On this day in History - Aug. 23

• 0079 - Mount Vesuvius begins stirring, on the feast day of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire.
• 0093 - Gnaeus Julius Agricola dies (b. 0040). Roman governor of Britain.
  
• 0634 - Abu Bakr dies (b. 0578). Arabian caliph.
• 0686 - Charles Martel was born (d. 0741). Grandfather of Charlemagne.
• 1106 - Magnus, Duke of Saxony dies (b. 1045).
• 1176 - Emperor Rokujo of Japan dies (b. 1164).
• 1305 - William Wallace dies executed (b. 1272). Scottish patriot Scottish national hero and resistance leader Sir William Wallace was executed in London.
• 1328 - Battle of Kassel: French troops stop an uprising of Flemish farmers.
• 1328 - King Phillip VI of France is crowned.
• 1387 - King Olav IV of Norway dies (b. 1370).
• 1486 - Sigismund von Herberstein was born (d. 1566). Austrian diplomat and historian.
• 1498 - D. Isabel dies. Queen of Portugal, wife of King D. Dinis.
• 1514 - The Ottomans won a decisive victory over the Safavids of Iran at the Battle of Chaldiran.
• 1507 - Jean Molinet dies (b. 1435). French writer.
• 1514 – Battle of Chaldiran ended with a decisive victory for the Sultan Selim I, Ottoman Empire, over the Shah Ismail I, Safavids founder.
• 1519 - Philibert Berthelier dies (b. 1465). Swiss patriot.
• 1524 - François Hotman was born (d. 1590). French lawyer and writer.
• 1540 - French explorer Jacques Cartier lands near Quebec in his voyage to Canada.
• 1540 - Guillaume Budé dies (b. 1467). French scholar.
• 1541 - French explorer Jacques Cartier lands near Quebec City in his third voyage to Canada.
• 1555 - Calvinists are granted rights in the Netherlands.
• 1572 - St. Bartholomew’s Eve Massacre : It was the night of August 23rd, 1572. The bells of the St. Germain-l'Auxerrois cathedral rang in honor of St. Bartholomew’s Day. The city militia began to gather, wearing white armbands to help them to identify each another. Then the horror began. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve was underway, the Catholics were murdering the Huguenots. A total of 3,000 Protestants fell victim to the violence in Paris alone. Nor was Paris an exception, violence was occurring all over the country on this night, more than 10,000 Huguenots were killed.
• 1591 - Luis Ponce de León dies (b. 1527). Spanish poet and mystic.
• 1595 – Michael the Brave confronts the Ottoman army in the Battle of Calugareni.
• 1609 - Telescope presented by Galileo: Italian astronomer and mathematician Galileo greatly improved the telescope, producing increasingly powerful instruments, and on this day in 1609 presented an eight-powered telescope to the Venetian Senate.
• 1614 - The University of Groningen is established
• 1617 - In London, the first one-way street is established.
• 1618 - Gerbrand Adriaensz Bredero dies (b. 1585). Dutch poet and playwright.
• 1623 - Stanisław Lubieniecki was born (d. 1675). Polish astronomer.
• 1628 - George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham dies (b. 1592). English statesman.
• 1651 - Charles II of England enters Charles II of England enters Worcester and starts a battle (Battle of Worcester).
• 1652 - John Byron, 1st Baron Byron dies (b. 1600). English royalist politician.
• 1706 – Colonel Edward Nott, Esq. dies (b. 1654). British Crown Governor of Virginia.
• 1708 - Meidingnu Pamheiba is crowned King of Manipur.
• 1723 - Increase Mather dies (b. 1639). New England Puritan minister.
• 1724 - Abraham Yates was born (d. 1796). American Continental Congressman.
• 1740 - Ivan VI was born. Emperor of Russia (1740-41)
• 1741 - Jean-François de Galaup, count de La Pérouse was born (d. 1788). French explorer.
• 1754 - Louis XVI of France was born (d. 1792 guillotined). King of France (1774-1792)
• 1754 - Louis Auguste de Bourbon was born in Versailles, Paris (d. 21 Jan 1793)
• 1768 - Sir Astley Paston Cooper was born (d. 12 Feb 1841). English surgeon who was a pioneer in experimental surgery. He was the first to tie the abdominal aorta in treating an aneurysm (1817), among various other operations he performed successfully at a time before antiseptic procedures.
• 1769 - Georges Cuvier was born (d. 1832). French zoologist and statesman whose work, which included classifying animals based on their internal structure and not their outward appearance, laid the foundation of comparative anatomy.
• 1775 - King George III declares that the American colonies exist in a state of open and avowed rebellion.
• 1781 - Criação, em Portugal, da Aula Régia de Desenho de Figura e Arquitectura Civil
• 1783 - Hydrogen balloon begins filling: On this day, filling of the first hydrogen balloon began, with the gas produced by the action of sulphuric acid on iron. See Montegolfier Balloon.
  
