1172 – Henry the Young King and Margaret of France are crowned as junior king and queen of England.
1776 – Battle of Long Island: In what is now Brooklyn, New York, British forces under General William Howe defeat Americans under General George Washington.
1793 – French Revolutionary Wars: The city of Toulon revolts against the French Republic and admits the British and Spanish fleets to seize its port, leading to the Siege of Toulon by French Revolutionary forces.
1798 – Wolfe Tone’s United Irish and French forces clash with the British Army in the Battle of Castlebar, part of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, resulting in the creation of the French puppet Republic of Connacht.
1810 – Napoleonic Wars: The French Navy defeats the British Royal Navy, preventing them from taking the harbour of Grand Port on Île de France.
1813 – French Emperor Napoleon I defeats a larger force of Austrians, Russians, and Prussians at the Battle of Dresden.
1828 – Uruguay is formally proclaimed independent at preliminary peace talks brokered by the United Kingdom between Brazil and Argentina during the Cisplatine War.
1832 – Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk tribe of Native Americans, surrenders to U.S. authorities, ending the Black Hawk War.
1859 – Petroleum is discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania leading to the world’s first commercially successful oil well.
1881 – The Georgia hurricane makes landfall near Savannah, Georgia, resulting in an estimated 700 deaths.
1896 – Anglo-Zanzibar War: The shortest war in world history (09:00 to 09:45), between the United Kingdom and Zanzibar.
1914 – Battle of Étreux: A British rearguard action by the Royal Munster Fusiliers during the Great Retreat.
1916 – The Kingdom of Romania declares war on Austria-Hungary, entering World War I as one of the Allied nations.
1918 – Mexican Revolution: Battle of Ambos Nogales: U.S. Army forces skirmish against Mexican Carrancistas and their German advisors in the only battle of World War I fought on American soil.
1921 – The British install the son of Sharif Hussein bin Ali (leader of the Arab Revolt of 1916 against the Ottoman Empire) as King Faisal I of Iraq.
1922 – Greco-Turkish War: The Turkish army takes the Aegean city of Afyonkarahisar from the Kingdom of Greece.
1928 – The Kellogg–Briand Pact outlawing war is signed by fifteen nations. Ultimately sixty-one nations will sign it.
1939 – First flight of the turbojet-powered Heinkel He 178, the world’s first jet aircraft.
1943 – World War II: Japanese forces evacuate New Georgia Island in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II.
1957 – Malaysia’s constitution comes into force.
1962 – The Mariner 2 unmanned space mission is launched to Venus by NASA.
1964 – South Vietnamese junta leader Nguyễn Khánh enters into a triumvirate power-sharing arrangement with rival generals Trần Thiện Khiêm and Dương Văn Minh, who had both been involved in plots to unseat Khánh.
1971 – An attempted coup d’état fails in the African nation of Chad. The Government of Chad accuses Egypt of playing a role in the attempt and breaks off diplomatic relations.
1975 – The Governor of Portuguese Timor abandons its capital, Dili, and flees to Atauro Island, leaving control to a rebel group.
1979 – A Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb kills British retired admiral Lord Mountbatten and three others while they are boating on holiday in Sligo, Republic of Ireland. Shortly after, 18 British Army soldiers are killed in an ambush near Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland.
1985 – The Nigerian government is peacefully overthrown by Army Chief of Staff Major General Ibrahim Babangida.
1991 – The European Community recognizes the independence of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
1991 – Moldova declares independence from the USSR.
2003 – Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, passing 34,646,418 miles (55,758,005 km) distant.
2003 – The first six-party talks, involving South and North Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, convene to find a peaceful resolution to the security concerns of the North Korean nuclear weapons program.
2006 – Comair Flight 5191 crashes on takeoff from Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky bound for Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta. Of the passengers and crew, 49 of 50 are confirmed dead in the hours following the crash.
2009 – Internal conflict in Burma: The Burmese military junta and ethnic armies begin three days of violent clashes in the Kokang Special Region.