1516 – The Treaty of Noyon between France and Spain is signed. Francis I of France recognizes Charles’s claim to Naples, and Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, recognizes Francis’s claim to Milan.
1521 – After an extended siege, forces led by Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés capture Tlatoani Cuauhtémoc and conquer the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.
1532 – Union of Brittany and France: The Duchy of Brittany is absorbed into the Kingdom of France.
1704 – War of the Spanish Succession: Battle of Blenheim: English and Imperial forces are victorious over French and Bavarian troops.
1779 – American Revolutionary War: The Royal Navy defeats the Penobscot Expedition with the most significant loss of United States naval forces prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
1792 – King Louis XVI of France is formally arrested by the National Tribunal, and declared an enemy of the people.
1806 – Battle of Mišar during the Serbian Revolution begins. The battle will end two days later, with a decisive Serbian victory over the Ottomans.
1814 – The Convention of London, a treaty between the United Kingdom and the United Provinces, is signed in London, England.
1898 – Spanish–American War: Spanish and American forces engage in a mock battle for Manila, after which the Spanish commander surrendered in order to keep the city out of Filipino rebel hands.
1898 – Carl Gustav Witt discovers 433 Eros, the first near-Earth asteroid to be found.
1906 – The all black infantrymen of the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Regiment are accused of killing a white bartender and wounding a white police officer in Brownsville, Texas, despite exculpatory evidence; all are later dishonorably discharged.
1913 – Otto Witte, an acrobat, is purportedly crowned King of Albania.
1918 – Women enlist in the United States Marine Corps for the first time. Opha May Johnson is the first woman to enlist.
1920 – Polish–Soviet War: The Battle of Warsaw begins and will last till August 25. The Red Army is defeated.
1937 – The Battle of Shanghai begins.
1942 – Major General Eugene Reybold of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorizes the construction of facilities that would house the “Development of Substitute Materials” project, better known as the Manhattan Project.
1960 – The Central African Republic declares independence from France.
1961 – East Germany closes the border between the eastern and western sectors of Berlin to thwart its inhabitants’ attempts to escape to the West.
1968 – Alexandros Panagoulis attempts to assassinate the Greek dictator Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos in Varkiza, Athens.
1969 – The Apollo 11 astronauts are released from a three-week quarantine to enjoy a ticker tape parade in New York City That evening, at a state dinner in Los Angeles, they are awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S. President Richard Nixon.
1977 – Members of the British National Front (NF) clash with anti-NF demonstrators in Lewisham, London, resulting in 214 arrests and at least 111 injuries.
1978 – One hundred fifty Palestinians in Beirut are killed in a terrorist attack during the second phase of the Lebanese Civil War.
2008 – South Ossetian War: Russian units occupy the Georgian city of Gori.
2010 – The MV Sun Sea docks in CFB Esquimalt, British Columbia, Canada, carrying 492 Sri Lankan Tamils.