August 17

• August 17, 1743
  By the Treaty of Åbo, Sweden cedes southeast Finland to Russia, ending Sweden's failed war with Russia
• August 17, 1786
  Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, dies, and his nephew Frederick William II succeeds
• August 17, 1807
  Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat, popularly known as the Clermont, begin heading up New York's Hudson River on its successful round-trip to Albany and becomes the first commercially successful steamboat
• August 17, 1812
  Napoleon Bonaparte's army defeats the Russians at the Battle of Smolensk during the Russian retreat to Moscow
• August 17, 1869
  Oxford beats Harvard on the Thames River in the first international boat race
• August 17, 1877
  Asaph Hall, an American astronomer, discovered the Mars moon Phobos
• August 17, 1945
  Indonesia declares independence from Netherlands
• August 17, 1960
  Gabon gains independence from France
• August 17, 1970
  Venera 7, the first man-made spacecraft to land successfully on another planet, and to transmit data from there back to Earth, is launched by USSR
• August 17, 1982
  The first commercially available compact discs are released to the public in Germany
• August 17, 1987
  Rudolf Hess, a prominent politician in Nazi Germany, commits suicide by hanging himself with an electrical flex in his cell at age 93 in Spandau Prison in Berlin, Germany, where he served 46 years
• August 17, 1998
  Decline in commodity prices triggers financial crisis in Russia and discredits the government of President Boris Yeltsin
• August 17, 2008
  Michael Phelps wins his record eighth gold medal of the Beijing Games, in the 4x100 medley relay, in record time of 3:29.34 and holds the record for most gold medals at an Olympics event

July 31

• July 31, 431
  First Council of Ephesus ends with emergence of cult of the Virgin Mary and exile of Nestorius, Archbishop of Constantinople, who do not believe that Christ was truly God
• July 31, 904
  Arab forces capture Byzantium city of Thessaloniki for a short term
• July 31, 1498
  During his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus arrives at an island he named Trinidad because of its 3 hills
• July 31, 1703
  English novelist Daniel Defoe is made to stand in the pillory as punishment for offending the government and church with his satire "The Shortest Way With Dissenters", but is pelted with flowers
• July 31, 1922
  18-year-old Ralph Samuelson rides world's first water skis in Minnesota, United States
• July 31, 1932
  The Nazi party becomes the largest single party in the German parliament after German federal election
• July 31, 2007
  Operation Banner, the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland, the longest-running British Army operation, comes to an end
• July 31, 2011
  In Thailand over 12.8 million people are affected by severe flooding, which couses damages estimated at US$45 billion and leaves 790 people killed, with 58 of the country's 77 provinces affected

July 18

• July 18, 390 BC
  Gauls decisively defeat Roman forces and inflict heavy casualties on Romans at the battle of Allia
• July 18, 1858
  The summer Great Stink takes place when the smell of untreated sewage almost overwhelmed people in central London, England
• July 18, 1872
  Britain introduced the Ballot Act for voting by secret ballot
• July 18, 1925
  Mein Kampf, an autobiographical manifesto outlining future plans for Germany, is published by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler
• July 18, 1936
  General Francisco Franco leads uprising in Spanish Morocco starting Spanish Civil War between Republican, loyal to the democratic Spanish Republic, and Nationalist forces backed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy
• July 18, 1995
  Eruption of Soufrière Hills volcano in the southern part of Montserrat, a British overseas territory in the Caribbean, destroys Montserrat's capital city of Plymouth and leads to emigration of two-thirds of the island's population
• July 18, 2003
  Second Congo War ends with more than 5 million dead

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