August 26

• August 26, 55 BC
  Roman forces under the command of Julius Caesar invade Britain
• August 26, 1071
  The Seljuks under Alp Arslan defeat the Byzantine army under Emperor Romanus IV, who is taken prisoner, at Manzikert in Eastern Turkey and conquer parts of Anatolia and Syria
• August 26, 1346
  King Edward III's 10,000-man English army actively using the English longbow annihilate a French force of 25,000 under King Philip VI at the Battle of Crecy in Normandy
• August 26, 1429
  Joan of Arc makes a triumphant entry into Paris after assault which ends siege of Paris by French army
• August 26, 1648
  The Fronde, a series of civil wars in France between 1648 and 1653, begins when the Parliament of Paris opposes the centralizing policies of Cardinal Mazarin, Louis XIV's chief minister
• August 26, 1768
  The first voyage of James Cook to the south Pacific ocean aboard HMS Endeavour starts to observe the transit of Venus across the Sun and to seek evidence of the postulated Terra Australis from Plymouth
• August 26, 1789
  French National Assembly adopts the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a fundamental document in the history of human and civil rights
• August 26, 1843
  Charles Thurber patents a typewriter, making some important innovations
• August 26, 1879
  Little War against Spanish rule in Cuba follows the Ten Years' War
• August 26, 1896
  The Philippines' revolutionary secret society Kataastaasan Kagalanggalang Katipunan begins armed conflict with Spanish troops, which eventually ends declaring Philippines free from Spanish rule
• August 26, 1907
  Harry Houdini, a Hungarian-American illusionist, escapes from chains underwater at Aquatic Park in 57 seconds
• August 26, 1914
  Germans defeat Russians in Battle of Tannenberg, resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russian Second Army, and the suicide of its commanding general, Alexander Samsonov
• August 26, 1976
  First outbreak of the Ebola virus occurs in Yambuku, Zaire
• August 26, 1988
  Mehran Karimi Nasseri, "The terminal man", is stuck in the De Gaulle Airport in Paris, France, where he will continue to reside until August 1, 2006

August 10

• August 10, 843
  Sons of Louis the Pious divide Charlemagne's Empire by Treaty of Verdun, so Charles the Bald receives the western portion, which later became France, Louis the German get eastern lands, later the medieval kingdom of Germany, and Lothair I receives the central part
• August 10, 1497
  John Cabot told King Henry VII of his trip to "Asia" after his return from his first successful journey to the Labrador coast
• August 10, 1500
  Portuguese explorer Diogo Dias discovers Madagascar
• August 10, 1539
  King Francis I of France signs edict known as Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts, declaring that all official documents are to be written in French, not Latin
• August 10, 1557
  Spanish and English troops in alliance defeat the French at the Battle of St. Quentin (San Quintino)
• August 10, 1582
  Russia ends its 25-year war with Poland and cedes Livonia and Estonia to Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth losing access to the Baltic
• August 10, 1627
  Cardinal Richelieu begins a siege to Protestant La Rochelle, a Huguenot stronghold
• August 10, 1628
  The Swedish 69-meter warship Vasa capsizes and sinks in Stockholm harbor on her maiden voyage because the ballast is insufficient to counterweight the 64 guns and ballast
• August 10, 1675
  King of England Charles II lays the foundation stone of Royal Observatory in Greenwich, an important institution in the history of astronomy and navigation
• August 10, 1678
  The Treaty of Nijmegen ends the hostilities with France and gives to France control over the region of the Franche-Comté
• August 10, 1680
  In New Mexico Popé, a Tewa religious leader, leads rebellion of Pueblo Indians against Spaniads
• August 10, 1755
  The Great Upheaval, forced population transfer of the French Acadian population from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, begins
• August 10, 1779
  Louis XVI of France frees the last remaining serfs on royal land
• August 10, 1787
  Mozart completes his composition Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
• August 10, 1792
  Some 20,000 Parisians attack the Tuileries palace of Louis XVI at the instigation of Georges Jacques Danton and massacre some 600 guardsmen after Louis orders his Swiss guard to stop firing on the people
• August 10, 1809
  Quito, the seat of a real audiencia of Spain in modern-day Ecuador, declares independence from Spain
• August 10, 1861
  Union general Nathaniel Lyon the first Union general to be killed in the American Civil War, at the Battle of Wilson's Creek in Missouri, which ends with a Confederate victory
• August 10, 1913
  Second Balkan War ends with Treaty of Bucharest, which confirms territorial acquisitions of Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria at the expense of Ottoman Empire during the First and Second Balkan Wars
• August 10, 1927
  United States President Calvin Coolidge formally dedicates the Mount Rushmore site
• August 10, 2010
  The World Health Organization declares the H1N1 influenza pandemic over, saying worldwide flu activity has returned to typical seasonal patterns

