Today In History – This Day In History Funny Events

The Battle of Crannon, fought between the Macedonian forces of Antipater and Craterus and the forces of a coalition of cities including Athens and the Aetolian League, was the decisive battle of the Lamian War. The Macedonian victory, though militarily unspectacular, convinced the other Greeks to sue for peace.

Battle of Crannon between Athens and Macedonia.

Majorian was Western Roman emperor from 457 to 461. A prominent commander in the Western military, Majorian deposed Avitus in 457 with the aid of his ally Ricimer at the Battle of Placentia. Possessing little more than Italy and Dalmatia, as well as some territory in Hispania and northern Gaul, Majorian campaigned vigorously for three years against the Empire's enemies. In 461, he was murdered at Dertona in a conspiracy, and his successors until the fall of the Empire in 476 were puppets either of barbarian generals or the Eastern Roman court.

Roman Emperor Majorian is beheaded near the river Iria in north-west Italy following his arrest and deposition by the magister militum Ricimer.

The Pannonian Avars or Carpathian Avars were a confederation of Eurasian nomads. They were also known as the Obri in the chronicles of the Rus, the Abaroi or Varchonitai, or Pseudo-Avars in Byzantine sources, and the Apar to the Göktürks. They established the Avar Khaganate, centred in the Carpathian Basin, from the late-6th to the early-9th centuries. They exerted influence and control over surrounding areas in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe.

The Avar and Slav armies leave the siege of Constantinople.

Stephen III begins his reign as Catholic Pope.

Otto I, known as Otto the Great or Otto of Saxony, was East Frankish (German) king from 936 and Holy Roman Emperor from 962 until his death in 973. He was the eldest son of Henry the Fowler and Matilda of Ringelheim.

Coronation of King Otto I of Germany.

Florence Cathedral, formally the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Flower, is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Florence in Florence, Italy. Commenced in 1296 in the Gothic style to a design of Arnolfo di Cambio and completed by 1436 with a dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi, the basilica's exterior is faced with polychrome marble panels in various shades of green and pink, alternated by white, and features an elaborate 19th-century Gothic Revival western façade by Emilio De Fabris.

Construction of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore begins in Florence.

Visconti is a surname which may refer to:

The Visconti of Milan's fleet is destroyed by the Venetians on the Po River.

The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, the majority ethnic group in China. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng, numerous rump regimes ruled by remnants of the Ming imperial family, collectively called the Southern Ming, survived until 1662.

The Ming dynasty Chinese military general Cao Qin stages a coup against the Tianshun Emperor.

The First Battle of Guinegate took place on 7 August 1479. King Louis XI's French troops, led by Philippe de Crèvecœur d'Esquerdes, were defeated by the Burgundians, led by Duke Maximilian I of Habsburg. The battle was the first in which the innovative Swiss pike square formation was used by a power that was not natively Swiss.

Battle of Guinegate, French troops of King Louis XI were defeated by the Burgundians led by Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg.

A brigantine is a two-masted sailing vessel with a fully square-rigged foremast and at least two sails on the main mast: a square topsail and a gaff sail mainsail. The main mast is the second and taller of the two masts.

The brigantine Le Griffon, commissioned by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, is towed to the south-eastern end of the Niagara River, to become the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes of North America.

The Battle of Gangut took place on 27 JulyJul./ 7 August 1714Greg. during the Great Northern War (1700–1721), in the waters of Riilahti Bay, north of the Hanko Peninsula, near the site of the modern-day city of Hanko (Hangö), Finland, between the Swedish Navy and Imperial Russian Navy. It was the first important victory of the Russian fleet in its history. It is commemorated in Russia as one of the Days of Military Honour.

The Battle of Gangut: The first important victory of the Russian Navy.

George Washington was a Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot forces to victory in the American Revolutionary War against the British Empire. He is commonly known as the Father of His Country for his role in bringing about American independence.

George Washington orders the creation of the Badge of Military Merit to honor soldiers wounded in battle. It is later renamed to the more poetic Purple Heart.

