August 19

• August 19, 1099
  Crusaders led by Frankish knight Godfrey of Bouillon beat Fatimid forces at Battle of Ascalon
• August 19, 1399
  King Richard II of England surrenders to his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, who returns to England to claim his inherited lands
• August 19, 1493
  Maximilian I succeeds his father Frederick III, who bleeds to death after the amputation of his left leg, as Holy Roman Emperor
• August 19, 1524
  Emperor Charles V's troops besiege Marseille
• August 19, 1692
  Five women are hanged in Salem, Massachusetts after being convicted of the crime of witchcraft
• August 19, 1700
  Russia declares war on Sweden
• August 19, 1772
  Gustav III of Sweden eliminates the rule of parties, becoming almost an absolute monarch
• August 19, 1779
  Americans under Major Henry Lee take the British garrison at Paulus Hook, New Jersey
• August 19, 1821
  Navarino Massacre, a massacre of Turkish civilian population during Greek War of Independence, occurs
• August 19, 1871
  Orville Wright, aviation pioneer, is born in Dayton, Ohio
• August 19, 1934
  One day before the death of Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg, Chancellor of Germany Hitler and his cabinet issue a decree, that dissolves the office of the president and make Hitler Führer of Germany
• August 19, 1942
  United States Marines land on Guadalcanal, Solomon Island starting the first American offensive in Pacific in World War II
• August 19, 1953
  Mohammad Mosaddegh, Prime Minister of Iran and the leading champion of secular democracy, is deposed in Iran by the British MI6 and the American CIA
• August 19, 1988
  Iran and Iraq begin a cease-fire after eight years of war
• August 19, 1991
  Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is put under house arrest while vacationing in the Crimea during a coup, during the failed coup attempt, led by Vice President Gennady Yanayev and seven hard-liners, and collapsed in less than 72 hours

April 1

• April 1, 1778
  Oliver Pollock, a New Orleans businessman, creates "$" symbol
• April 1, 1826
  Samuel Morey, an American inventor, patents the internal combustion engine, an engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber
• April 1, 1851
  Rama IV, also known as King Mongkut, succeeds the throne of King of Siam and begins to embrace Western innovations and initiates the modernization of Siam
• April 1, 1865
  At the Battle of Five Forks in Petersburg, Virginia, General Robert E. Lee begins his final offensive
• April 1, 1867
  The British government establishes the Straits Settlements, consisted of Singapore, Penang, and Malacca, as a separate Crown Colony
• April 1, 1873
  The British White Star steamship Atlantic, enroute to New York City from Liverpool with 811 passengers under Captain James Agnew Williams, sinks off Nova Scotia killing 565 people, mostly women and children
• April 1, 1933
  Germany begins persecution of Jews, boycotting Jewish businesses
• April 1, 1939
  After three years of Spanish Civil War general Francisco Franco proclaims victory in a radio speech, thus becomes dictator of Spain
• April 1, 1957
  Trial begins in Budapest, Hungary against participants' Hungarian Uprising
• April 1, 1966
  China's Cultural Revolution begins in order to impose Maoism as the dominant ideology and to enforce communism in the country by removing capitalist and cultural elements from Chinese society
• April 1, 1975
  Cambodia President Lon Nol flees for Red Khmer
• April 1, 1976
  American entrepreneur Steven Jobs and electronics engineer Stephen Wozniak incorporate the Apple Computer Company in California, United States, to sell hand-built personal computer called Apple I
• April 1, 1979
  Iran officially becomes an Islamic Republic by a 98 percent vote, overthrowing the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and forcing him into exile
• April 1, 2001
  The Act on the Opening up of Marriage, which allows same-sex couples to legally marry for the first time in the world, goes into effect in the Netherlands

