August 30

• August 30, 526
  Theoderic the Great, King of Ostrogoths, dies of dysentery and is succeeded by his grandson Athalaric
• August 30, 1483
  Louis XI, King of France, dies at age 60
• August 30, 1721
  The Peace of Nystad ends the Great Northern War between Sweden and Russia, giving Russia considerably more power in the Baltic region
• August 30, 1862
  Union forces are defeated by the Confederates at the Second Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Virginia, the culmination of an offensive campaign waged by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia
• August 30, 1869
  U.S. soldier John Wesley Powell completes exploratory river trip down the Green and Colorado rivers, in which becomes the first Europeans to pass through the Grand Canyon
• August 30, 1909
  Burgess Shale, one of the world's most celebrated fossil fields and the earliest fossil beds containing soft-part imprints, is found by palaeontologist Charles Walcott
• August 30, 1963
  Hot Line communications link between Washington DC and Moscow begins in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis
• August 30, 1981
  Mohammad Ali Rajai, president of Iran, and Mohammad Javad Bahonar, prime minister of Iran, are assassinated by a bomb
• August 30, 1991
  American athlete Mike Powell set new world record in long jump, 8.95 m, World Championships in Athletics
• August 30, 1995
  The NATO bombing campaign against Serb artillery positions begins in Bosnia, continuing into October, simultaneously with an ARBiH offensive against the Serb Army around Sarajevo, central Bosnia and Bosnian Krajina

August 18

• August 18, 1227
  Genghis Khan, a Mongol conqueror, dies, which triggers subsequent division of Mongol empire among his sons
• August 18, 1459
  City of Smederevo falls under the Turks after three-months siege completing the Ottoman conquest of Serbia
• August 18, 1588
  A storm strikes the remaining 60 ships of the Spanish Armada under the Duke Alonso Pérez de Guzmán after which only 11 are left. Many of the ships go to Ireland where most of the Spaniards are killed by the English
• August 18, 1759
  The French fleet is destroyed by the British under Admiral Edward Boscawen, at the battle of Lagos Bay in southern Portugal
• August 18, 1807
  Robert Stevenson begins work on the 35-meters Bell Rock lighthouse at the mouth of Scotland's Firth of Forth, the world's oldest surviving sea-washed lighthouse
• August 18, 1838
  United States Exploring Expedition, an exploring and surveying expedition of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding lands, led by Charles Wilkes, departs from Hampton Roads
• August 18, 1846
  General Stephen W. Kearny proclaims all of New Mexico a territory of the United States and declares himself the military governor of the New Mexico Territory shortly after Capture of Santa Fe
• August 18, 1851
  The Platine War for the hegemony over South America begins between the Argentine Confederation and Empire of Brazil and its alliance
• August 18, 1862
  Dakota War of 1862 begins in Minnesota four young Sioux murder five white settlers at Acton Township, Minnesota
• August 18, 1870
  Prussian forces defeat the French at the Battle of Gravelotte, the largest battle during the Franco–Prussian War
• August 18, 1920
  Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, giving women right to vote, is ratified
• August 18, 1920
  Serbian geophysicist and astronomer Milutin Milanković links Earth's periodic long-term climate changes with orbital eccentricity and full cycles of Earth's axis precession, later called Milankovitch cycles
• August 18, 1955
  First Sudanese Civil War begins between the northern part of Sudan and the southern Sudan region

August 5

• August 5, 25
  Guangwu of Han, one of the many descendants of the Han imperial family, establishes Eastern Han dynasty in China
• August 5, 1391
  Castilian sailors in Barcelona, Spain set fire to a Jewish ghetto, killing 100 people and setting off four days of violence against the Jews
• August 5, 1763
  Colonel Henry Bouquet decisively defeat the Indians at the Battle of Bushy Run in Pennsylvania during Pontiac's rebellion
• August 5, 1815
  A peace treaty with Tripoli, which follows treaties with Algeria and Tunis, brings an end to the Barbary Wars and the American practice of paying tribute to the pirate states
• August 5, 1864
  Spectrum of a comet observed for first time, by Giovanni Donati, who determines their physical composition of the comet 1864b, which spectrum he finds containing three emitting lines
• August 5, 1891
  American Express begins the first company to develop a large-scale traveller's cheque system
• August 5, 1960
  Upper Volta, today known as Burkina Faso, gains independence from France
• August 5, 1962
  Nelson Mandela is arrested for incitement and illegally leaving South Africa
• August 5, 2016
  2016 Summer Olympics are opened in Rio de Janeiro

