signs edict known as Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts, declaring that all official documents are to be written in French, not Latin
• August 10, 1557
  Spanish and English troops in alliance defeat the French at the Battle of St. Quentin (San Quintino)
• August 10, 1582
  Russia ends its 25-year war with Poland and cedes Livonia and Estonia to Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth losing access to the Baltic
• August 10, 1627
  Cardinal Richelieu begins a siege to Protestant La Rochelle, a Huguenot stronghold
• August 10, 1628
  The Swedish 69-meter warship Vasa capsizes and sinks in Stockholm harbor on her maiden voyage because the ballast is insufficient to counterweight the 64 guns and ballast
• August 10, 1675
  King of England Charles II lays the foundation stone of Royal Observatory in Greenwich, an important institution in the history of astronomy and navigation
• August 10, 1678
  The Treaty of Nijmegen ends the hostilities with France and gives to France control over the region of the Franche-Comté
• August 10, 1680
  In New Mexico Popé, a Tewa religious leader, leads rebellion of Pueblo Indians against Spaniads
• August 10, 1755
  The Great Upheaval, forced population transfer of the French Acadian population from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, begins
• August 10, 1779
  Louis XVI of France frees the last remaining serfs on royal land
• August 10, 1787
  Mozart completes his composition Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
• August 10, 1792
  Some 20,000 Parisians attack the Tuileries palace of Louis XVI at the instigation of Georges Jacques Danton and massacre some 600 guardsmen after Louis orders his Swiss guard to stop firing on the people
• August 10, 1809
  Quito, the seat of a real audiencia of Spain in modern-day Ecuador, declares independence from Spain
• August 10, 1861
  Union general Nathaniel Lyon the first Union general to be killed in the American Civil War, at the Battle of Wilson's Creek in Missouri, which ends with a Confederate victory
• August 10, 1913
  Second Balkan War ends with Treaty of Bucharest, which confirms territorial acquisitions of Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria at the expense of Ottoman Empire during the First and Second Balkan Wars
• August 10, 1927
  United States President Calvin Coolidge formally dedicates the Mount Rushmore site
• August 10, 2010
  The World Health Organization declares the H1N1 influenza pandemic over, saying worldwide flu activity has returned to typical seasonal patterns

August 8

• August 8, 70
  Antonia Fortress is destroyed by the Romans during the siege of Jerusalem
• August 8, 117
  Trajan, emperor of Rome, dies
• August 8, 869
  Lothair II, King of Lotharingia, dies
• August 8, 870
  Kingdom of Lotharingia, realm of Lothair II, who died some monthes ago, is devided between his uncles Louis the German of East Francia and Charles the Bald of West Francia by the Treaty of Meerssen
• August 8, 1579
  Cornerstone is laid for Tycho Brahe's Uraniborg observatory, the first custom-built observatory in modern Europe, by order of Frederick II, King of Denmark
• August 8, 1588
  The English Navy destroy the Spanish Armada at the Battle of Gravelines which opens the world for English trade and colonization
• August 8, 1700
  Denmark signs the peace treaty of Travendal with Sweden during the Great Northern War
• August 8, 1709
  In Lisbon, Bartolomeu de Gusmão manages to lift a balloon full of hot air about 4.5 meters in front of King John V and the Portuguese court, which becomes the first documented balloon flight in Europe
• August 8, 1736
  Mahomet Weyonomon, a Mohegan sachem or leader, dies of smallpox while waiting to see King George II to complain directly about British settlers encroaching on tribal lands in the Connecticut colony
• August 8, 1786
  Savoyard mountain guide Jacques Balmat and doctor Michel-Gabriel Paccard become the first men to climb Mont Blanc in France
• August 8, 1788
  King Louis XVI calls the Estates General, which have not met since 1614, because of loosing of power
• August 8, 1815
  Napoleon Bonaparte set sail for Saint Helena, an island in the South Atlantic Ocean, to spend the remainder of his days in exile
• August 8, 1846
  David Wilmot, an American politic, offers to ban slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War in his speech in the United States House of Representatives, the event known as the Wilmot Proviso
• August 8, 1897
  Anarchist Michele Angiolillo assassinates Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, Spain, and Marcelo Azcárraga Palmero becomes prime minister of Spain
• August 8, 1919
  British recognize Afghanistan's independence with Treaty of Rawalpindi
• August 8, 1945
  USSR establishes a communist government in the northern half of the occupied Korean peninsula, stopping along 38th parallel after invasion of Manchuria, per the agreement with the United States
• August 8, 1949
  Bhutan becomes an independent monarchy after Treaty of Friendship between India and Bhutan
• August 8, 1963
  Great Train Robbery occurs in England, 2.6 million pounds, or US$7.3 million
• August 8, 1988
  Thousands of protesters in Myanmar are killed during anti-government demonstrations, which leads to a bloody military coup
• August 8, 1991
  The Warsaw radio mast, the tallest construction ever built, collapses
• August 8, 2008 08:08
  An estimated one billion people worldwide watch the opening ceremonies of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad on TV

