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

August 2

• August 2, 216 BC
  Hannibal's Carthaginian army destroys 16 Roman legions under the consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro at Battle of Cannae
• August 2, 1589
  Henry III, the last King of the House of Valois, is assassinated by Jacques Clément, a fanatically religious and an ardent partisan of the Catholic League during the French Wars of Religion
• August 2, 1645
  Turkish invaders of the Ottoman Empire capture Chania on the island of Crete beginning the Cretan War with Republic of Venice
• August 2, 1790
  The enumeration for the first US census, authorized by President Washington, shows that 3,929,326 people are living in the US of which 697,681 are slaves, and that the largest city is New York City with 33,000 inhabitants
• August 2, 1802
  Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed "Consul for Life" by the French Senate after a plebiscite from the French people
• August 2, 1830
  Charles X abdicates in favor of his grandson Henry, Duke of Bordeaux
• August 2, 1831
  The Dutch army, headed by the Dutch princes, invades Belgium, in the so-called Ten Days' Campaign, and defeat Belgian forces near Hasselt and Leuven
• August 2, 1832
  Some 1,300 Illinois militia under General Henry Atkinson massacre Indians in Battle of Bad Axe, the final battle of Black Hawk War between the United States and Native Americans led by Black Hawk, a Sauk leader
• August 2, 1865
  A transatlantic cable being laid by SS Great Eastern snaps and is lost
• August 2, 1932
  American physicist Carl David Anderson discovers the anti-electron, when observes unexpected particle tracks in cloud chamber during investigation of cosmic rays, and calls is the positron
• August 2, 1939
  Einstein–Szilárd letter, a letter written by Leó Szilárd and signed by Albert Einstein, is sent to the United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt to alert Washington of ongoing Nazi atomic bomb research
• August 2, 1964
  North Vietnam fires on a US destroyer in Gulf of Tonkin
• August 2, 1990
  Iraq invades and occupies Kuwait, beginning the Persian Gulf War, a war waged by coalition forces from 34 nations led by the United States against Iraq
• August 2, 1998
  Second Congo War, the bloodiest war since World War II, begins

July 25

• July 25, 306
  After death of the Augustus of the West Constantius Chlorus in Britain, Severus is promoted from Caesar to Emperor by Emperor Galerius, while the troops at Eburacum proclaim Constantius' son, Constantine, which marks start of Civil wars of the Tetrarchy
• July 25, 1564
  Emperor Ferdinand I dies and is succeeded by his son Maximilian II
• July 25, 1587
  Japanese shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi bans Christianity in Japan and orders all Christians to leave
• July 25, 1593
  Henry IV, France's Protestant King, converts to Catholicism to secure the French crown
• July 25, 1729
  North Carolina separates from Province of Carolina and becomes royal colony
• July 25, 1799
  On his way back from Syria, Napoleon Bonaparte defeat superior Ottoman forces at Battle of Abukir, which temporarily secures French control over Egypt and makes Napoleon more popular in France
• July 25, 1826
  Five members of Decembrist Revolt in Russia are executed by hanging in Saint Petersburg
• July 25, 1837
  Between Euston and Camden Town in London, William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone successfully demonstrate the first commercial use of an electric telegraph
• July 25, 1894
  Japanese forces sink the British steamer Kowshing bringing Chinese reinforcements to Korea, which becomes the first naval battle of the First Sino-Japanese War
• July 25, 1909
  Louis Blériot of France makes the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine, in 37 minutes
• July 25, 1934
  Austrian Nazis assassinate Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss of Austria during a failed coup attempt
• July 25, 1957
  Monarchy in Tunisia abolished in favor of a republic and the beylical office is terminated
• July 25, 1978
  Louise Brown, a British citizen, becomes the first "test tube baby", human born through in vitro fertilization
• July 25, 2000
  Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde scheduled from Paris to New York City crashes into a hotel in nearby Gonesse hundred passengers and nine crew members aboard after ignition of fuel tanks, which becomes the only fatal Concorde accident
• July 25, 2007
  Pratibha Patil is sworn in as India's first female president
• July 25, 2010
  Wikileaks, an online publisher of anonymous, covert, and classified material, leaks to the public over 90,000 internal reports about the United States-led involvement in the War in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010