June 13

• June 13, 323 BC
  Alexander the Great dies of fever after a feast in Babylon, which causes wars of the Diadochoi, his generals and friends, in the Empire
• June 13, 40
  Gnaeus Julius Agricola, a Roman general and governor of Britain, is born
• June 13, 1381
  During the Revolt of Peasants the rebels enter London and, joined by many local townsfolk, attack the gaols, destroy the Savoy Palace and the Temple Inns of Court
• June 13, 1886
  King Ludwig II, King of Bavaria, drowns in Lake Starnberg and is found floating dead with his doctor
• June 13, 1886
  A swift fire destroys Vancouver, Canada, in a time variously reported between twenty and forty-five minutes consuming about 1,000 wooden buildings, virtually the entire city
• June 13, 1956
  Real Madrid wins the first season of the European Cup, UEFA's premier club football tournament

May 31

• May 31, 1223
  A coalition of several Rus' principalities is decisively defeated by the Mongol invaders under the command of generals Jebe and Subutai near the Kalka River in modern-day Ukraine
• May 31, 1433
  Sigismund is crowned Holy Roman Emperor of Rome
• May 31, 1469
  Manuel I of Portugal, king of Portugal, is born
• May 31, 1495
  Emperor Maximilian, Pope Alexander VI, Milan, King Ferdinand, Isabella and Venice sign anti-French Saint League
• May 31, 1564
  Lübeck and Denmark beat Sweden at Gotland during Northern Seven Years' War
• May 31, 1659
  Dutch Republic, England and France sign Treaty of The Hague during Second Northern War
• May 31, 1740
  Frederick William I of Prussia, king of Prussia, dies at age 51, and his son Frederick the Great comes to power in Prussia
• May 31, 1831
  Captain John Ross, an English explorer, identifies the magnetic north pole on the west coast of the Boothia Peninsula, Netsilik territory
• May 31, 1832
  Évariste Galois, a French mathematician and radical Republican, who developed a general theory of equations, dies from wounds suffered in a duel at age 20
• May 31, 1838
  The Federal Republic of Central America federation is dissolved as the congress meets to declare that the provinces were free to create their own independent republics
• May 31, 1859
  The tower clock known as Big Ben, located at the top of Elizabeth Tower at the north end of the Palace of Westminster, rings out over the Houses of Parliament in London for the first time
• May 31, 1862
  At the Battle of Seven Pines, McClellan defeat the Confederates outside of Richmond
• May 31, 1879
  First electric railway opens at Berlin Trades Exposition, Germany
• May 31, 1889
  Johnstown, Pennsylvania is destroyed by a massive flood after the South Fork Dam across a tributary of the Little Conemaugh River collapsed under pressure from the rain-swollen Lake Conemaugh killing 2,209 people in a flood and related fire
• May 31, 1889
  Johnstown, Pennsylvania is destroyed by a massive flood after the South Fork Dam across a tributary of the Little Conemaugh River collapsed under pressure from the rain-swollen Lake Conemaugh killing 2,209 people in a flood and related fire
• May 31, 1891
  Work on Trans-Siberian Railway, the longest railway line in the world, connecting Moscow with the Sea of Japan, begins
• May 31, 1902
  Second Boer War between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers, which has cost around 75,000 lives, ends leaving the Transvaal and the Orange Free State as colonies of the British Empire
• May 31, 1910
  The Union of South Africa is formed, incorporating Cape Colony, Natal, Orange Free State, and Transvaal
• May 31, 1915
  An LZ-38 Zeppelin makes first zeppelin air raid on London, England, killing 7 and injuring 35 people during the first bombing raid
• May 31, 1937
  German cruiser Deutschland bomb Almería, Spain during Spanish Civil War
• May 31, 1943
  Japanese forces are driven from Aleutian Islands, Alaska
• May 31, 1961
  South Africa becomes a republic following a referendum in which white voters narrowly voted in favour thereof
• May 31, 1970
  A kilometer wide avalanche mass of ice, mud and rock, triggered by an earthquake in Peru, advances about 18 km and leads to more than 20,000 death
• May 31, 1988
  U.S. President Ronald Reagan addresses 600 Moscow State University students, during his visit to the Soviet Union
• May 31, 1997
  Official opening of the Confederation Bridge, between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, Canada, the world's longest bridge spanning ice covered waters