March 21

• March 21, 1421
  A Franco-Scots army beat British at the Battle of Bauge
• March 21, 1556
  Thomas Cranmer, an archbishop of Canterbury, is burned at stake at age 66
• March 21, 1617
  Pocahontas dies of either small pox or pneumonia during preparation to sail back to Virginia
• March 21, 1668
  Jean de La Fontaine, one of the most widely read French poets, publishes his Fables Choisies, a collection of 124 fables dividing into six books
• March 21, 1697
  Tsar Peter the Great begins a tour through West Europe
• March 21, 1801
  British expeditionary corps under Sir Ralph Abercrombie defeat the French army under General Menou in the Battle of Alexandria during Anglo-Ottoman land offensive
• March 21, 1804
  The French civil code, later called the Napoleonic Code, is adopted and which forbids privileges based on birth and allows freedom of religion
• March 21, 1858
  British forces in India lift the siege of Lucknow during the Indian Rebellion
• March 21, 1865
  The Battle of Bentonville, North Carolina, ends, marking the last Confederate attempt to stop Union General William Sherman
• March 21, 1871
  Journalist Henry M. Stanley began his famous expedition to Africa to locate the missing Scottish missionary David Livingstone
• March 21, 1871
  Otto von Bismarck becomes the 1st Chancellor of the German Empire
• March 21, 1918
  German Army begins the Great March Offensive and drives the Allied army back 40 kilometers before losing momentum
• March 21, 1921
  James "Big Jim" Colosimo, United States gangster and boss of an Italian American crime syndicate, is murdered by Al Capone
• March 21, 1935
  Persia is officially renamed Iran
• March 21, 1960
  Police kill 72 in South Africa and outlaws African National Congress during Sharpeville massacre
• March 21, 1980
  U.S. President Jimmy Carter announces that the United States will boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow because of the Soviet war in Afghanistan
• March 21, 1990
  After 75 years of South African rule, Namibia becomes independent, with Sam Nujoma as the first president
• March 21, 1991
  United Nations Security Council panel decides to lift the food embargo on Iraq
• March 21, 1999
  Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon
• March 21, 2014
  Russia formally annexes Crimea after President Vladimir Putin signed a bill finalizing the annexation process

March 7

• March 7, 161
  Marcus Aurelius became emperor on the death of Antoninus Pius
• March 7, 1274
  Thomas Aquinas, Italian theologian, religious writer, influenced official policy of Catholic Church, dies at age 48
• March 7, 1530
  The Pope Clement VII refuses the appeal of Henry VIII of England on permission to divorce Catherine of Aragon
• March 7, 1695
  In Britain John Trevor, the speaker of the House of Commons office, is found guilty of accepting a bribe of 1000 guineas from the City of London to aid the passage of a bill through the house, and is expelled from the House of Commons
• March 7, 1799
  Napoleon Bonaparte captures the Turkish citadel at Jaffa, Palestine and orders the massacre of thousands of imprisoned Muslim soldiers claiming that he could not feed them
• March 7, 1850
  In a three-hour speech to the United Sates Senate, Daniel Webster, an American senator from Massachusetts, endorses the Compromise of 1850 as a means to defuse a four-year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North
• March 7, 1917
  First jazz record "Dixie Jazz Band One Step", recorded by Nick LaRocca Original Dixieland Jazz Band, is released by RCA Victor in Camden, New Jersey
• March 7, 1926
  First transatlantic telephone call occurs between London and New York
• March 7, 1935
  Germany regains possession of the Saarland after plebiscite in Saar indicates a desire of 90.3 percent to join Germany
• March 7, 1936
  Germany inform foreign ministers of the re-occupation of the Rhineland in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, and outline a peace plan including 25-year non-aggression pacts for all countries bordering on Germany
• March 7, 1951
  Haj Ali Razmara becomes the third Iranian prime minister to be assassinated
• March 7, 1991
  Iraq continues to explode oil fields in Kuwait during its repeal
• March 7, 2009
  NASA launches from Cape Canaveral in Florida the unmanned Kepler telescope to orbit the Sun to search for Earth-like planets with the potential to host life