August 24

• August 24, 79
  The eruption of Mount Vesuvius buries the Roman settlements of Pompeii and Herculaneum under 4 to 6 meters of ash and kills 33,000 inhabitants of the town-cities
• August 24, 410
  Rome is occupied and sacked by Alaric I, King of the Visigoths, for the first time since 390 BC
• August 24, 1109
  In the Battle of Hundsfeld, Boleslaus III Wrymouth Prince of Poland defeats Emperor Henry V, incited by Bolesław's half-brother Zbigniew
• August 24, 1215
  Pope Innocent III, following a request from King John, declares the Magna Carta annulled
• August 24, 1217
  Eustace the Monk, a French mercenary and pirate, is executed by English troops
• August 24, 1516
  The Ottomans under Selim I with the support of artillery defeat the Mamluks at Battle of Marj Dabiq and gain control of Egypt, Arabia, and the Levant
• August 24, 1572
  Catherine de' Medici instigates Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris in which French protestant leader Gaspard de Coligny and thousands of Calvinist Huguenots are killed throughout France by Roman Catholic mob
• August 24, 1662
  An Act of Uniformity, a part of the Clarendon Code, is passed by the English Parliament and required that England's college fellows and clergymen accept the newly published Book of Common Prayer
• August 24, 1690
  Job Charnock, a servant and administrator of the English East India Company, founds the city of Kolkata in East India, after the Mughal emperor transfer taxation rights to the East India Company
• August 24, 1751
  Thomas Colley, an English chimney sweep, is executed in England for drowning a supposed witch
• August 24, 1780
  King Louis XVI abolish torture as a means to get suspects to confess, as part of his reforms in France in accordance with Enlightenment ideas
• August 24, 1814
  The United States Capitol and White House in Washington D.C. are burned and sacked by British General Robert Ross and Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn during War of 1812
• August 24, 1821
  Mexico gains independence from Spain with the Treaty of Córdoba and becomes a constitutional monarchy after 11 years of war
• August 24, 1824
  Simon Bolivar's army beat the Spanish in Peru in the Battle of Junín
• August 24, 1853
  First potato chips prepared by Chef George Crum in Saratoga Springs, New York
• August 24, 1857
  The New York branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company fails, sparking the Panic of 1857, the first world-wide economic crisis
• August 24, 1936
  Australian Antarctic Territory is created
• August 24, 1940
  Edward R. Murrow, an American broadcast journalist, starts a series of radio news broadcasts from London during the Blitz, which follow by millions of listeners in the United States
• August 24, 1991
  Ukraine declares independence from the USSR
• August 24, 2006
  The International Astronomical Union defines 'planet' at its 26th General Assembly, demoting Pluto to the status of 'dwarf planet' more than 70 years after its discovery