March 16

• March 16, 37
  Roman Emperor Tiberius dies on a trip to the Italian mainland from his home on Capri, and is succeeded by Caligula
• March 16, 1190
  The crusaders begin the massacre of Jews in York, England in which at least 150 Jews died
• March 16, 1527
  The Emperor Babur defeats the Rajputs at the Battle of Khanwa, removing the main Hindu rivals in Northern India
• March 16, 1731
  Treaty of Vienna between Kingdom of Great Britain and the Habsburg monarchy marks the collapse of the Anglo-French Alliance and the beginning of the Anglo-Austrian Alliance
• March 16, 1781
  In Colombia the Comunero Revolt among artisans and peasants in Socorro after imposition of new taxes by the viceroy stimulated, becomes the most serious revolt against Spanish authority before the war for independence
• March 16, 1792
  King Gustav III of Sweden is shot and mortally wounded during a masquerade party at an opera by a former member of his regiment
• March 16, 1900
  English archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans finds old city of Knossus
• March 16, 1922
  Sultan Fuad I is crowned king of Egypt after England recognizes Egypt
• March 16, 1926
  Robert Goddard, an American physicist and inventor, launches the first liquid fuel rocket, which goes 56 meter
• March 16, 1939
  Hungary annexes republic of Carpatho-Ukraine, an autonomous region within Czechoslovakia
• March 16, 1968
  Charlie Company of United States troops kills over 500 civilians in four hamlets in Son My district, Vietnam, in what became known as the My Lai massacre
• March 16, 1978
  Amoco Cadiz, a supertanker under the Liberian flag, sinks, resulting in the largest oil spill of its kind in history to that date
• March 16, 1983
  Stravinsky Fountain, a fountain ornamented with sixteen works of sculpture representing the works of composer Igor Stravinsky, is finished by sculptors Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle
• March 16, 1988
  The Halabja poison gas attack is carried out by Iraqi government forces
• March 16, 2010
  The Kasubi Tombs, Uganda's only cultural World Heritage Site, are destroyed by fire

March 15

• March 15, 44 BC
  Julius Caesar, dictator of the Roman Republic, is assassinated by a group of senators led by Marcus Junius Brutus in the Portico of the Theater of Pompey
• March 15, 493
  Odoacer, a Germanic soldier and the first King of Italy, is murdered by king of the Germanic Ostrogoths Theoderic while they shared a meal
• March 15, 933
  Henry the Fowler, King of East Francis, routes the raiding Magyars at the Battle of Riade
• March 15, 1493
  Christopher Columbus returns to Spain after first new world voyage
• March 15, 1672
  King Charles II enacts Royal Declaration of Indulgence suspending the execution of the penal laws that punished recusants from the Church of England
• March 15, 1697
  Hannah Duston, a 40-year-old colonial Massachusetts Puritan woman, in what is now New Hampshire is attacked and captured by 12 Indians who kills her daughter
• March 15, 1781
  British suffer heavy losses at the Battle of Guilford Court House, South Carolina
• March 15, 1848
  In Hungary an uprising against Habsburg rule begins in front of the national museum in Budapest
• March 15, 1867
  The Austro-Hungarian Compromise establishes of the dual monarchy known as Austria-Hungary, with separate parliaments and prime ministers in the regions and a single head of state
• March 15, 1906
  British Charles Rolls and Henry Royce form Rolls Royce Ltd., a car-manufacturing company
• March 15, 1907
  Finland becomes first European country to give women the right to vote
• March 15, 1915
  In response to the attack on Columbus, President U.S. President Woodrow Wilson orders General John J. Pershing to proceed into Mexico with over 5,000 men to capture or kill Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa
• March 15, 1917
  Russian Czar Nicholas II abdicates the throne in his royal train going towards Petrograd, as a result of the February Revolution, bringing an end to the czarist autocracy in Russia
• March 15, 1939
  German troops enter Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, after which Adolf Hitler proclaims from Prague Castle Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate
• March 15, 1969
  Hundreds die during violent Chinese-Russian border dispute
• March 15, 1986
  Funeral services are held for Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme, murdered by an assailant on a street in Stockholm
• March 15, 1988
  NASA reports accelerated breakdown of ozone layer by chlorofluorocarbons
• March 15, 1990
  Mikhail Gorbachev is elected as the first executive president of the Soviet Union
• March 15, 1994
  U.S. troops are withdrawn from Somalia
• March 15, 2003
  In Bangui, Central African Republic, ex-chief of army General François Bozizé and 1000 troops stage a military coup against President Ange-Felix Patassé, Ange-Félix Patassé