June 9

• June 9, 53 BC
  Parthians crush Roman army at battle of Carrhae, killing general Marcus Licinius Crassus
• June 9, 68
  Nero, Roman Emperor, commits suicide, ending the Julio-Claudian Dynasty
• June 9, 922
  French chose Robert I as King of France
• June 9, 1064
  Ferdinand I, the Count of Castile, conquers the city of Coimbra, modern-day Portugal
• June 9, 1456
  Pope Callixtus III excommunicates the apparition of Halley's Comet, believing it to be an ill omen for the Christian defenders of Belgrade from the besieging armies of the Ottoman Empire
• June 9, 1660
  Louis XIV marries Maria Teresa, the daughter of Philip IV of Spain, as part of the Treaty of the Pyrenees
• June 9, 1732
  Royal charter for Georgia is granted to British general James Oglethorpe by George II, for whom the colony is named
• June 9, 1940
  King Haakon VI of Norway flees to London, England after Norway falls to German forces
• June 9, 1955
  "Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and His Comets" becomes the first Rock & Roll song to top the U.S. record charts, bringing rock and roll to the American mainstream
• June 9, 2008
  Afghan and British forces uncover a stash of 237 tonnes of hashish in Kandahar province of Afghanistan, believed to be the world's biggest seizure of drugs by weight

June 7

• June 7, 1494
  Spain and Portugal sign the Treaty of Tordesillas and agree to divide the World outside of Europe between themselves along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands, a Portuguese colony off the west coast of Africa
• June 7, 1520
  Field of the Cloth of Gold; Fabulous meeting between Francis I of France and Henry VIII of England
• June 7, 1546
  The Treaty of Ardres ends the war between France and England
• June 7, 1654
  Louis XIV is crowned King of France in Rheims
• June 7, 1692
  An earthquake at Port Royal, Jamaica, causes a landslide within the harbor, generates a tsunami, and destroys ninety percent of the buildings in the city, killing approximately 2,000 people
• June 7, 1753
  Britain's King George II gives his assent to an Act of Parliament establishing the British Museum
• June 7, 1769
  Daniel Boone, an American pioneer explorer, first begins to explore the Bluegrass State of Kentucky
• June 7, 1832
  The British Parliament passes the Great Reform Act which increases the number of people who are eligible to vote
• June 7, 1848
  Paul Gauguin, a French post-impressionist painter, is born in Paris
• June 7, 1905
  In a session of the Norwegian parliament, a unanimous vote proclaims that "the union with Sweden under one king is dissolved in consequence of the king's ceasing to function as king of Norway", marking independence of Norway
• June 7, 1929
  Independent State of Vatican City comes into existence
• June 7, 1942
  Americans destroy 4 Japanese carriers, 248 carrier-based aircraft and kills 3,057 at the Battle of Midway, the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II
• June 7, 1991
  Ten-Day War in Slovenia begins the Yugoslav Wars

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 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 7

• May 7, 973
  Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, dies at age 60
• May 7, 1274
  The Second Council of Lyon, 14th ecumenical council, is opened in France to regulate the election of the pope
• May 7, 1583
  The construction of Nesvizh Castle, a residential castle of the Radziwiłł family, is started by Mikołaj Krzysztof "the Orphan" Radziwiłł in Nesvizh, modern-day Belarus
• May 7, 1664
  Building of the Palace of Versailles begins
• May 7, 1697
  The Royal Palace in Stockholm, Sweden, burns down
• May 7, 1718
  City of New Orleans is founded by the French Mississippi Company, under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville in North America
• May 7, 1727
  Jews are expelled from Ukraine by Empress Catherine I of Russia
• May 7, 1763
  Indian chief Pontiac begins his unsuccessful attack on a British fort in present-day Detroit, Michigan
• May 7, 1775
  Turkish state of Bukovina is annexed by Habsburg Monarchy from the Principality of Moldavia
• May 7, 1824
  Beethoven's 9th Symphony, containing the famous a melody inspired by Friedrich Schiller's poem "Ode to Joy", premieres in Vienna and becomes the first example of a major composer using voices in a symphony
• May 7, 1832
  The Treaty of London, signed by Britain, France and Russia, establishes a stable government in Greece, making King of Greece Otto of Bavaria, and defines Greece as an independent kingdom
• July 21, 1832
  Treaty of Constantinople grants Greek independence
• May 7, 1840
  Tornado strikes Natchez Mississippi and kills 317, most of whom are on flatboats
• May 7, 1895
  Russian physicist Alexander Popov presents the paper "On the Relation of Metallic Powders to Electric Oscillations", describing a radio based lightning detector
• May 7, 1896
  Henry Howard Holmes, the first documented American serial killer, murdered over 200 victims, is hanged to death in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• May 7, 1915
  The RMS Lusitania, briefly the world's biggest ship, is torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat, causing the deaths of 1,198 passengers and crew
• May 7, 1934
  Pearl of Lao Tzu, the world's largest pearl with mass of 6.4kg, is found at Palawan, Philippines
• May 7, 1943
  United States 9th Infantry division occupies Bizerte, Tunisia
• May 7, 1954
  French forces of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps surrender to Viet Minh forces at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu during First Indochina War, terminating French involvement in Indochina
• May 7, 1995
  Jacques Chirac wins French presidential election
• May 7, 2010
  Scientists conducting the Neanderthal genome project announce that they have sequenced enough of the Neanderthal genome to suggest that Neanderthals and humans may have interbred