• 1783 - William Tierney Clark was born (d. 1852). English civil engineer.
• 1784 - Western North Carolina (now eastern Tennessee) declares itself an independent state under the name of Franklin; it wasn’t accepted into the United States, and only lasted for four years.
• 1785 - Oliver Hazard Perry was born (d. 1819). U.S. naval officer.
• 1793 - French Revolution: a levée en masse was decreed by the National Convention.
• 1799 - Napoleon leaves Egypt for France en route to seize power.
• 1805 - Anton von Schmerling was born (d. 1893). Austrian statesman.
• 1806 - Charles Augustin de Coulomb dies (b. 14 Jun 1736). French physicist best known for the formulation of Coulomb's law, which states that the force between two electrical charges is proportional to the product of the charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
• 1809 - Juliusz Slowacki was born. Polish poet (Trip to H Land).
• 1811 - Auguste Bravais was born (d. 30 Mar 1863). French physicist and mineralogist, best remembered for his work on the lattice theory of crystals.
• 1812 - Argentina: Se iza por primera vez en Buenos Aires la bandera celeste y blanca, en la torre de la iglesia de San Nicolás.
• 1813 - At the Battle of Grossbeeren the Prussians under Von Bulow repulse the French army.
• 1813 - Alexander Wilson dies (b. 6 Jul 1766). Scottish-born ornithologist and poet.
• 1814 - James Roosevelt Bayley was born (d. 1877). First Bishop of Newark, New Jersey, and the eighth Archbishop of Baltimore.
• 1819 - Oliver Hazard Perry dies (b. 1785). American naval officer.
• 1821 - Mexico gains its independence from Spain
• 1829 - Moritz Cantor was born (d. 10 Apr 1920). German historian of mathematics, one of the greatest of the 19th century. He is best remembered for the four volume work. Vorlesungen über Geschichte der Mathematik which traces the history of mathematics up to 1799.
• 1833 - Slavery abolished in the British colonies.
• 1838 - General Agustín Gamarra is nominated President of Peru.
• 1839 - The United Kingdom captures Hong Kong as a base as it prepares to war with Qing China. The ensuing 3-year conflict will later be known as the First Opium War.
• 1842 - Osborne Reynolds was born (d. 21 Feb 1912). British engineer, physicist, and educator best known for his work in hydraulics and hydrodynamics.
• 1847 - Sarah Frances Whiting was born (d. 1927). American physicist and astronomer.
• 1849 - William Ernest Henley was born (d. 1903). British poet, critic and editor. English poet, critic, and editor William Ernest Henley, who introduced the early work of many of the great English writers of the 1890s in his journals, was born in Gloucester.
• 1851 - Ramiro Barcellos was born (d. 1916). Brazilian politician.
• 1852 - Arnold Toynbee was born (d. 1883). English economist and social reformer.
• 1853 - Alexander Calder dies (b. 1806). First mayor of Beaumont, Texas.
• 1854 - Moritz Moszkowski was born (d. 1925). Polish/German composer.
• 1858 – The Round Oak rail accident occurs in Brierley Hill in the Black Country, England. It is 'Arguably the worst disaster ever to occur on British railways'.
• 1862 - Muere en Goya, Corrientes, el doctor Eduardo Acevedo, uruguayo de nacimiento, quien junto con doctor Vélez Sarsfield fue autor del “Código de Comercio”, por encargo del Gobierno Argentino.
• 1864 - Eleftherios Venizalos was born. Prime Minister of Greece.
  
• 1864 - The Union Navy captures Fort Morgan, Alabama, thus breaking Confederate dominance of all ports on the Gulf of Mexico.
  
