1183 Taira no Munemori and the Taira clan took the young Emperor Antoku and the three sacred treasures and fled to western Japan to escape pursuit by the Minamoto clan.
1385 – Portuguese Crisis of 1383–1385: Battle of Aljubarrota – Portuguese forces commanded by King João I and his general Nuno Álvares Pereira defeated the Castilian army of King Juan I.
1598 Nine Years War: Battle of the Yellow Ford – Irish forces under Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, defeated an English expeditionary force under Henry Bagenal.
1842 Indian Wars: Second Seminole War ended.
1846 The Cape Girardeau meteorite, a 2.3 kg chondrite-type meteorite struck near in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri.
1848 – Margaret Lindsay Huggins, Anglo-Irish astronomer and author, was born (d. 1915).
1867 John Galsworthy, English novelist and Nobel Prize Laureate, was born (d. 1933).
1880 Construction of Cologne Cathedral was completed.
1885 Japan’s first patent was issued to the inventor of a rust-proof paint.
1888 A recording of English composer Arthur Sullivan’s The Lost Chord, one of the first recordings of music ever made, was played during a press conference introducing Thomas Edison’s phonograph in London.
1891 Petitions organised by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union(WCTU) seeking women’s suffrage and signed by a total of 9000 women were presented to New Zealand’s Parliament.
1893 France introduced motor vehicle registration.
1900 A joint European-Japanese-United States force (Eight-Nation Alliance) occupied Beijing, in a campaign to end the Boxer Rebellion.
1901 The first claimed powered flight, by Gustave Whitehead in hisNumber 21.
1908 The first beauty contest was held in Folkestone.
1912 U.S. Marines invaded Nicaragua to support the U.S.-backed government.
1921 Tannu Tuva, later Tuvinian People’s Republic was established as a completely independent country.
1933 Loggers caused a forest fire in the Coast Range of Oregon – the first forest fire of the Tillamook Burn.
1935 United States Social Security Act passes, creating a government pension system for the retired.
1936 Rainey Bethea was hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky in the last public execution in the United States.
1937 Chinese Air Force Day: The beginning of air-to-air combat of the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II in general, when 6 Imperial Japanese Mitsubishi G3M bombers were shot down by the Nationalist Chinese Air Force.
1941 David Crosby, American musician, was born.
1941 Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Atlantic Charter of war stating postwar aims.
1945 Steve Martin, American actor and comedian, was born.
1945 Japan accepted the Allied terms of surrender and the Emperor recorded the Imperial Rescript on Surrender.
1946 Susan Saint James, American actress, was born.
1947 – Danielle Steel, American author, was born.
1947 Pakistan and India gained Independence from the British Indian Empire and joined the British Commonwealth.
1948 Don Bradman, widely regarded as the best cricket batsman in history, makes a duck in his final Test innings.
1950 Gary Larson, American cartoonist (The Far Side), was born.
1957 – Peter Costello, Australian lawyer and politician, 35th Treasurer of Australia, was born.
1959 – Magic Johnson, American basketball player and coach, was born.
1960 – Sarah Brightman, English singer-songwriter and actress, was born.
1966 – Halle Berry, American model, actress, and producer, Miss World United States 1986, was born.
1967 UK Marine Broadcasting Offences Act declared participation in offshore pirate radio illegal.
1969 British troops were deployed in Northern Ireland.
1972 An East German Ilyushin Il-62 crashed during takeoff from East Berlin, killing 156.
1980 Lech Wałęsa led strikes at the Gdańsk shipyards.
1987 All the children held at Kia Lama, a rural property on Lake Eildon, Australia, run by the Santiniketan Park Association, were released after a police raid.
1994 Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the terrorist known as “Carlos the Jackal“, was captured.
2003 Widescale power blackout in the northeast United States and Canada.
2006 Chencholai bombing – 61 Tamil girls were killed in Sri Lankan Airforce bombing.
2007 Kahtaniya bombings killed at least 400 people.
2010 – 2010 Summer Youth Olympic Games, first ever Youth Olympics, officially started in Singapore.
2011 – A polar blast swept through New Zealand.
2013 – Egypt declared a state of emergency as security forces killed hundreds of demonstrators supporting former president Mohamed Morsi.
2015 – The US Embassy in Havana, Cuba re-opened after 54 years of being closed when Cuba–United States relations were broken off.
Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia
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