August 12

• August 12, 30 BC
  Cleopatra, the most famous queen and the last active pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, kills herself by inducing an Egyptian cobra to bite her after her beloved Mark Antony's suicide
• August 12, 1093
  In England the foundation stone for Durham Cathedral is laid down
• August 12, 1332
  Rebels supporting the Balliol beat forces of the infant David II, the son of Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Dupplin Moor in Scotland
• August 12, 1399
  Battle of the Vorskla River, a major battle between joint armies of Tokhtamysh and Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania, and the Tatars, under Edigu and Temur Qutlugh, ends in a decisive Tatar victory
• August 12, 1508
  Juan Ponce de León, a Spanish explorer, arrives to New World to conquer the Puerto Rico
• August 12, 1648
  Seven-year-old Mehmed IV succeeds Ibrahim in the Ottoman House of Osman
• August 12, 1687
  At the Battle of Mohács, Hungary, the forces of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, commanded by Charles of Lorraine defeated the Turks
• August 12, 1759
  Forces of Frederick the Great are defeated by combined army of Russians and Austrians under Pyotr Saltykov at Kunersdorf, which gives the victors the opportunity to march against Berlin
• August 12, 1812
  British commander the Duke of Wellington occupies Madrid, Spain, forcing out Joseph Bonaparte
• August 12, 1851
  Isaac Singer, the founder of the Singer Sewing Machine Company, is granted a patent for his sewing machine
• August 12, 1883
  The last quagga, subspecies of the plains zebra, dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam
• August 12, 1896
  Gold is discovered at Dawson on the Klondike River in Alaska, triggering Klondike Gold Rush in Canada
• August 12, 1981
  At the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, and in Boca Raton, Florida, IBM announces the model 5150, called IBM Personal Computer, a progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform
• August 12, 1982
  Mexico announces it is unable to pay its large foreign debt, triggering a debt crisis that quickly spreads throughout Latin America
• August 12, 1985
  Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes in Japan, killing 520 people becoming the worst single-aircraft disaster in history
• August 12, 1990
  The largest and most complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex, called "Sue", is discovered near Faith, South Dakota
• August 12, 2000
  The Russian submarine K-141 Kursk sinks in the Barents Sea, resulting in the deaths of all 118 men on board

July 28

• July 28, 1148
  The siege of city of Damascus by a combined force of crusaders fails ending in a decisive crusader defeat in Second Crusade
• July 28, 1540
  Thomas Cromwell, King Henry VIII's chief minister, is executed
• July 28, 1576
  Martin Frobisher, English navigator, discovers Frobisher Bay in Canada
• July 28, 1751
  In France the first volume of the Encyclopedie, edited by Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert, is published with a print run of 1,625
• July 28, 1794
  French revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre and 22 other followers are executed to thunderous cheers, marking end of the Reign of Terror, a period of violence against counter-revolutionary activities
• July 28, 1809
  Arthur Wellesley leads the Anglo-Spanish army to triumph against a French army under the Spanish King Joseph Bonaparte at Talavera de la Reina, some 120 kilometers southwest of Madrid
• July 28, 1821
  Peru declares its independence from Spain
• July 29, 1830
  Bourbon monarchy is overthrown during the July Revolution after attempt of Charles X to limit the political and civil rights, so the ascent of his cousin Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, becomes constitutional monarch of France
• July 28, 1851
  Total solar eclipse is captured on a daguerreotype photograph at at the Royal Observatory in Königsberg, Prussia
• July 28, 1914
  Austria-Hungary invade the Kingdom of Serbia after the last reject an unacceptable ultimatum to Serbia including demand of the person who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, starting World War I
• July 28, 1914
  The Foxtrot is first danced by Harry Fox at New Amsterdam Roof Garden, New York City
• July 28, 1915
  United States marines land in Haiti to safeguard the interests of U.S. corporations, staring almost 20-years-long occupation of Haiti
• July 28, 1932
  U.S. President Herbert Hoover orders the U.S. Army to forcibly evict the Bonus Army of World War I veterans gathered in Washington, D.C., demanding the immediate payment of their military bonus

July 22

• July 22, 1298
  King Edward I combines bowmen and cavalry to defeat William Wallace's Scots at Falkirk
• July 22, 1306
  Philip IV of France seizes all Jewish property and expels about 100,000 men from France
• July 22, 1456
  At the Battle of Belgrade, the Hungarian army under prince Janos Hunyadi beat sultan Mehmed II ending the siege of Belgrade with fail
• July 22, 1587
  A second English colony of 114-150 people under John White, financed by Sir Walter Raleigh, is established on Roanoke Island off North Carolina
• July 22, 1620
  The Pilgrims, early English settlers of the Plymouth Colony in present-day Plymouth, United States, set out from Holland destined for the New World via Southampton in England
• July 22, 1652
  Prince Conde's rebels narrowly defeat Chief Minister Mazarin's loyalist forces at St. Martin, near Paris
• July 22, 1745
  Second Jacobite Rebellion begins by Charles Edward Stuart in Scotland
• July 22, 1795
  Spain sign the Peace of Basel, a treaty with France ending the War of the Pyrenees and ceding Santo Domingo to France
• July 22, 1796
  Cleveland, Ohio, is founded by General Moses Cleaveland while surveying the land
• July 22, 1802
  A British exploring party led by Matthew Flinders set sail from Sydney to make the first circumnavigation of the Australia and identify it as a continent
• July 22, 1812
  English troops under the Duke of Wellington defeats the French at the Battle of Salamanca in Spain
• July 22, 1864
  The Battle of Atlanta reachs its peak when Confederate General John Bell Hood launches an all-out attack on Union General William T. Sherman's Army
• July 22, 1894
  The first major automobile race with prizes and a promoter is organized as a reliability trial by Le Petit Journal of Paris on the 78-kilometer route between Paris and Rouen, France
• July 22, 1972
  Venera 8 lands on Venus
• July 22, 1994
  Shoemaker-Levy Comet strikes Jupiter
• July 22, 2011
  Anders Behring Breivik kills 77 people in twin terrorist attacks in Norway after a bombing in the Regjeringskvartalet government center in Oslo and a shooting at a political youth camp on the island of Utøya