July 1

• July 1, 69
  Roman general Vespasian is proclaimed emperor by the army in Egypt under Tiberius Julius Alexander, starting Flavian Dynasty
• July 1, 600
  Sutton Hoo helmet, one of the most important Anglo-Saxon artefacts, is left among other ceremonial artefacts in the ship-burial in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of East Anglia
• July 1, 1390
  A French and Genoese armada sail out against Barbary pirates
• July 1, 1569
  The Union of Lublin replaces the personal union of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with an elective monarchy and creates the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth for protection against the growing power of Muscovite Russia
• July 1, 1596
  An English fleet under the Earl of Essex, Lord Howard of Nottingham and Francis Vere capture and sack Cadiz, Spain
• July 1, 1634
  Gian Lorenzo Bernini, an Italian artist and a prominent architect, completes bronze St. Peter's Baldachin in St. Peter's Basilica, which becomes one of the earliest examples of Baroque sculpture
• July 1, 1643
  Westminster Assembly, a synod composed of theologians and members of Parliament appointed to restructure the Church of England, begins
• July 1, 1690
  Led by Marshall Luxembourg, the French defeat the forces of the Grand Alliance at Fleurus in the Netherlands
• July 1, 1798
  Shortly after disembarkment at Alexandria forces of Napoleon Bonaparte break into the city of Alexandria in Egypt and takes it
• July 1, 1823
  The United Provinces of Central America, a state consisting of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and San Salvador, gains independence from Mexico
• July 1, 1849
  Henry David Thoreau, an American author, publishes his essay Resistance to Civil Government, an argument for disobedience to an unjust state
• July 1, 1850
  Rudolf Clausius, a German physicist, publishes the basic ideas of the second law of thermodynamics, stating that in a natural thermodynamic process, there is an increase in the sum of the entropies of the participating systems
• July 1, 1858
  The works "On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties" by British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace and "Extract from an unpublished Work on Species" by Charles Darwin, announce the theory of evolution by natural selection to the Linnean Society of London
• July 1, 1862
  In Seven Days Battles Confederate General Robert E. Lee drove the invading Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by major general George B. McClellan
• July 1, 1863
  The opening shot at the Battle of Gettysburg, the American Civil War's turning point, at 7:30 a.m. begins the first day's fighting at Gettysburg, in which Federal forces retreat through the town and dug in at Cemetery Ridge and Cemetery Hill
• July 1, 1867
  Dominion of Canada is formed from three British colonies by Constitution Act, issued by Queen Victoria, making Canada a self-governing dominion of Great Britain
• July 1, 1885
  Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher, writes philosophical novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in which points to human as a transition between apes and the "Übermensch", or "overman"
• July 1, 1898
  American troops take San Juan Hill and El Caney, Cuba, from the Spaniards
• July 1, 1916
  British suffer over 50,000 casualties in the first day of the Battle of the Somme, one of humanity's bloodiest battles, fought by the armies of the British and French empires against the German Empire
• July 1, 1944
  Bretton Woods Conference starts, establishing International Monetary Fund and World Bank
• July 1, 1951
  Colombo Plan, a regional organization that embodies the concept of collective inter-governmental effort to strengthen economic and social development of member countries in the Asia-Pacific region, comes into effect
• July 1, 1960
  Italian Somalia gains independence and unites with Somali Republic
• July 1, 1962
  Burundi and Rwanda gain independence from Belgium
• July 1, 1968
  United States, Britain, Soviet Union and 58 nations sign Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy
• July 1, 1987
  The Single European Act, which establishes a single market, is passed by European countries
• July 1, 1991
  The Warsaw Pact is officially dissolved at a meeting in Prague
• July 1, 1996
  The Northern Territory in Australia legalises voluntary euthanasia
• July 1, 1997
  The United Kingdom hands sovereignty of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China due to lease on the territories expires
• July 1, 2000
  The Oresund Bridge, a double-track railway and dual carriageway bridge-tunnel connecting Sweden and Denmark, opens for traffic and becomes the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe
• July 1, 2006
  The Qinghai-Tibet Railway launches a trial operation, connecting China proper and Tibet for the first time
• July 1, 2047
  The People's Republic of China's obligation to run Hong Kong as a special administrative region per the Sino-British joint declaration expires