March 13

• March 13, 624
  Muslims under Muhammad defeat non-believers for the first time at the Battle of Badr
• March 13, 1401
  Samogitian uprisings supported by Vytautas took place against the German knights in Great Duchy of Lithuania
• March 13, 1560
  Ottoman navy defeats the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Djerba
• March 13, 1567
  A Spanish professional army under General Beauvoir defeat an army of Dutch radical Calvinists rebels under Jan de Marnix at the Battle of Oosterweel during Dutch Revolt
• March 13, 1569
  Henry of Anjou, count of Anjou, defeat the Huguenots at the Battle of Jarnac during which co-leader of Huguenots Louis Conde dies
• March 13, 1591
  Moroccan forces of the Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur led by Judar Pasha defeat Askia Ishaq II at the Battle of Tondibi ending the Songhai Empire
• March 13, 1610
  Galileo publishes his observations of the night sky under the title Sidereus Nuncius
• March 13, 1634
  King Louis XIII at the urging of Cardinal Richelieu granted letters patent to formally establish the Académie française in Paris, responsible for the regulation of French grammar, orthography, and literature
• March 13, 1781
  British astronomer William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus, assuming it is a comet and names it Georgium Sidus, in honor of George III
• March 13, 1852
  A familiar symbol of the United States, Uncle Sam, makes his debut as a cartoon character in the New York Lantern
• March 13, 1855
  Percival Lowell, an American businessman and astronomer, is born
• March 13, 1881
  Alexander II, Emperor of Russia, and one of the most successful Russian reformers, is assassinated at age 62 when a bomb is thrown at him near his palace by the anarchist group
• March 13, 1883
  Sergey Degayev, a Russian terrorist, shots and kills Russian Gendarme colonel Georgy Sudeykin, security chief of Emperor Alexander III
• March 13, 1884
  Muhammad Ahmad, proclaimed himself the prophesied redeemer of Islam, begins successful siege of British-led Egyptian garrison at Khartoum during the Mahdist War in Sudan
• March 13, 1920
  Wolfgang Kapp's coup attempt in Berlin, Germany, fails
• March 13, 1923
  Lee de Forest demonstrates his sound-on-film moving pictures to the press in New York City, New York
• March 13, 1928
  450 die in Saint Francis Valley Dam burst in California
• March 13, 1933
  Joseph Goebbels becomes German minister of Information and Propaganda
• March 13, 1940
  Finland and the Soviet Union end Winter War concluding the Moscow Peace Treaty by which Finland retains independence but gives up the Karelian Isthmus, Viipuri, and a small band of land north of Lake Ladoga to the Soviet Union
• March 13, 1943
  In Smolensk, a bomb disguised as two bottles of brandy is put on board Adolf Hitler's personal Focke-Wulf 200 Condor plane; the detonator activates, but due to cold temperature, the plastic explosives do not detonate
• March 13, 1989
  Six million people in the northeastern U.S. and in Sweden are left without power for nine hours after a geomagnetic storm causes the collapse of the Hydro-Quebec power grid
• March 13, 1997
  India's Missionaries of Charity chooses Sister Nirmala to succeed Mother Teresa as its leader

March 12

• March 12, 1054
  Pope Leo IX escapes captivity at Benevento and returns to Rome
• March 12, 1088
  Odo of Lagery elected as Pope Urban II, replacing Victor III
• March 12, 1365
  The University of Vienna is founded by Duke Rudolph IV
• March 12, 1609
  The Virginia Company establishes a settlement in the Islands of Bermuda making Bermuda an English colony
• March 12, 1664
  England's King Charles II grants land in the New World, later known as New Jersey, to his brother James, the Duke of York
• March 12, 1689
  Former English King James II lands in Ireland starting the Williamite War between Jacobites (supporters of Catholic King James II) and Williamites (supporters of Protestant Prince William of Orange)
• March 12, 1755
  First steam engine in America installed, to pump water from a mine
• March 12, 1845
  Francis Rynd, an Irish physician, describes in the Dublin Medical Press the hollow needle, his invention used in hypodermic syringes
• March 12, 1867
  Last French troops leave Mexico after Mexican Republican victory in French intervention
• March 12, 1917
  Russian State Duma deputies sets up Provisional Committee, a special government body competing for power with the Petrograd Soviet, set up by workers
• March 12, 1918
  Moscow becomes capital of revolutionary Russia
• March 12, 1925
  Sun Yat-sen, the Premier of the Kuomintang of China, dies, creating a power vacuum in the party and triggering contest between Chiang Kai-shek, a member of the right wing of the KMT, and Sun Yat-sen's close comrade-in-arms Wang Jingwei
• March 12, 1930
  Mahatma Gandhi, the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism, with large numbers of Indians begins the Salt March to the sea coast, the campaign against the British salt monopoly in colonial India, which becomes an important episode of the Indian independence movement
• March 12, 1938
  German troops, greeted by cheering German-Austrians with Nazi salutes, march into Austria and annex the country, which is called by Nazi propaganda the Anschluss
• March 12, 1939
  Pope Pius XII is crowned in Vatican ceremonies
• March 12, 1947
  Truman Doctrine, a United States policy to stop Soviet expansion during the Cold War, is proclaimed by United States President Harry S. Truman during his speech addressed to the U.S. Congress
• March 12, 1957
  German Democratic Republic accepts 22 Russian divisions
• March 12, 1968
  Mauritius gains independence from Britain
• March 12, 1968
  After poor performance in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, Lyndon Johnson announces he will not seek reelection
• March 12, 1993
  North Korea says that it plans to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and refuses to allow inspectors access to nuclear sites
• March 12, 1999
  Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic join NATO