• 1864 - Eleftherios Venizelos was born (d. 1936). Prime Minister of Greece.
• 1866 - Austro-Prussian War ends with the Treaty of Prague.
• 1867 - Auguste-Marseille Barthelemy dies (b. 1796). French poet.
• 1868 - Edgar Lee Masters was born (d. 1950). American author.
• 1873 - Albert Bridge crossing Thames in Chelsea, London opens.
• 1875 - Eugene Lanceray was born (d. 1946). Russian artist.
• 1875 - William Eccles was born (d. 29 Apr 1966). British physicist who pioneered in the development of radio communication.
• 1883 - Jonathan Wainwright was born (d. 1953). U.S. general, Medal of Honor recipient.
• 1884 - Ogden L. Mills was born (d. 1937). U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, 1927-1932.
• 1884 - Will Cuppy was born (d. 1949). American humorist.
• 1885 - Sir Henry Tizard was born (d. 9 Oct 1959). Scientist and administrator.
• 1888 - Philip Henry Gosse dies (b. 6 Apr 1810). English popular science writer and naturalist who wrote books illustrating such topics as Jamaican wildlife and marine zoology.
• 1889 - Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring was born.
• 1889 - First wireless message from a ship to the shore received.
• 1892 - Manoel Deodoro da Fonseca dies (b. 05 Ago 1827). Brazilian militar who lead the coup that finished with the Monarchy and politician. First President of Brazil.
• 1896 - First Cry of the Philippine Revolution is made in Pugad Lawin (Quezon City), in the province of Manila.
• 1899 - Albert Claude was born († 23 May 1983). Belgian doctor and biochemist who developed an electron microscopy preparation method. He received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1974, along with Christian Rene de Duve and George Emil Palade, for the research of the structure of the cell and its functions. Claude was the first to isolate the cancer virus and detect RNA as its primary substance.
• 1900 - Ernst Krenek was born (d. 1991). Austrian-born composer.
• 1901 - John Sherman Cooper was born (d. 1991). U.S. Senator from Kentucky.
• 1903 - 6th Zionist Congres, Theodor Herzl declares Jewish state.
• 1903 - William Primrose was born (d.1982). Scottish violist.
• 1903 - Muere en Buenos Aires, el escritor y periodista argentino José Sixto Álvarez (known as “Fray Mocho”) dies in Buenos Aires. Argentinian writer and journalist who was the founder of the satiric magazine "Caras y Caretas"
• 1904 - The automobile tire chain is patented. Harry D. Weed of Canastota, NY, was issued a U.S. patent for his "Grip-Tread for Pneumatic Tires" - a snow tire chain for automobiles (No. 768,495).
• 1905 - Constant Lambert was born (d. 1951). British composer.
• 1908 - Arthur Adamov was born (d. 1970). Russian playwright, one of the foremost exponents of the Theatre of the Absurd.
• 1908 - Hannah Frank was born. Scottish artist and sculptor.
• 1909 – Syd Buller was born (d. 1970). English cricketer.
  
• 1910 - Giuseppe Meazza was born in Milan (d. 1979). Legendary italian football player. World Champion 1934 and 1938.
• 1910 – Lonny Frey was born (d. 2009). American baseball player.
  
• 1911 - Birger Ruud was born (d. 1998). Norwegian athlete.
• 1912 - Nasce em Recife, Pernambuco, Nelson Rodrigues (m. 21 Dez 1980). Jornalista, dramaturgo (estréia em 1941 com "A Mulher Sem Pecado"), escritor e comentador de futebol (autor de: "Toda Nudez Será Castigada", "Beijo no Asfalto", "Os 7 Gatinhos", "Engraçadinha") 1912 - Gene Kelly was born (d. 1996). American dancer, actor.
• 1912 - Ed Benedict was born (d. 28 Aug 2006). American cartoonist.
• 1912 – Gene Kelly was born (d. 1996). American dancer and actor.
  