July 8

• July 8, 810
  Pepin the Hunchback, the eldest son of Charlemagne, king of Italy, dies
• July 8, 1497
  Vasco da Gama, Portuguese explorer, begins his first voyage from Europe to India via South Africa
• July 8, 1686
  The Austrians take Buda, Hungary, from the Turks and annexed the country
• July 8, 1709
  Charles XII of Sweden flees to Ottoman Empire after Peter I of Russia defeats his army at the Battle of Poltava during Great Northern War and effectively ends the Swedish empire, making Russia major European power
• July 8, 1730
  A magnitude 8.7 earthquake in Valparaíso, Chile, kills at least 3,000 people
• July 8, 1758
  During the French and Indian War a British attack on Fort Carillon at Ticonderoga, New York, is foiled by the French when some 3,500 Frenchmen defeat the British army of 15,000, which lost 2,000 men
• July 8, 1776
  Colonel John Nixon gives first public reading of Declaration of Independence
• July 8, 1853
  An expedition led by United States Commodore Matthew Perry arrives in Japan on the steam-powered "Black Ships" and threatens the Japanese capital Edo with gunships, demanding that they agree to open trade
• July 8, 1889
  In Mississippi Jake Kilrain fights boxing champion John L. Sullivan in the last world heavyweight championship prizefight decided with bare knuckles under London Prize Ring rules in history
• July 8, 1969
  United States troops begin to withdrawal from Vietnam
• July 8, 1994
  Kim II Sung, the leader of North Korea since 1945, dies at age 82
• July 8, 1997
  NATO invites the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland to join the alliance in 1999
• July 8, 2014
  Amid growing tensions between Israel and Hamas following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in June, Israel launches Operation Protective Edge on the Palestinian Gaza Strip starting with numerous missile strikes

June 25

• June 25, 253
  Saint Lucius I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
• June 25, 524
  Forces of Burgundian Kingdom beat the Frankish army at Battle of Vézeronce averting expansion of Merovingians
• June 25, 841
  Charles the Bald and Louis the German, two grandsons of Charlemagne, defeat third grandson Lothair I at Battle of Fontenoy during Carolingian Civil War
• June 25, 1530
  Augsburg Confession, the 28 articles of the Lutheran churches, are presented to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V as an attempt to restore religious and political unity in the Holy Roman Empire
• June 25, 1630
  The fork is introduced to American dining by John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
• June 25, 1767
  The Jesuits are expelled from Spanish America, and their work is taken over by the Dominican Fathers
• June 25, 1850
  Lord Palmerston, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, claims that every British subject in the world should be protected by the British Empire and calls to to blockade Greece after a mob in Athens burned down the home of a British citizen
• June 25, 1876
  Alliance of native American forces led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeat the United States Army troops of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer in a bloody battle near southern Montana's Little Bighorn River
• June 25, 1947
  The Diary of a Young Girl, a book written by Jewish girl Anne Frank during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II, is published
• June 25, 1950
  Korean War, a war between North and South Korea, begins after Korean People's Army assisted by the Soviet Union cross the 38th parallel and invade South Korea
• June 25, 1975
  Mozambique gains independence after over four centuries of Portuguese rule
• June 25, 1991
  Slovenia and Croatia declare independence from Yugoslavia
• June 25, 2009
  Michael Jackson, an American singer-songwriter often referred to as the "King of Pop", dies of acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication after suffering from cardiac arrest