June 26

• June 26, 363
  Roman Emperor Julian receives a mortal wound in battle with the Sassanian Persians during battle of Samarra. Jovian succeeds
• June 26, 1541
  Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish Conqueror of Peru, is murdered by his former followers in Lima
• June 26, 1630
  Sweden enters the German wars, as King Gustavus Adolphus and 13,000 men, comprised of mostly Swedes, with some Scottish and Irish mercenaries, land on the island of Usedom off the Pomeranian coast after Imperial intervention in Poland
• June 26, 1721
  Dr. Zabdiel Boylston gives the first smallpox inoculation in Boston during the epidemic that has arrived by ship from Barbados
• June 26, 1794
  French defeat the Coalition Army at the Battle of Fleurus
• June 26, 1830
  Britainэs King George IV dies and is succeeded by his brother, King William IV
• June 26, 1894
  The American Railway Union with 125,000 workers, led by Eugene V. Debs, calls a general strike in sympathy with Pullman workers that blocked freight traffic in and out of Chicago
• June 26, 1909
  The Science Museum in London comes into existence as an independent entity
• June 26, 1924
  After eight years of occupation, United States troops leave the Dominican Republic
• June 26, 1936
  The Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first practical helicopter, flies for the first time in Germany
• June 26, 1945
  United Nations Charter, the foundational treaty of the United Nations, is signed by 50 nations in San Francisco, California, United States
• June 26, 1948
  U.S. and British pilots begin delivering food and supplies by airplane to West Berlin after the city is isolated by a Soviet Union blockade
• June 26, 1963
  USA President John F. Kennedy speaks the famous words "Ich bin ein Berliner", which means I am a Berliner, on a visit to West Berlin
• June 26, 1974
  The Universal Product Code, a barcode symbology, is scanned for the first time, to sell a pack of chewing gum in Ohio
• June 26, 1976
  The CN Tower, the world's tallest free-standing land-based structure, opens in Toronto, Canada
• June 26, 1997
  Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the first novel about a young wizard Harry Potter by British author J. K. Rowling, is released
• June 26, 2000
  A 'rough draft' of the genome, as part of the Human Genome Project, an international scientific research project with a primary goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA, is finished

May 24

• May 24, 1153
  Malcolm IV, also known as Malcolm the Maiden, becomes king of Scotland
• May 24, 1300
  King Philip IV of France occupies Flanders. Guy, Count of Flanders is captured
• May 24, 1370
  Hanseatic League and Danish king Valdemar IV sign peace treaty ending the war and giving an effective trade and political monopoly in Scandinavia to the League
• May 24, 1543
  Nicolaus Copernicus, a mathematician and astronomer, dies in Poland
• May 24, 1658
  Battle of the Dunes ends with a victory of the French army and their Commonwealth of England allies over the Spanish army and their English Royalist and French Fronde rebels
• May 24, 1667
  French troops invade the Southern Netherlands beginning the War of Devolution between France and Spain as a result of the claim by Louis XIV that the ownership of the Spanish Netherlands devolved to his wife upon the death of her father, Philip IV of Spain
• May 24, 1689
  English Parliament passes the Act of Toleration, protecting Protestants, but Roman Catholics are specifically excluded from exemption
• May 24, 1798
  Believing that a French invasion of Ireland is imminent, Irish nationalists rise up against the British occupation
• May 24, 1822
  At Battle of Pichincha in Ecuador General Antonio José de Sucre win a decisive victory against Spanish forces
• May 24, 1823
  The Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company is founded to build a railway between the North West England towns of Liverpool and Manchester in the United Kingdom, the first railway to rely exclusively on steam power
• May 24, 1844
  Samuel Morse sends the first telegraphic message via publicly funded telegraph line in the world between Washington, DC and Baltimore ushering in the age of the telegraph
• May 24, 1856
  The Pottawatomie Massacre takes place in Kansas when John Brown, American abolitionist and horse thief, preside over the hacking to death with machetes of five unarmed pro-slavery Border Ruffians in Potawatomi, Kansas
• May 24, 1883
  The Brooklyn Bridge, one of the oldest suspension bridges, is dedicated by President Chester Arthur and New York Govener Grover Cleveland, and officially opened to traffic linking the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn
• May 24, 1923
  Irish Civil War ends with victory of Pro-Treaty
• May 24, 1993
  Eritrea gains independence from Ethiopia
• May 24, 2006
  East Timor's Foreign Minister José Ramos-Horta officially requests military assistance from the governments of Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Portugal

