668 – Eastern Roman Emperor Constans II is assassinated in his bath at Syracuse, Italy.
921 – At Tetin, Saint Ludmila is murdered at the command of her daughter-in-law.
994 – Major Fatimid victory over the Byzantine Empire at the Battle of the Orontes.
1762 – Seven Years’ War: Battle of Signal Hill.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: British forces land at Kip’s Bay during the New York Campaign.
1789 – The United States “Department of Foreign Affairs”, established by law in July, is renamed the Department of State and given a variety of domestic duties.
1794 – French Revolutionary War Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington) sees his first combat at the Battle of Boxtel during the Flanders Campaign.
1812 – The French army under Napoleon reaches the Kremlin in Moscow.
1812 – War of 1812: A second supply train sent to relieve Fort Harrison is ambushed in the Attack at the Narrows.
1816 – HMS Whiting runs aground on the Doom Bar
1820 – Constitutionalist revolution in Lisbon, Portugal.
1821 – Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica jointly declare independence from Spain.
1831 – The locomotive John Bull operates for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy Railroad.
1835 – HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, reaches the Galápagos Islands. The ship lands at Chatham or San Cristobal, the easternmost of the archipelago.
1862 – American Civil War: Confederate forces capture Harpers Ferry, Virginia (present-day Harpers Ferry, West Virginia)
1873 – Franco-Prussian War: The last German troops leave France upon completion of payment of indemnity.
1894 – First Sino-Japanese War: Japan defeats Qing dynasty China in the Battle of Pyongyang.
1915 – The Empire Picture Theatre (now The New Empire Cinema), the oldest running cinema in mainland Australia, opens in Bowral, New South Wales.
1916 – World War I: Tanks are used for the first time in battle, at the Battle of the Somme.
1918 – World War I: Allied troops break through the Bulgarian defenses on the Macedonian Front.
1935 – The Nuremberg Laws deprive German Jews of citizenship.
1935 – Nazi Germany adopts a new national flag bearing the swastika.
1940 – World War II: The climax of the Battle of Britain, when the Royal Air Force shoots down large numbers of Luftwaffe aircraft.
1942 – World War II: U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Wasp is sunk by a Japanese torpedo at Guadalcanal.
1944 – Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet in Quebec as part of the Octagon Conference to discuss strategy.
1944 – Battle of Peleliu begins as the United States Marine Corps’ 1st Marine Division and the United States Army’s 81st Infantry Division hit White and Orange beaches under heavy fire from Japanese infantry and artillery.
1948 – The F-86 Sabre sets the world aircraft speed record at 671 miles per hour (1,080 km/h).
1950 – Korean War: United States forces land at Inchon
1952 – The United Nations cedes Eritrea to Ethiopia.
1959 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the United States.
1962 – The Soviet ship Poltava heads toward Cuba, one of the events that sets into motion the Cuban Missile Crisis.
1968 – The Soviet Zond 5 spaceship is launched, becoming the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere.
1971 – The first Greenpeace ship sets sail to protest against nuclear testing on Amchitka Island.
1972 – A Scandinavian Airlines System domestic flight from Gothenburg to Stockholm is hijacked and flown to Malmö Bulltofta Airport.
1974 – Air Vietnam Flight 706 is hijacked, then crashes while attempting to land with 75 on board.
1981 – The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves Sandra Day O’Connor to become the first female justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
1981 – The John Bull becomes the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world when the Smithsonian Institution operates it under its own power outside Washington, D.C..
2008 – Lehman Brothers files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history.