• 1914 - Harold Truscott was born (d. 1992). Composer.
• 1914 - World War I: Japan declares war on Germany and bombs Qingdao, China.
• 1914 - World War I: the Battle of Mons; the British Army begins withdrawal.
• 1917 - Tex Williams was born (d. 1985). American singer.
• 1919 - Vladimir Abramovich Rokhlin was born (d. 1984). Russian mathematician.
• 1921 - Eadie Del Rubio (d. 1996), Elena Del Rubio (d. 2001), and Milly Del Rubio were born. The Del Rubio Triplets. Singers, musicians, actresses.
• 1921 - Faisal I crowned King of Iraq.
• 1921 – British airship R-38 experiences structural failure over Hull in England and crashes in the Humber estuary. Of her 49 British and American training crew, only 4 survive.
• 1921 - Kenneth J. Arrow was born in New York. American economist, 1972 Nobel Prize in Economics co-laureate (with John R Hicks, Oxford University, U K) "for their pioneering contributions to general economic equilibrium theory and welfare theory".
• 1921 – Sam Cook was born (d. 1996). England cricketer.
  
• 1922 - "Federación Peruana de Fútbol" is founded.
• 1922 - George Kell was born. Baseball player.
• 1922 - Tônia Carrero (Maria Antonieta de Farias Porto Carrero) was born in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian actress.
• 1922 - George Kell was born. Baseball player.
• 1922 - Jean Darling was born. American child actress.
• 1922 – Pierre Gauvreau was born. French Canadian painter, television writer and producer.
• 1923 – Capt. Lowell Smith and Lt. John P. Richter performed the first mid-air refueling on De Havilland DH-4B, setting an endurance flight record of 37 hours.
• 1923 - Edgar F. Codd was born. English computer scientist, founder of theory of relational databases.
• 1923 – Heinrich Berté dies (b. 1856). Austrian operetta composer.
  
• 1924 - The distance between Earth and Mars is the smallest since the 10th century.
• 1924 - Denis Sargan (link in pdf extension) was born in Doncaster, Yorkshire (d. 1997). Econometrician.
• 1924 - Ephraim Kishon was born (d. 2005). Israeli writer.
• 1924 - Robert Solow was born. American economist, Nobel Prize laureate in 1987 "for his contributions to the theory of economic growth".
• 1925 - Britain's Betty Nuthall wins US Lawn Tennis championship.
• 1925 - Robert Mulligan was born. American movie and television director.
• 1926 - Clifford Geertz was born. American cultural anthropologist, a leading rhetorician and proponent of symbolic anthropology and interpretive anthropology.
• 1926 - Rudolph Valentino dies suddenly at age 31, prompting widespread public grief from his fans (b. 6 May 1895). Italian actor, silent movie idol ("The Great Lover”).
• 1927 - Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti are executed for murder in Boston, Massachusetts, despite a mishandled trial and the widespread belief that they were innocent.
• 1927 - Houari Boumediène was born. President of Algeria (1965-1978)
• 1927 - Dick Bruna was born. Dutch illustrator.
• 1927 – Martial Solal was born. French jazz pianist and composer.
• 1928 – Marian Seldes was born. American actress.
• 1929 - Hebron Massacre: Arab attack of the Jewish community in the British Mandate of Palestine resulted in 133 Jews killed, 67 in Hebron.
• 1929 - Vera Miles was born. American actress (Psicho).
• 1929 - Peter Thompson was born. Australian golfer.
• 1930 - David Salamanca is elected President of Bolivia.
• 1930 - Michel Rocard was born. Prime Minister of France.
  