May 9

• May 9, 1386
  Treaty of Windsor, the oldest diplomatic alliance in the world which is still in force, is signed between Portugal and England by the marriage of King John I of Portugal to Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of 1st Duke of Lancaster
• May 9, 1502
  Christopher Columbus leaves Cadiz, Spain with four ships on his fourth and final trip to New World, to search for a sea passage to India
• May 9, 1588
  Catholic League troops under duke Henri de Guise occupies Paris, France
• May 9, 1671
  Thomas Blood, Irish adventurer, attempts to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London
• May 9, 1754
  The first American newspaper cartoon, a snake cut into sections, each part representing an American colony, is published with caption "Join or die" in Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette
• May 9, 1785
  British inventor Joseph Bramah patents a beer pump
• May 9, 1864
  Austria and Denmark held a ship battle at Helgoland
• May 9, 1873
  The collapse of the Vienna Stock Exchange, caused by booming stock prices, starts of Panic of 1873, described as the first international crisis, and Long Depression in Western Europe and North America
• May 9, 1901
  Australia opens its first parliament in Melbourne
• May 9, 1926
  Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett make first flight over North Pole
• May 9, 1927
  Australian Parliament convenes in Canberra for the first time
• May 9, 1936
  Italy takes Addis Ababa, annexing Abyssinia and incorporates it with Italian Somaliland and Italian Eritrea into the new colony of Italian East Africa
• May 9, 1941
  English Army breaks German spy codes
• May 9, 1944
  Russians recapture Crimea by taking Sevastopol
• May 9, 1950
  French Foreign minister Robert Schuman announces the Schuman Plan for European integration, which led to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community
• May 9, 1955
  German Federal Republic joins NATO
• May 9, 1978
  In Rome, the corpse of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro, kidnapped on March 16, is found in a red Renault 4 automobile
• May 9, 1979
  The Salvadoran Civil War begins between the military-led government of El Salvador and coalition or 'umbrella organization' of five left-wing guerrilla groups
• May 9, 1993
  Juan Carlos Wasmosy becomes the first democratically elected President of Paraguay in 50 years
• May 9, 2004
  Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov is killed by a landmine placed under a VIP stage during a World War II memorial parade in Grozny

May 8

• May 8, 1429
  A small French army led by a peasant girl Joan of Arc lifts the siege of Orleans, which becomes the turning point in the Hundred Years' War between France and England
• May 8, 1450
  Jack Cade's Rebellion-Kentishmen revolts against King Henry VI
• May 8, 1541
  Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto, discovers and crosses the Mississippi River, which he calls Rio de Espiritu Santo, during the first European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day United States
• May 8, 1660
  English parliament asks King Charles II to return
• May 8, 1737
  Edward Gibbon, an English historian, author of "Decline and Fall of Roman Empire," is born
• May 8, 1741
  Charles VII, Prince-elector of Bavaria, allies with France and Spain against Austria by the Treaty of Nymphenburg
• May 8, 1792
  British Captain George Vancouver sights and names Mount Rainier
• May 8, 1794
  Antoine Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry, is executed on the guillotine during France's Reign of Terror
• May 8, 1846
  The first major battle of the Mexican-American War is fought at Palo Alto, Texas in which US forces led by General Zachary Taylor are able to beat back the invading Mexican forces
• May 8, 1864
  19 Grant and Lee's armies suffer horrendous losses at the "Bloody Angle" during the Battle of Spotsylvania when Grant's Union forces once again attempted to outflank or smash Lee's Confederates
• May 8, 1873
  John Stuart Mill, a British philosopher and political economist, dies
• May 8, 1886
  In Atlanta, Georgia, United States, pharmacist John Pemberton sales the first time a carbonated beverage containing cocaine, he calls "Coca Cola"
• May 8, 1887
  Aleksandr Ulyanov, brother of Vladimir Lenin, is hanged for a conspiracy to assassinate Emperor Alexander III of Russia
• May 8, 1902
  Mount Pelée erupts, wipes out Saint Pierre, Martinique and kills 30,000
• May 8, 1942
  Battle of the Coral Sea, a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II, ends with strategic victory of Allies
• May 8, 1942
  German General Erich von Manstein's army launches a thrust into the Kerch peninsula of the Crimea, shattering three Russian armies, capturing 169,000 prisoners
• May 8, 1943
  Mordechai Anielewicz, commander of Warsaw ghetto uprising, is killed
• May 8, 1945
  The act of German military surrender, which ends World War II in Europe, is signed in Berlin, Germany in the middle of the night, so the date is known in the West as Victory in Europe Day, whereas in post-Soviet states the Victory Day is celebrated on 9 May
• May 8, 1958
  United States Vice President Richard Nixon is shoved, stoned, booed and spat upon by protesters in Peru during his goodwill tour of Latin America

April 25

• April 25, 1185
  Minamoto Yoritomo, a Japanese general, annihilates the Taira clan at sea battle at Dan-no-ura and gains command of Japan beginning Kamakura period in Japan
• April 25, 1507
  German cartographer Martin Waldseemuller uses for the first time name America, in honour of the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci, on printed wall map of the world
• April 25, 1590
  Judar Pasha, a Moroccan military leader, launches his successful attack to capture Timbuktu, Mali
• April 25, 1626
  A Bohemian military leader Albrecht von Wallenstein beats Ernst von Mansfeldd at Battle of Dessau Bridge during Thirty Years' War
• April 25, 1644
  Last Ming emperor Chongzhen commits suicide by hanging himself as Beijing fell to the bandit and rebel leader Li Zicheng
• April 25, 1660
  London Convention Parliament meets and votes to restore Charles II starting the Restoration in kingdoms of England, Ireland, and Scotland
• April 25, 1684
  A Dutch thimble manufacturer John Lofting establishes a thimble manufacture in London
• April 25, 1707
  At the Battle of Almansa, Franco-Spanish forces defeat Anglo-Portuguese
• April 25, 1719
  Daniel Defoe publishes Robinson Crusoe, the novel based on the story of Alexander Selkirk, a man who was voluntarily put ashore on a desert island
• April 25, 1725
  Mir Mahmud Hotaki of Afghanistan is mysteriously killed after going mad, starting to lose Afghan control of Persia
• April 25, 1822
  Free American Blacks, settled Liberia in West Africa, found Monrovia, named in honor of President James Monroe
• April 25, 1846
  Mexican troops kill and wound American soldiers on patrol near Rio Grande beginning Mexican–American War, which leads to Mexico's cession of much of the modern-day Southwestern United States
• April 25, 1859
  The Suez Canal Company begins construction on the canal in Egypt connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, at the northern end
• April 25, 1867
  Tokyo is opened for foreign trade, thereby obtaining the benefits of western technology
• April 25, 1876
  The Chicago White Stockings beats Louisville 4-0 in the first game in National League, the world's oldest current professional team sports league
• April 25, 1915
  78,000 Australian and New Zealand Army Corps troops land at Gallipoli peninsula in the Ottoman Empire
• April 25, 1925
  World War I general Paul von Hindenburg elected second president of the Weimar Republic in Germany
• April 25, 1928
  Buddy, a German Shepherd, becomes first guide dog for the blind
• April 25, 1945
  By order of General Dwight Eisenhower, the US 9th Army halts at the Elbe, allowing Russian forces to capture Berlin after British and American troops meet Soviet forces at Torgau on the Elbe river
• April 25, 1974
  Marcello Caetano, the last prime minister of authoritarian regime known as the Estado Novo, is overthrown in Portugal and exiled to Madeira during Carnation Revolution, which begins transition to democracy in Portugal
• April 25, 1976
  Portugal adopts constitution, rewritten in order to accommodate socialist and communist principles
• April 25, 1983
  Pioneer 10 travels beyond Pluto's orbit