March 10

• March 10, 1198
  Giralda, a bell tower in Seville, Spain, is built as a Muslim minaret
• March 10, 1734
  Spanish army under Charles III of Spain draws into Naples
• March 10, 1762
  Jean Calas, a French protestant, is tortured and executed in Toulouse on the charge that he has killed his son to prevent him from converting to Catholicismm, who actually made a suicide
• March 10, 1793
  After the failure of the French arms in the Austrian Netherlands the National Convention decrees on a proposal by Georges Danton that there should be established in Paris an extraordinary criminal tribunal, later received the official name of the Revolutionary Tribunal
• March 10, 1814
  Napoleon Bonaparte is defeated by a combined Allied Army at the battle of Laon, in France
• March 10, 1820
  Royal Astronomical Society is founded in England
• March 10, 1826
  Pedro I, Emperor of Brazil, attains the Portuguese throne
• March 10, 1862
  First U.S. paper money are issued without the backing of precious metals in denominations of $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500 and $1000
• March 10, 1876
  Alexander Graham Bell makes the first telephone call and tells his assistant over the experimental device, which converts words into electrical current and back again, "Mister Watson, come here, I want to see you"
• March 10, 1889
  In Ethiopia Emperor Yohannes IV is killed in a war against the dervishes during the Battle of Gallabat
• March 10, 1952
  Military coup by General Fulgencio Batista occurs in Cuba
• March 10, 1959
  300,000 Tibetans band together in revolt, surrounding the Norbulinka Palace of the Dalai Lama in defiance of Chinese occupation forces
• March 10, 1985
  Konstantin Chernenko, party leader and President of USSR, dies at age 73

March 9

• March 9, 1451
  Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian navigator, is born in Florence
• March 9, 1529
  Imam Ahmad Gragn defeats the Ethiopian Emperor Dawit II in the Battle of Shimbra Kure, the opening clash of the Ethiopian–Adal War
• March 9, 1617
  The Treaty of Stolbovo between Sweden and Russia, with English mediation, ends the occupation of Northern Russia by Swedish troops
• March 9, 1701
  In Biržai Augustus II and Russia's Czar Peter I sign a pact in the castle to unite their forces against Sweden
• March 9, 1734
  The Russians take Gdańsk in Poland during War of the Polish Succession
• March 9, 1792
  Speculator William Duer defaults on Hamilton's freshly exchanged "Stock in the Public Funds" and causes the first American stock market crash
• March 9, 1796
  Napoleon Bonaparte marries Joséphine de Beauharnais in Paris
• March 9, 1847
  United States forces under General Winfield Scott invade Mexico almost with no resistance and start a 20-day siege of Veracruz, the key Mexican seaport
• March 9, 1932
  Éamon de Valera becomes President of the Executive Council, or prime minister, of the Irish Free State
• March 9, 1933
  United States Congress passes the Emergency Banking Act, authorizing the President to confiscate gold held by American citizens, except those coins of numismatic value, to be paid $20 in paper per ounce
• March 9, 1942
  Dutch colonial authorities and all Allied forces in the Netherlands East Indies surrender unconditionally to Japan
• March 9, 1953
  Some hundreds people are killed during the stampede at funeral of Josef Stalin in Moscow
• March 9, 1959
  The first Barbie doll, Mattel's "Barbie Millicent Roberts", goes on display at the American Toy Fair in New York City and becomes the first mass-produced toy doll in the United States with adult features
• March 9, 1974
  Hiroo Onoda, the last Japanese soldier, a guerrilla operating in Philippines, surrenders, 29 years after World War II ended
• March 9, 1991
  Two people are killed during massive demonstrations held against Slobodan Milošević in Belgrade, Yugoslavia
• March 9, 1992
  The People's Republic of China ratifies the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty