70 – A Roman army under Titus occupies and plunders Jerusalem.
878 – Louis the Stammerer is crowned as king of West Francia by Pope John VIII.
1159 – Pope Alexander III is chosen.
1191 – Third Crusade: Battle of Arsuf – Richard I of England defeats Saladin at Arsuf.
1228 – Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II lands in Acre, Palestine and starts the Sixth Crusade, which results in a peaceful restoration of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
1303 – Guillaume de Nogaret takes Pope Boniface VIII prisoner on behalf of Philip IV of France.
1571 – Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, is arrested for his role in the Ridolfi plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots.
1652 – Around 15,000 Han farmers and militia rebel against Dutch rule on Taiwan.
1695 – Henry Every perpetrates one of the most profitable pirate raids in history with the capture of the Grand Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai. In response, Emperor Aurangzeb threatens to end all English trading in India.
1706 – War of the Spanish Succession: Siege of Turin ends, leading to the withdrawal of French forces from North Italy.
1764 – Election of Stanisław August Poniatowski as the last ruler of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
1776 – According to American colonial reports, Ezra Lee makes the world’s first submarine attack in the Turtle, attempting to attach a time bomb to the hull of HMS Eagle in New York Harbor (no British records of this attack exist).
1778 – American Revolutionary War: France invades Dominica in the British West Indies, before Britain is even aware of France’s involvement in the war.
1812 – French invasion of Russia: The Battle of Borodino, the bloodiest battle of the Napoleonic Wars, was fought near Moscow and resulted in a French victory.
1818 – Carl III of Sweden–Norway is crowned king of Norway, in Trondheim.
1822 – Dom Pedro I declares Brazil independent from Portugal on the shores of the Ipiranga Brook in São Paulo.
1857 – Mountain Meadows massacre: Mormon settlers slaughter most members of peaceful, emigrant wagon train.
1860 – Italian unification: Giuseppe Garibaldi enters Naples.
1864 – American Civil War: Atlanta is evacuated on orders of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman.
1873 – Emilio Castelar y Ripoll becomes President of the First Spanish Republic.
1906 – Alberto Santos-Dumont flies his 14-bis aircraft at Bagatelle, France for the first time successfully.
1909 – Eugène Lefebvre crashes a new French-built Wright biplane during a test flight at Juvisy, south of Paris, becoming the first aviator in the world to lose his life in a powered heavier-than-air craft.
1920 – Two newly purchased Savoia flying boats crash in the Swiss Alps en route to Finland where they would serve with the Finnish Air Force, killing both crews.
1929 – Steamer Kuru capsizes and sinks on Lake Näsijärvi near Tampere in Finland. 136 lives are lost.
1932 – The Battle of Boquerón, the first major battle of the Chaco War, commences.
1940 – Treaty of Craiova: Romania loses Southern Dobruja to Bulgaria.
1940 – World War II: The German Luftwaffe begins the Blitz, bombing London and other British cities for over 50 consecutive nights.
1942 – First flight of the Consolidated B-32 Dominator.
1942 – World War II: Australian and US forces inflict a significant defeat upon the Japanese at the Battle of Milne Bay.
1943 – A fire at the Gulf Hotel in Houston, kills 55 people.
1943 – World War II: The German 17th Army begins its evacuation of the Kuban bridgehead (Taman Peninsula) in southern Russia and moves across the Strait of Kerch to the Crimea.
1945 – Japanese forces on Wake Island, which they had held since December of 1941, surrender to U.S. Marines.
1945 – The Berlin Victory Parade of 1945 is held.
1953 – Nikita Khrushchev is elected first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
1953 – Mohammed Daoud Khan becomes Premier of Afghanistan.
1953 – Garfield Todd becomes Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia.
1961 – João Goulart becomes President of Brazil.
1965 – China announces that it will reinforce its troops on the Indian border.
1965 – Vietnam War: In a follow-up to August’s Operation Starlight, United States Marines and South Vietnamese forces initiate Operation Piranha on the Batangan Peninsula.
1970 – Fighting between Arab guerrillas and government forces in Amman, Jordan.
1977 – The Torrijos–Carter Treaties between Panama and the United States on the status of the Panama Canal are signed. The United States agrees to transfer control of the canal to Panama at the end of the 20th century.
1977 – The 300-metre-tall CKVR-DT transmission tower in Barrie, Ontario, Canada, is hit by a light aircraft in a fog, causing it to collapse. All aboard the aircraft are killed.
1986 – Desmond Tutu becomes the first black man to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa.
1986 – General Augusto Pinochet, president of Chile, escapes attempted assassination.
1988 – Abdul Ahad Mohmand, the first Afghan in space, returns aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz TM-5 after 9 days on the Mir space station.
2010 – A Chinese fishing trawler collided with two Japanese Coast Guard patrol boats in disputed waters near the Senkaku Islands. The collisions occurred around 10am, after the Japanese Coast Guard ordered the trawler to leave the area. After the collisions, Japanese sailors boarded the Chinese vessel and arrested the captain, Zhan Qixiong.
2011 – A plane crash in Russia kills 43 people, including nearly the entire roster of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl Kontinental Hockey League team.