March 31

• March 31, 1084
  Anti-pope Clemens crowns German emperor Henry IV
• March 31, 1492
  King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain issue an edict expelling approximately 100,000 Jews from Spanish soil, except those willing to convert to Christianity
• March 31, 1683
  Emperor Leopold I and king of Poland, John Sobieski, signs covenant against Turkey
• March 31, 1774
  English Parliament passes the Boston Port Act, the first bill of the Intolerable Acts, which closes Boston harbor until restitution for the destroyed tea is made
• March 31, 1790
  In Paris, France, Maximilien de Robespierre is elected president of the Jacobin Club, the most influential political club in the development of the French Revolution
• March 31, 1814
  Alexander I of Russia enters Paris at the head of an anti-Napoleon coalition
• March 31, 1840
  American President Martin Van Buren issues an executive order extending the "10-hour system" to all laborers and mechanics employed on federal public works, as the average daily hours of factory workers was estimated at 11.4
• March 31, 1854
  The Treaty of Kanagawa, concluded between Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the United States Navy and the Tokugawa shogunate, forces Japan to opens ports to foreign trade and formally ends Japan's policy of isolation
• March 31, 1880
  Wabash, Indiana, United States becomes the first town in the world completely illuminated by electrical lighting
• March 31, 1885
  Britain establishes a protectorate over Bechuanaland, modern Botswana, after appeals by the Botswana leaders for assistance
• March 31, 1889
  French engineer Gustave Eiffel unfurls the French tricolor from atop the Eiffel Tower, constructed of 7,000 tons of iron and steel, officially marking its completion
• March 31, 1896
  Whitcomb Judson, of Chicago, Illinois, United States, patents a hookless fastening, i.e. zipper
• March 31, 1903
  Richard Pearse, a New Zealand farmer and inventor, flies monoplane several hundred meters in New Zealand, some nine months before the Wright brothers flew their aircraft
• March 31, 1907
  Romanian Army puts down Moldavian farmers' revolt, begun due to the inequity of land ownership, killing roughly 11,000
• March 31, 1931
  An earthquake destroys Managua, Nicaragua, killing 2,000 people
• March 31, 1999
  The Matrix, a science fiction action film depicting a dystopian future, is released
• March 31, 2007
  Sydney, Australia, turns off its lights for one hour between 7:30PM and 8:30PM as a political statement for Global Climate Change for the first time

March 2

• March 2, 1127
  Charles the Good, Count of Flanders, is hacked to death with broadswords during praying in the church of Saint Donatian, Bruges, by members of influential Erembald family
• March 2, 1836
  Republic of Texas declares its independence from Mexico
• March 2, 1848
  Universal male suffrage is enacted in France, for the first time in the World
• March 2, 1855
  Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia, dies of pneumonia, and his son becomes Emperor Alexander II
• March 2, 1867
  The first Reconstruction Act is passed by Congress to help former Confederate States to be re-admitted to the Union
• March 2, 1936
  Adolf Hitler issues final orders for troops to re-occupy their former garrison posts in Rhineland towns
• March 2, 1943
  Sea battle in Bismarck Sea finishes, United States and Australia win over Japan
• March 2, 1946
  Ho Chi Minh is elected President of North Vietnam
• March 2, 1956
  The French protectorate is ended and Morocco regained its independence from France by the French-Moroccan Agreement
• March 2, 1969
  Dmitri Shostakovich, a Russian composer, completes his 14th Symphony
• March 2, 1972
  Pioneer 10, an American space probe, is launched for Jupiter flyby
• March 2, 1995
  Top quark, the last of six known quarks, a fundamental constituent of matter, is discovered by Collider Detector at Fermilab
• March 2, 1998
  Data sent from the Galileo probe indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice
• March 2, 2008
  Dmitry Medvedev is elected President of Russia with 72 percent of total votes, to succeed Vladimir Putin in May and appointing his as Prime Minister