• 1931 - Hamilton O. Smith was born. American microbiologist who shared, with Werner Arber and Daniel Nathans, the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1978 for his discovery of a new class of restriction enzymes that recognize specific sequences of nucleotides in a molecule of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and cleave the molecule at that particular point.
• 1932 - Houari Boumedienne was born (d. 1978). President of Algeria.
• 1932 - Mark Russell was born. Comedian, musician, political commentator.
• 1933 - Nasce, em S. Pedro do Estoril, Cascais, António Henrique Rodrigo de Oliveira Marques. Professor universitário e historiador português especializado em História Medieval. Condecorado pelo Presidente da Republica Dr. Jorge Sampaio, em 5 Out 1988, com a Grã-Cruz da Ordem da Liberdade.
• 1933 - Pete Wilson was born. Governor of California.
• 1933 - Robert Curl was born. American chemist who with Richard E. Smalley and Sir Harold W. Kroto discovered the first fullerene, a spherical cluster of carbon atoms, in 1985. Nobel Prize laureate.
• 1934 - Barbara Eden was born. American actress.
• 1934 - Sonny Jurgensen was born. American football player.
• 1934 - John Dilinger dies shot by FBI (b. 28 Jun 1902). American gangster.
• 1935 - Jacques Charles Dufresnoy was born. French transsexueller "Coccinelle".
• 1936 - Henry Lee Lucas was born (d. 2001). American serial killer.
• 1937 - Albert Roussel dies (b. 1869). French composer.
• 1938 – English cricketer Len Hutton sets a world record for the highest individual Test innings of 364, during a Test match against Australia.
• 1939 - World War II: Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression treaty, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. In a secret addition to the pact, Baltic states, Finland and Poland are divided between the two nations.
• 1940 - World War II: The Germans start bombing London.
• 1942 - World War II: Beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad.
• 1942 – World War II: The last cavalry charge in history takes place at Izbushensky.
• 1942 - Suzana Vieira (Sónia Vieira Gonçalves) was born in São Paulo. Brazilian dancer and actress.
• 1943 - World War II: Kharkov liberated.
• 1943 - Nelson DeMille was born. American novelist.
• 1944 - World War II: Marseilles liberated.
• 1944 - World War II: King Michael of Romania dismisses the pro-Nazi government of General Antonescu. Romania switches sides from the Axis to the Allies.
• 1944 – Freckleton Air Disaster – A United States Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator bomber crashes into a school in Freckleton, England killing 61 people.
• 1944 - Antonia Novello was born. American physician and public official, the first woman and the first Hispanic to serve as United States Surgeon General.
• 1945 – Rayfield Wright was born. American football player.
• 1945 - Rita Pavone was born in Turin. Italian singer.
• 1946 - Ordinance No. 46 of the British Military Government constitutes the German Land (state) of Schleswig-Holstein.
• 1946 - Keith Moon was born (d. 1978). English singer and drummer (The Who).
• 1947 - Carlos Mancheno Cajas becomes President of Ecuador after a military coup.
• 1947 - The Maynard Midgets beat Lock Haven 16-7 to win the first-ever Little League World Series championship.
• 1947 - David Robb was born. British actor.
• 1947 - Willy Russell was born. British playwright.
• 1947 - Roy Chadwick dies. British aeronautical engineer, killed on a test flight near Woodford airfield, Manchester.
• 1948 - World Council of Churches is formed.
• 1948 - Andrei Pleşu was born. Romanian writer, essayist.
• 1948 - Daniel Ruettiger "Rudy" was born. University of Notre Dame football legend.
• 1949 - Geoff Capes was born. English Strongman.
• 1949 – Katiana Balanika was born. Greek actress and singer.
• 1949 – Rick Springfield was born. Australian singer and actor
• 1949 - Shelley Long was born. American actress.
• 1949 - Domingo Díaz Arosamena dies. Panaminian politician.
• 1951 - Queen Noor of Jordan was born.
• 1951 - Akhmad Kadyrov was born (d. 2004). President of Chechnya.
• 1951 – Allan Bristow was born. American basketball head coach.
• 1951 – Queen Noor of Jordan was born.
  
• 1951 – Jimi Jamison was born. American singer (Survivor).
• 1952 - The Arab League goes into effect.
• 1952 - Vicky Leandros was born. Greek singer, Eurovision Song Contest winner.
• 1953 - Bobby G was born. British singer (Bucks Fizz).
• 1954 – First flight of the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft.
• 1954 - Charles Busch was born. American director, writer, actor and drag queen.
• 1955 - Reginald Tate dies (b. 1896). British actor.
• 1956 – Andreas Floer was born (d. 1991). German mathematician.
  
• 1956 – Skipp Sudduth was born. American actor.
• 1956 - Valgerd Svarstad Haugland was born. Norwegian politician.
• 1957 - Tasos Mitropoulos was born. Greek footballer and politician.
• 1958 - Chinese Civil War: The Second Taiwan Strait crisis begins with the People's Liberation Army's bombardment of Quemoy.
• 1958 - Knighty Knight Bugs is released, it became the first Bugs Bunny cartoon to win an Academy Award.
• 1958 - Julio Franco was born. Oldest regular position player in MLB history (Atlanta Braves).
• 1959 - Sally Brown debuts on the Peanuts strip (as an infant).
• 1959 - George Kalovelonis was born. Greek tennis player.
• 1960 - In Equatorial Guinea, the world's largest frog (3.3 kg) is caught.
• 1960 - "Federación de Mujeres Cubanas" (Cuba) is founded.
• 1960 – Chris Potter was born. Canadian actor.
• 1960 – Gary Hoey was born. American Guitarist.
• 1960 – Rodney Alan Greenblat was born. American graphic artist.
• 1960 - Oscar Hammerstein II dies (b. 1895). American lyricist.
• 1961 - Dean DeLeo was born. American musician (Stone Temple Pilots).
• 1961 – Gary Mabbutt was born. English footballer.
• 1962 - First live television connection between the United States and Europe, via the Telstar satellite.
• 1962 - John Lennon married Cynthia Powell at the Mount Pleasant Registry Office in Liverpool, England. They were divorced on November 8, 1968.
• 1962 - Martin Cauchon was born. Canadian politician.
• 1962 - Paula Toller was born in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian singer and bandleader "Kid Abelha e os Abóboras Selvagens".
• 1962 – Shaun Ryder was born. English musician.
• 1962 - Hoot Gibson dies (b. 1892). American actor.
• 1962 - Walter Anderson dies (b. 1885). German folklorist.
• 1963 - Glória Pires was born in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian actress. Best actress in Festival de Havana for "O Quatrilho" (1995).
• 1963 - Hans-Henning Fastrich was born. German field hockey player.
• 1963 - Kenny Wallace was born. American race car driver.
• 1963 - Park Chan-wook was born. Korean director and screenwriter.
• 1963 – Richard Illingworth was born. England cricketer.
• 1963 - Glen Gray dies (b. 1900). American jazz musician and leader of the Casa Loma Orchestra.
• 1964 - The LP A Hard Day's Night (song) by The Beatles is released.
• 1964 – Johan Bruyneel was born. Belgian cyclist.
• 1964 – Kong Hee was born. Singaporean pastor.
• 1964 – Wendy Pepper was born. American designer.
• 1964 – Yoshikazu Taru was born. Japanese professional wrestler.
• 1965 - Roger Avary was born. Canadian-born screenwriter, director, and producer.
• 1965 - John Bata dies. Czech shoe manufacturer.
• 1966 - Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.
• 1966 - Rik Smits was born. Dutch-American basketball player.
• 1966 - Francis X. Bushman dies (b. 1883). American actor.
• 1967 - Richard Petrie was born. New Zealand cricketer.
• 1967 - Georges Berger dies (b. 1918). Belgian racing driver.
• 1968 - Ringo Starr temporarily quits The Beatles.
• 1968 - Chris DiMarco was born. American golfer.
• 1968 – Laura Claycomb was born. American operatic soprano.
  
• 1968 - Vicente Celestino (António Vicente Felipe Celestino) dies (b. 12 Set 1894). Brazilian singer.
• 1969 – Geneviève Brouillette was born. Quebec television and film actress.
• 1969 - Jeremy Schaap was born. American sportswriter.
• 1969 – Keith Tyson was born. English artist.
• 1970 – Brad Mehldau was born. American pianist.
• 1970 - Jay Mohr was born. American actor and comedian.
• 1970 – Lawrence Frank was born. American basketball coach.
• 1970 - River Phoenix was born (d. 1993). American actor.
• 1971 - BoneCrusher was born. American rapper.
• 1971 - Demetrio Albertini was born. Italian footballer.
• 1971 - The original Shamu dies. Sea World orca.
  