June 5

• June 5, 1595
  Henry IV's army defeat the and forces of Spanish and the Catholic League at the Battle of Fontaine-Française
• June 5, 1806
  Batavian Republic becomes the Kingdom of Holland
• June 5, 1832
  In Paris an anti-monarchist insurrection takes place during General Lamarque's funeral when insurgents get as far as the Rue Montorgueil and are then driven back by national guard
• June 5, 1849
  Denmark peacefully becomes a constitutional monarchy when King Frederick VII accepts a new constitution agreeing to share power with a bicameral parliament called the Rigsdag
• June 5, 1941
  4,000 people are asphyxiated in a tunnel during bombing of Chinese city of Chongqing by Imperial Japanese Army Air Service
• June 5, 1945
  The European Advisory Committee announces the unconditional political capitulation of Germany, so control of the country is divided into four occupation zones, controlled by the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union
• June 5, 1968
  US Senator Robert F. Kennedy is fatally shot and five others are wounded by assassins in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California
• June 5, 1972
  United Nations Conference on the Human Environment opens in Stockholm, Sweden
• June 5, 1981
  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that five homosexual men in Los Angeles, California have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, the first reported case of AIDS
• June 5, 1982
  The first Rubik's Cube World Championships is held in Budapest, Hungary
• June 5, 1984
  The Indian government begins Operation Blue Star, the planned attack to flush out separatist militants from Harimandir Sahib, the most sacred shrine of Sikhism
• June 5, 1989
  The Tank Man halts the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour after the Chinese military had suppressed the Tiananmen Square protests
• June 5, 1989
  The Tank Man halts the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour after the Chinese military had suppressed the Tiananmen Square protests
• June 5, 1989
  The Tank Man halts the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour after the Chinese military had suppressed the Tiananmen Square protests
• June 5, 2007
  NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft makes its second fly-by of Venus en route to Mercury
• June 5, 2011
  Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh travels to Saudi Arabia for treatment of an injury sustained during an attack on the presidential palace by protesters, who celebrate his transfer of power to his Vice-President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi

May 14

• May 14, 964
  Pope John XII, the last Pope during the Pornocracy period, is killed by an outraged husband during an adulterous sexual encounter
• May 14, 1027
  Robert II names son Henry I king of France
• May 14, 1509
  In the Battle of Agnadello, the French defeat the Venetians in Northern Italy
• May 14, 1590
  French king Henri IV beats Catholic League at Battle of Ivry
• May 14, 1610
  King Henri IV, Henri de Navarre, the first Bourbon King of France, is assassinated by a fanatical monk, François Ravaillac and is succeeded by his son Louis
• May 14, 1638
  Dutch fleet under Admiral Adam Westerwolt is defeated by Portuguese forces near Goa
• May 14, 1643
  Louis XIV becomes King of France at age 4 upon the death of his father, Louis XIII
• May 14, 1702
  Swedish troops under King Charles XII occupy Warsaw
• May 14, 1787
  Delegates begin gathering in Philadelphia for a convention to draw up the United States Constitution
• May 14, 1796
  English physician Edward Jenner gives the first successful vaccination against smallpox, the terrible disease killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans each year
• May 14, 1804
  The Meriwether Lewis and William Clark expedition of about 45 men leaves Saint Louis, Missouri, on a mission to explore the Northwest from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean after the Louisiana Purchase
• May 14, 1878
  Vaseline is first sold with the registered trademark for petroleum jelly
• May 14, 1926
  May Coup of Józef Piłsudski turns rule of the Second Polish Republic over to the Sanacja movement
• May 14, 1948
  The State of Israel is officially created and David Ben-Gurion becomes first Prime Minister
• May 14, 1955
  Warsaw Pact, a mutual defense treaty during the Cold War, is signed in Warsaw by the Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania
• May 14, 1964
  Egyptian President Nasser and Soviet leader Khrushchev start filling of reservoir of Aswan High Dam
• May 14, 1973
  Skylab, the United States' first space station. Skylab orbited the Earth, is launched
• May 14, 1998
  U.S. singer Frank Sinatra dies

May 6

• May 6, 523
  Thrasamund, King of the Vandals and Alans, dies and Hilderic succeeds
• May 6, 1085
  Alfonso VI of León and Castile occupies the city of Toledo
• May 6, 1527
  Spanish and German mutinous mercenaries sack Rome during the conflict between Emperor Charles V and the League of Cognac — the alliance of France, Milan, Venice, Florence and the Papacy, which is considered the end of the Italian Renaissance
• May 6, 1576
  The Fifth War of Religion in France ends with the Edict of Beaulieu by which the Huguenots are granted freedom of worship in all places except Paris
• May 6, 1682
  King Louis XIV of France officially establishes his court in new Palace of Versailles, some 20 kilometres southwest of the French capital, making it the centre of political power
• May 6, 1757
  Frederik II of Prussia beat emperor's army at the Battle at Prague
• May 6, 1794
  After the French declared an end to slavery, Toussaint Louverture, Haitian rebel leader, ends his alliance with the Iberian monarchy and embraces the French Republicans
• May 6, 1856
  Sigmund Freud, father of psychology and the Viennese physician who discovered the unconscious, is born
• May 6, 1856
  Robert Peary, arctic explorer, is born
• May 6, 1877
  Chief Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their final losing battle against the U.S. Cavalry in Montana and surrenders
• May 6, 1882
  President Chester A. Arthur signs the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibits the immigration of Chinese laborers into the United States for 10 years
• May 6, 1889
  The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public with opening of Universal Exposition in Paris, France and becomes the tallest structure in the world until the Chrysler Building in New York City built in 1930
• May 6, 1896
  Samuel Pierpont Langley, American physicist and aviation pioneer, launches the first reasonably large, steam-powered model aircraft
• May 6, 1910
  George V ascends to British throne after death of his father Edward VII and becomes King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India
• May 6, 1919
  German East Africa is assigned to Britain and France, German Southwest Africa to South Africa after Paris Peace Conference disposes of German colonies
• May 6, 1937
  Hindenburg, the largest rigid airship by envelope volume, is destroyed by fire during its attempt to dock with its mooring mast in New Jersey
• May 6, 1942
  American forces at Corregidor Island surrenders to the Japanese, putting all of the Philippines under Japanese control
• May 6, 1953
  John Heysham Gibbon, an American surgeon, performes the first successful open heart procedure on a human utilizing Gibbon's heart lung machine
• May 6, 1981
  A jury of architects and sculptors unanimously selects Maya Lin's design for the US Vietnam Veterans Memorial from 1,421 other entries
• May 6, 1994
  Channel Tunnel, 50.5-kilometre rail tunnel linking Folkestone in the United Kingdom, with Coquelles in northern France beneath the English Channel, is opened
• May 6, 2000
  Operation Palliser, begun by British forces, effectively ending Sierra Leone Civil War
• May 6, 2001
  The first space tourist, United States multimillionaire Dennis Tito, returns to Earth aboard Russian spacecraft Soyuz TM-31, while Soyuz TM-32, which delivered the crew to the International Space Station, is left docked as a new lifeboat
• May 6, 2007
  Nicolas Sarkozy is elected President of the French Republic, defeating Ségolène Royal with 53 percent of the vote in the French Presidential Election

April 13

• April 13, 989
  Byzantine emperor Basil II beats Bardas Phokas the Younger, a Byzantine general who took a conspicuous part in three revolts for and against the ruling Macedonian dynasty
• April 13, 1111
  In Rome, Pope Paschalis II crowns Heinrich V Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire
• April 13, 1517
  Tuman bay II, the last Mamluk sultan of Egypt, is hanged as Osman's army occupies Cairo
• April 13, 1598
  King Henry IV of France endorses the Edict of Nantes, which ends the religion Wars in France and grant political rights to French Huguenots
• April 13, 1640
  English Short Parliament is formed to obtain money to finance military struggle with Scotland in the Bishops' Wars
• April 13, 1759
  French beat European Allies in Battle of Bergen
• April 13, 1775
  Lord North extends the New England Restraining Act, which forbids trade with any country other than Britain and Ireland, to South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland
• April 13, 1861
  After 34 hours of bombardment Federal garrison at Fort Sumter surrenders to Confederate forces
• April 13, 1868
  Tewodros II, Emperor of Ethiopia, commits suicide with a pistol presented him by Queen Victoria at Magdala as the British troops storm the citadel
• April 13, 1869
  George Westinghouse, an American engineer, patents the railroad air brake, which enables the engineer to brake a train from the locomotive, making high-speed travel safe
• April 13, 1912
  The British Royal Flying Corps, later Royal Air Force, is organized in Great Britain with naval and military wings and a central flying school
• April 13, 1919
  British General Reginald Dyer orders 50 riflemen to fire on assembly of 10,000 protesting Indian nationalists at Jalianwala Bagh in City of Amritsar in Pubjab, northwest India, without warning, continued firing for 10 minutes, resulting in 379 killed and 1200+ wounded
• April 13, 1924
  The monarchy is abolished via Greek plebiscite for a republic follows the catastrophic outcome of the Asia Minor Campaign
• April 13, 1943
  Warsaw ghetto uprising begins in Poland
• April 13, 1957
  12 Angry Men, a drama film adapted from a teleplay of the same name by Reginald Rose, is released
• April 13, 1975
  Phalangists, members of Christian Kataeb Party, kills 27 Palestinians traveling in Ain el-Rummaneh, thus begin Lebanese Civil War
• April 13, 1987
  Portugal and the People's Republic of China sign an agreement in which Macau would be returned to China in 1999
• April 13, 1990
  The Soviet Union apologizes for the Katyn Massacre of Polish officers during World War II
• April 13, 2015
  A vessel with up to 550 migrants on board sinks off the Libyan coast, marking start of European migrant crisis, the rising number of refugees and migrants coming to the European Union

March 19

• March 19, 1279
  Kublai Khan completes the Mongol conquest of China and ends Song Dynasty after victory at the Battle of Yamen
• March 19, 1563
  The Edict of Amboise grants limited rights for Huguenots and ends the First War of Religion in France
• March 19, 1628
  Massachusetts Bay Colony colony is founded by English Puritan
• March 19, 1661
  English occupy St. Andrew Island, known as Kunta Kinteh Island, and other Courlander possessions in Gambia
• March 19, 1812
  Spanish Cortes passes a liberal constitution under a hereditary monarch, establishing the principles of universal male suffrage, national sovereignty, constitutional monarchy and freedom of the press
• March 19, 1856
  The Electoral Act of the Colony of Victoria, Australia, enacts the first law requiring parliamentary election by secret ballot vote
• March 19, 1882
  Construction of Sagrada Familia, a large Roman Catholic church in Barcelona, Spain, has commenced, initially designed by architect Francisco de Paula del Villar and later radically redesigned by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi
• March 19, 1920
  United States Senate rejects Treaty of Versailles for second time refusing to ratify League of Nations' covenant and maintaining isolation policy
• March 19, 1944
  German troops enter Budapest, Hungary
• March 19, 1967
  French Somaliland, or Djibouti, votes to continue association with France
• March 19, 1978
  50,000 demonstrate in Amsterdam against neutron bomb
• March 19, 2003
  The first American cruise missiles and stealth bombers strike targets in Baghdad beginning Iraq War following United States President George Bush's 48-hour mandate for President Saddam Hussein and his sons to exit from Iraq
• March 19, 2011
  In light of continuing attacks on Libyan rebels by forces in support of leader Muammar Gaddafi, military intervention authorized under United Nations Security Council resolution 1973 begins as French fighter jets make reconnaissance flights over Libya