June 20

• June 20, 451
  Combined Roman and Visigoth forces under Roman general Flavius Aetius stop Attila's army at the Catalaunian Plains in eastern France, the last great military campaign by Western Roman Empire
• June 20, 656
  Caliph Uthman ibn Affan is assassinated, thus Ali becomes caliph
• June 20, 840
  King of the Franks Louis the Pious dies triggering the Civil war in Frankish kingdom between his sons
• June 20, 1646
  In England, Parliament signs a peace treaty with Royalists
• June 20, 1675
  A band of Pokanoket retaliate for the execution of three of their people and attack several isolated homesteads in the small Plymouth colony settlement of Swansea, starting King Philip's War
• June 20, 1743
  The British warship Centurion under Commodore George Anson engaged and overcame the Spanish treasure galleon, Nuestra Senora de Covadonga, near the Philippines killing 58 Spaniards and capturing over 1 million Spanish silver dollars and 500 pounds of native silver
• June 20, 1756
  In India rebels defeat the British army at Calcutta and imprison between 64 and 146 British soldiers in a suffocating cell that gained notoriety as the Black Hole of Calcutta
• June 20, 1789
  Oath on the Tennis Court in Versailles, France, bonds members of the Third Estate to resist eviction until they have a new constitution
• June 20, 1791
  King Louis XVI is caught trying to escape French Revolution in the so-called Flight to Varennes
• June 20, 1793
  Eli Whitney, an American inventor, petitions patent for a cotton gin, a machine which cleans the tight-clinging seeds from short-staple cotton, which becomes one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution
• June 20, 1819
  The paddle-wheel steamship Savannah arrives in Liverpool, England, after a voyage of 27 days and 11 hours and becomes the first steamship to successfully cross the Atlantic
• June 20, 1837
  Queen Victoria ascends the British throne following the death of her uncle, King William IV, and beginning the Victorian era when the British Empire get the apex
• June 20, 1877
  Alexander Graham Bell installs the world's first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
• June 20, 1893
  A jury in New Bedford, Massachusetts, finds Lizzie Borden innocent of the ax murders of her father, wealthy Fall River, Massachusetts, businessman Andrew Borden and his wife, Abby Borden, however, is ostracized for the rest of her life
• June 20, 1948
  West German Finance Minister Ludwig Erhard eliminates most price controls and introduces a new currency, the "Deutsche mark"
• June 20, 1960
  Federation of Mali, with Senegal, becomes independent of France
• June 20, 1990
  The asteroid Eureka, the first Mars trojan, is discovered by David H. Levy
• June 20, 1991
  The Bundestag in Bonn decides that Berlin should become the German capital
• June 20, 2003
  The North East MRT Line, the world's first fully automated and driverless subway opens in Singapore

June 9

• June 9, 53 BC
  Parthians crush Roman army at battle of Carrhae, killing general Marcus Licinius Crassus
• June 9, 68
  Nero, Roman Emperor, commits suicide, ending the Julio-Claudian Dynasty
• June 9, 922
  French chose Robert I as King of France
• June 9, 1064
  Ferdinand I, the Count of Castile, conquers the city of Coimbra, modern-day Portugal
• June 9, 1456
  Pope Callixtus III excommunicates the apparition of Halley's Comet, believing it to be an ill omen for the Christian defenders of Belgrade from the besieging armies of the Ottoman Empire
• June 9, 1660
  Louis XIV marries Maria Teresa, the daughter of Philip IV of Spain, as part of the Treaty of the Pyrenees
• June 9, 1732
  Royal charter for Georgia is granted to British general James Oglethorpe by George II, for whom the colony is named
• June 9, 1940
  King Haakon VI of Norway flees to London, England after Norway falls to German forces
• June 9, 1955
  "Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and His Comets" becomes the first Rock & Roll song to top the U.S. record charts, bringing rock and roll to the American mainstream
• June 9, 2008
  Afghan and British forces uncover a stash of 237 tonnes of hashish in Kandahar province of Afghanistan, believed to be the world's biggest seizure of drugs by weight