• 1972 - Mark Butcher was born. England cricketer.
• 1972 - Martin Grainger was born. English footballer.
• 1972 - Raul Casanova was born. Puerto Rican baseball player.
• 1973 - The Intelsat communication satellite is launched.
• 1973 - La ATP (asociación de tenistas profesionales) publica su primer ranking semanal de tensitas. El tenista rumano; Illie Nastase es el Nº 1.
• 1973 - Casey Blake was born. American baseball player.
• 1973 - Kerry Walmsley was born. New Zealand cricketer.
• 1973 - Malaika Arora Khan was born. Indian actress and model.
• 1974 - Benjamin Limo was born. Kenyan runner.
• 1974 - Christian Beranek was born. American graphic novelist and actor.
• 1974 - Ray Park was born. British actor.
• 1974 - Shifty was born. American musician (Crazy Town).
• 1974 - Roberto Assagioli dies (b. 1888). Italian psychiatrist.
• 1975 - Successful Communist coup in Laos.
• 1975 - Eliza Carthy was born. English singer and fiddler.
• 1975 – Jarkko Ruutu was born. Finnish ice hockey player.
• 1975 – Sean Marks was born. New Zealander-born basketball player.
• 1976 - A major earthquake in China kills thousands of people.
• 1976 – Pat Garrity was born. American basketball player.
• 1976 - Scott Caan was born. American actor.
• 1977 - First human-powered flight: Bryan Allen won the Kremer prize for the first human-powered flight as he pedalled the Gossamer Condor for at least a mile at Schafter, California.
• 1977 - Douglas Sequeira was born. Costa Rican footballer.
• 1977 – Naum Gabo dies (b. 1890). Russian artist.
  
• 1978 - Kobe Bryant was born. American basketball player.
• 1978 - Julian Casablancas was born. American musician.
• 1979 - Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defects to the United States.
• 1979 – Edgar Sosa was born. Mexican boxer.
• 1979 – Ritchie Neville was born. British musician.
• 1980 – Denny Bautista was born. Dominican baseball player.
• 1980 – Diamondog was born. Angolan Rapper.
• 1980 - Rex Grossman was born. American football player.
• 1980 - Gerhard Hanappi dies (b. 1929). Austrian football player.
• 1981 – Carlos Cuéllar was born. Spanish footballer
• 1981 – Carmen Luvana was born. American pornographic actress.
• 1981 - Ozzy Lusth was born. Mexican born American Survivor contestant.
• 1981 – Stephan Loboué was born. Ivorian footballer.
• 1982 - Bachir Gemayel is elected Lebanese President amidst the raging civil war.
• 1982 - Natalie Coughlin was born. American swimmer.
• 1982 - YTCracker was born. American musician.
• 1982 - Edu da Gaita (Eduardo Nadruz) dies (b. 13 Out 1916). Brazilian musician.
• 1982 - Alberto Cavalcanti dies. Brazilian film director.
• 1982 - Lebanese falangist leader Bachir Gemayel is elected President (on 14 Sep is killed)
• 1982 - Um confronto entre Sendero Luminoso e a policia faz 22 mortos.
• 1982 – Bryce Case, Jr. was born. American musician and computer hacker.
• 1982 – Natalie Coughlin was born. American swimmer.
• 1982 – Scott Palguta was born. American soccer player.
• 1982 - Stanford Moore dies (born 4 Sep 1913). American biochemist, who was a co-recipient (with Christian B. Anfinsen and William H. Stein) of the 1972 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his contribution to the understanding of the connection between chemical structure and catalytic activity of the active centre of ribonuclease molecule, an enzyme.
• 1983 - Marianne Steinbrecher was born. Brazilian Volleyball player.
• 1983 - Sun Ming Ming was born. Chinese basketball player.
• 1983 - Tony Moll was born. American football player.
• 1984 - Glen Johnson was born. English footballer.
• 1985 - Hans Tiedge, top counter-spy of West Germany, defects to East Germany.
• 1986 - Neil Cicierega was born. American cartoonist and musician.
• 1987 - Heavy rains and floods in Bangladesh kill hundreds of victims.
• 1987 – Nikki Gil was born. Filipina actress and host.
• 1987 - Didier Pironi dies (b. 26 Mar 1952). French Formula 1 driver.
• 1988 – Jeremy Lin was born. American basketball player.
• 1988 - Menotti Del Picchia dies in São Paulo (b. 1892). Brazilian poet.
• 1989 – Hungary: the last communist government open the Iron curtain and causes the exodus of thousands of Eastern Germans to West Germany via Hungary (September 11).
• 1989 - Singing Revolution: two million people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania stand on the Vilnius-Tallinn road, holding hands (Baltic way).
• 1989 – 1,645 Australian domestic airline pilots resign after the airlines threaten to fire them and sue them over a dispute.
• 1989 - João Palma Ferreira dies in Lisbon (b. 1931). Portuguese ficcionist and Literary historian and critic.
• 1989 - Mohammed Abed Elhai dies (b. 1944). Sudanese writer and academic.
• 1989 - R. D. Laing dies (b. 7 Oct 1927). British psychiatrist noted for his alternative approach to the treatment of schizophrenia.
• 1990 - Saddam Hussein appears on Iraqi state television with a number of Western "guests" (actually hostages to try to prevent the Gulf War).
• 1990 - Armenia declares its independence from the Soviet Union.
• 1990 - West Germany and East Germany announce that they will unite on October 3.
• 1990 - David Rose dies (b. 1910). American composer and orchestra leader.
• 1991 - Florence Seibert dies (b. 6 Oct 1897). American scientist who developed the protein substance used for the tuberculosis skin test, and contributed to safety measures for intravenous drug therapy.
• 1992 - Hurricane Andrew hits South Florida. 1993 - The Los Angeles Police Department formally announced that Michael Jackson was the subject a criminal investigation.
• 1993 - Duran Duran received a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.
• 1994 – Eugene Bullard, The only black pilot in World War I, is posthumously commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force.
• 1995 - Eliza Pineda was born. Filipina actress.
• 1995 - Dwayne Goettel dies (b. 1964). Canadian musician (Skinny Puppy).
• 1996 – Osama bin Laden issues message entitled 'A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places.'
• 1996 – Margaret Tucker dies (b. 1904). Indigenous Australian activist and autobiographer.
  