March 1

• March 1, 293
  Roman emperor Diocletian introduces tetrarchy, dividing power among four individuals and marking the end of the Crisis of the Third Century and the recovery of the Roman Empire
• March 1, 1260
  Hulagu Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan, conquers Damascus
• March 1, 1562
  Over 80 Huguenots, members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France, are massacred by the ultra-Catholic Duke of Guise Francis in Wassy-sur-Blaise, marking the start of the First War of Religion in France
• March 1, 1565
  Estácio de Sá, a Portuguese soldier and officer, founds Rio de Janeiro in Brazil as the basis of military operations against the France Antarctique colony
• March 1, 1579
  Sir Francis Drake waylaid a Spanish treasure galleon, the Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, off the coast of Panama
• March 1, 1801
  The London stock exchange is founded, with still the only British government debt traded
• March 1, 1811
  In Egypt the Ottoman viceroy Muhammad Ali Pasha massacres the Mameluke leaders of Egypt, invited to a banquet at the citadel of Cairo in honor of his son, for plotting against him
• March 1, 1864
  Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron patents a movie machine that was never built
• March 1, 1872
  Yellowstone National Park, the world's first national park, is established under the act signed into law by President Ulysses Grant
• March 1, 1896
  Ethiopia defeats Italy at the Battle of Adwa during the First Italo-Ethiopian War and ensures the first victory of an African state over a European colonial power
• March 1, 1910
  An avalanche of snow hits two trains stranded for seven days outside the Cascade Tunnel below Stevens Pass, near Wellington, Washington, USA, killing 96 and becomes the deadliest one in United States history
• March 1, 1934
  Puyi, the last Emperor of China, is crowned emperor of Manchuria
• March 1, 1936
  Hoover Dam, a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, is completed
• March 1, 1938
  Detective Comics pays Jerome Siegel and Joe Shuster $130 to transfer exclusive rights to the use of the comic character "Superman", who has its first appearance in comics
• March 1, 1995
  Yahoo! web site is founded in Santa Clara, California
• March 1, 2007
  International Polar Year, a US$1.5 billion research program to study both the North Pole and South Pole, is launched in Paris, France

February 23

• February 23, 155
  Polycarp, Christian bishop of Smyrna, is arrested and burned at stake
• February 23, 1100
  Emperor Huizong, a calligrapher, painter and promoter of Taoism, begins to rule over China
• February 23, 1516
  The Hapsburg Charles I is proclaimed king of Aragon and Castile after the death of his grandfather Ferdinand II
• February 23, 1530
  Spain's King Carlos I is crowned Holy Roman Emperor Charles V by Pope Clement VII in the last coronation of a German king by a Pope
• February 23, 1574
  The 5th War of Religion, against the Huguenots, breaks out in France
• February 23, 1615
  The Estates-General in Paris are dissolved, having been in session since October 1614
• February 23, 1660
  Charles XI becomes king of Sweden after death of his father Charles X Gustav of a stroke
• February 23, 1685
  George Frideric Handel, composer and musician, is born in Halle, Germany
• February 23, 1689
  Protestant Dutch prince William III ascends to the throne over England, Scotland, and Ireland after King James II, Catholics protector, escape during England's Glorious Revolution
• February 23, 1820
  Cato Street Conspiracy, an attempt to murder all the British cabinet ministers and Prime Minister Lord Liverpool, is uncovered
• February 23, 1847
  American major general Zachary Taylor defeats Mexican General Antonio Loіpez de Santa Anna and Mexican army at the battle of Buena Vista, Mexico
• February 23, 1848
  Revolution of 1848 begins in France resulting in King Louis-Philippe's abdication, the establishment of the Second French Republic and spread of revolutionary movements throughout Europe
• February 23, 1854
  Great Britain and Orange Free state sign Convention of Bloemfontein, by which the independence of the Orange Free State is recognized
• February 23, 1893
  Rudolf Diesel, a German mechanical engineer, is granted a patent for the invention of the diesel engine, an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition
• February 23, 1987
  Supernova 1987A, the first naked-eye supernova since 1604, first seen in Large Magellanic Cloud
• February 23, 1998
  Osama bin Laden publishes a fatwa, declaring jihad against all Jews and Crusaders, which declared the killing of North Americans and their allies
• February 23, 2002
  Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia kidnaps Oxygen Green Party presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who is traveling in Colombian territory
• February 23, 2008
  Microsoft announces it will cease making HD DVD players for the Xbox 360