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 29

• April 29, 1091
  Byzantium Emperor Alexios I Komnenos beats Pechenegs, a semi-nomadic Turkic people of the Central Asian steppes, at the Battle of Levounion
• April 29, 1289
  Al Mansur Qalawun, the seventh Mamluk sultan of Egypt, captures city of Tripoli ending the Crusader County of Tripoli
• April 29, 1429
  As a French sortie distracts the English troops on the west side of Orleans, Joan of Arc enters unopposed by its eastern gate, bringing greatly needed supplies and reinforcements and inspiring the French to a passionate resistance
• April 29, 1661
  Chinese Ming dynasty occupies Taiwan
• April 29, 1672
  King Louis XIV of France invades the Netherlands beginning Franco-Dutch War
• April 29, 1707
  English-Scottish parliament accept Act of Union and form Great Britain
• April 29, 1859
  Austria starts Second Italian War of Independence with Sardinia after the King of Sardinia denies to complete demobilization of the Sardinian army, which draws France into the conflict
• April 29, 1882
  The Electromote, a forerunner of the trolleybus, is given its first trial run by Ernst Werner von Siemens in Berlin, Germany
• April 29, 1942
  Jews forced to wear a Jewish Star in Netherlands and Vichy-France
• April 29, 1970
  50,000 US and South Vietnamese troops invade Cambodia during escalation the Civil War
• April 29, 1982
  Iran begins offensive on several axes – Bostan, Susangerd, the west bank of the Karun River, and Ahvaz forcing the Iraqi forces to retreat during the Iran–Iraq War
• April 29, 2006
  The Global Night Commute, organized by the makers of the film Invisible Children, takes place in over 130 cities around the world to show support for Ugandan children who walk every night into city centers attempting to avoid capture by the Lord's Resistance Army
• April 29, 2011
  Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine Middleton wed at Westminster Abbey in London

April 11

• April 11, 1034
  Romanos III Argyros, a Byzantine emperor, is drowned in a bath on his wife's orders
• April 11, 1241
  The army of Mongol leader Batu Khan beat forces of the Kingdom of Hungary at the Battle of Mohi, a part of Mongol invasion of Europe
• April 11, 1471
  King Edward IV of England captures London from Henry VI in the War of the Roses
• April 11, 1512
  The forces of the Holy League are heavily defeated by the French at the Battle of Ravenna, while Gaston de Foix, French pretender to Navarre throne, dies in battle
• April 11, 1689
  William III and Mary II swear that they would obey the laws of Parliament and are crowned as joint rulers of Britain
• April 11, 1713
  War of the Spanish Succession and French hegemony in Europe ends with Treaty of Utrecht, which cedes France Maritime provinces and the Spanish 2.5-square mile Gibraltar in perpetuity to Britain, and Kingdom of Naples to Austria
• April 11, 1741
  A Russian commission find regent Count Ernst Johann von Biron guilty of treason and sentenced him to death by quartering, but commute the sentence to banishment for life in Siberia
• April 11, 1783
  After receiving a copy of the provisional treaty on 13 March, Congress proclaimed a formal end to hostilities with Great Britain
• April 11, 1814
  Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France, abdicates the throne, and, by the Treaty of Fontainebleau, is banished to the Mediterranean island of Elba with a pension from the French government
• April 11, 1848
  Hungary approve package of low, known as April Laws, making Kingdom of Hungary into a nation state
• April 11, 1899
  The Treaty of Paris ending the Spanish-American War is declared in effect
• April 11, 1909
  Tel Aviv is founded by the Jewish community on the outskirts of the ancient port city of Jaffa
• April 11, 1917
  Marcel Duchamp, a French American painter and sculptor, submits for the exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists his famous work Fountain, a simple porcelain urinal signed "R.Mutt"
• April 11, 1971
  Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, a preeminent Bengali nationalist leader of Bangladesh, becomes the first President of Bangladesh
• April 11, 1976
  Steve Jobs finishes his first significant invention, Apple I
• April 11, 1979
  Tanzanian troops take Kampala, the capital of Uganda and exile Idi Amin from Uganda
• April 11, 1986
  Halley's Comet makes closest approach to Earth this trip, 63 million km