May 21

• May 21, 987
  French King Louis V dies from a fall while hunting, terminating the Carolingian period of Frankish rule
• May 21, 996
  Otto III is crowned the Roman Emperor by his cousin Pope Gregory V
• May 21, 1420
  King Charles VI of France signs the Treaty of Troyes that recognizes all the territorial gains of King Henry V of England, gives Henry the daughter of Charles in marriage, and acknowledges Henry as the legitimate heir to the French throne
• May 21, 1471
  Henry VI, king of England and France, is killed in the tower of London and Edward IV takes the throne
• May 21, 1535
  Imperial authorities in Antwerp capture and imprison William Tyndale for heresy over his translation of the Bible into English
• May 21, 1542
  Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto dies while searching for gold along the Mississippi River and is buried by his men in the Mississippi River in what is now Louisiana in order that Indians would not learn of his death, and thus disprove de Soto's claims of divinity
• May 21, 1674
  General John Sobieski is chosen King of Poland
• May 21, 1683
  The Society of Suriname, a Dutch private company, is founded by the city of Amsterdam, the Van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck family, and the Dutch West India Company
• May 21, 1809
  Austrian archduke Charles beats Napoleon at Battle of Aspern-Essling when he was crossing the Danube near Vienna, which becomes the first personally defeat of Napoleon over a decade
• May 21, 1840
  New Zealand is founded as a British colony since the Treaty of Waitangi is signed by Māori chiefs of New Zealand and representatives of Queen Victoria
• May 21, 1871
  French government troops enter in Paris and attack the Commune of Paris
• May 21, 1881
  Clara Barton, a hospital nurse, founds American Red Cross
• May 21, 1881
  Standard Oil, an American oil producing founded by John D. Rockefeller, becomes the world's first trust, after thirty-seven stockholders convey their shares
• May 21, 1916
  Britain begins "Summer Time", which becomes the implementation of daylight saving time
• May 21, 1927
  Charles Lindbergh, an American aviator, becomes the first person who makes solo non-stop transatlantic flight, from New York's Long Island to Le Bourget Field in Paris
• May 21, 1945
  German war criminal Heinrich Himmler is captured
• May 21, 1998
  Suharto forced to resign as president of Indonesia after 31-year reign

April 10

• April 10, 879
  Louis the Stammerer, King of France, dies and Louis III is crowned King of France
• April 10, 1516
  Jews are compelled to live in a specific area of Venice, the first ghetto
• April 10, 1525
  Albert of Prussia, a member of a branch of the House of Hohenzollern and the leader of the Teutonic Order, secularizes Order's remaining territories into the Duchy of Prussia and makes Prussia a Protestant state
• April 10, 1656
  Dutch fleet occupiers Colombo, Ceylon
• April 10, 1710
  The world's first copyright legislation, Britain's Statute of Anne, becomes effective and limits term of copyright on books: 21 years for books already in print, 14 years for new books, and additional 14 years if author still alive at end of first term
• April 10, 1790
  President George Washington signs into law the first United States Patent Act responsible for granting patents on "useful and important" inventions
• April 10, 1814
  The Duke of Wellington leads 60,000 troops against 325,000 French troops at Toulouse and defeats them just days after Napoleon abdicated the throne
• April 10, 1815
  The eruption of Mount Tambora, a stratovolcano on the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia, becomes one of the most powerful in recorded history and causes deaths of about 75,000 people and global climate anomalies during next year known as Year Without a Summer
• April 10, 1849
  Walter Hunt, an American mechanic and inventor of new stove, paper collar, ice-breaking boat, and nail-making machine, patents the safety pin
• April 10, 1864
  Austrian Archduke Maximilian, the younger brother of Austria's Franz Joseph, becomes the French crowned emperor of Mexico
• April 10, 1930
  Synthetic rubber first is produced by Sergei Vasilyevich Lebedev, a Soviet chemist
• April 10, 1938
  Austria becomes a state of Germany as Austrian Anschluss referendum records a support of 99.7% of the voters
• April 10, 1981
  Imprisoned Irish Republican Army hunger striker Bobby Sands elected to British Parliament by Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election
• April 10, 1989
  Intel announces the 25 MHz i486 microprocessor, which integrates the 386 processor and uses 1.2 million transistors, employing 1-micron technology
• April 10, 1998
  Eighteen hours after the end of the talks deadline, the Belfast Agreement is signed between the Irish and British governments and most Northern Ireland political parties, bringing an end to The Troubles in Northern Ireland
• April 10, 2006
  Romano Prodi, lead candidate of center-left political coalition The Olive Tree, narrowly defeats Silvio Berlusconi in the Italian parliamentary elections