• 1997 - Sir John C. Kendrew dies (b. 24 Mar 1917) British biochemist who determined the structure of the muscle protein myoglobin, which stores oxygen and gives it to the muscle cells when needed. For his achievement he shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (with Max Ferdinand Perutz , who worked out the structure of the related protein, hemoglobin).
• 1998 - "Scary Spice" Melanie Brown of the Spice Girls announced that she was pregnant.
• 1998 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin fires the Kirienko Government.
• 1999 - Charles Davis Hollister dies (b. 18 Mar 1936). American marine geologist whose pioneering studies of the deep-sea floor revealed the strong currents and storms that occur there.
• 1999 - James White dies (b. 1928). Northern Irish writer.
• 1999 - Norman Wexler dies (b. 1926). American screenwriter.
• 2000 - A Gulf Air Airbus A320 crashes into the Persian Gulf near Manama, Bahrain killing 143
• 2000 - Nicaragua becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
• 2000 – John Anthony Kaiser dies (b. 1932). Roman Catholic priest.
• 2001 – Zaijian Jaranilla was born. Filipino child actor.
• 2001 - Fred Hoyle dies (b. 24 Jun 1915). English astronomer who coined the term "Big Bang." He became Britain's best-known astronomer in 1950 with his broadcast lectures on the nature of the universe.
• 2001 - Kathleen Freeman dies (b. 1919). American actress.
• 2001 - Peter Maas dies (b. 1929). American novelist.
• 2002 - Hoyt Wilhelm dies (b. 1922). American baseball player.
• 2002 - Brazil ratifies Protocol of Kyoto.
• 2003 - Slane Concert held at Slane Castle, County Meath, Republic of Ireland, headlined by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
  
• 2003 - Bobby Bonds dies (b. 1946). American baseball player and manager.
• 2003 - Jack Dyer dies (b. 1913). Australian rules football legend.
• 2003 - John Geoghan dies (b. 1935). American Catholic priest.
• 2005 - TANS Peru Flight 204 crashes near Pucallpa, Peru, killing 41.
• 2005 - Astronaut wings were presented to retired NASA pilot William H. Dana and to family members of deceased pilots Joseph A. Walker and John B. McKay.
• 2005 - Brock Peters dies (b. 1927). American actor.
• 2005 - Ninjalicious dies (b. 1973). Canadian author and urban explorer.
• 2006 - Natascha Kampusch, who was abducted at the age of 10, managed to escape from her captor Wolfgang Priklopil, after 8 years imprisoned.
• 2006 - Maynard Ferguson dies (b. 1928). Canadian jazz trumpeter and bandleader.
• 2007 – Robert Symonds dies (b. 1926). American actor.
• 2008 – John Russell dies (b. 1919). British-born American art critic and author.
  
• Roman festivals - Vulcanalia.
• RC Saints - Saint Rose of Lima, Philip Benitius.
  
• Romania - Liberation Day (1944).
• Swaziland - Umhlanga Day.
• Ukraine - Flag Day.
• European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism (European Union).