The United States Department of War, also called the War Department, was the United States Cabinet department responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army. It also had responsibility for naval affairs from 1794 until the establishment of the Department of the Navy in 1798, and for most non-naval air forces until the creation of the Department of the Air Force on September 18, 1947.

The United States Department of War is established.

The Miami are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, whose Miami–Illinois language is one of the Algonquian languages. They are a Great Lakes tribe, who historically occupied territory in present-day north-central Indiana, southwest Michigan, and western Ohio.

American troops destroy the Miami town of Kenapacomaqua near the site of present-day Logansport, Indiana in the Northwest Indian War.

The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.

U.S. President George Washington invokes the Militia Acts of 1792 to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.

Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios Ponte y Blanco was a Venezuelan military officer and statesman who led what are currently the countries of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela to independence from the Spanish Empire. He is known colloquially as El Libertador, "the Liberator," of America.

Simón Bolívar triumphs over Spain in the Battle of Boyacá.

Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply footy or just football, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by kicking the oval ball between the central goal posts, or between a central and outer post.

The first Australian rules football match is played between Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College.

The opening of the Poor Man's Palace in Manchester, England.

The Yngsjö murder is the common name of one of Sweden's most notorious murder cases, which occurred on March 28, 1889, in Yngsjö, Skåne.

Anna Månsdotter becomes the last woman in Sweden to be executed, for the 1889 Yngsjö murder.

Alice Huyler Ramsey was an American who was the first woman to drive an automobile across the United States from coast to coast, a feat she completed on August 7, 1909.

Alice Huyler Ramsey and three friends become the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip, taking 59 days to travel from New York, New York to San Francisco, California.

The Peace Bridge is an international bridge over the Niagara River between Canada and the United States, located just north of the river's source at the east end of Lake Erie about 20 kilometres (12.4 mi) upriver of Niagara Falls. It connects Buffalo, New York, in the United States to Fort Erie, Ontario, in Canada. It is operated and maintained by the bi-national Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority.

The Peace Bridge opens between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York.

Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged or convicted transgressor or to intimidate others. It can also be an extreme form of informal group social control, and it is often conducted with the display of a public spectacle for maximum intimidation. Instances of lynchings and similar mob violence can be found in all societies.

The last confirmed lynching of blacks in the Northern United States occurs in Marion, Indiana; two men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, are killed.

The Simele massacre, also known as the Assyrian affair, was a massacre committed by the Kingdom of Iraq under the leadership of Kurdish army general Bakr Sidqi. The massacre was committed against the Assyrian population of Iraq in and around the village of Simele in August 1933.

The Simele massacre: The Iraqi government slaughters over 3,000 Assyrians in the village of Simele.

Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen in Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany. The Nazi Mauthausen concentration camp was established in 1938 in the same municipality where the Austro-Hungarian WWI POW camp had previously operated, holding a total of around 40,000 prisoners, out of whom 8,256 Serbs and up to 5,000 Italians died from 1915 to 1918.

The building of Mauthausen concentration camp begins.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the deaths of 60 to 75 million people, a majority of whom were civilians. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

World War II: Alsace-Lorraine is annexed by the Third Reich.

The Guadalcanal campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal and codenamed Operation Watchtower by the United States, was an Allied offensive against forces of the Empire of Japan in the Solomon Islands during the Pacific Theater of World War II. It was fought between 7 August 1942 and 9 February 1943, and involved major land and naval battles on and surrounding the island of Guadalcanal. It was the first major Allied land offensive against Japan during the war.

World War II: The Battle of Guadalcanal begins as the United States Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.

International Business Machines Corporation, doing business as IBM, is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is a publicly traded company and one of the 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. IBM is the largest industrial research organization in the world, with 19 research facilities across a dozen countries; for 29 consecutive years, from 1993 to 2021, it held the record for most annual U.S. patents generated by a business.

IBM dedicates the first program-controlled calculator, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (known best as the Harvard Mark I).

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from its formation in 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, the largest by area, and bordered twelve other countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, with the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR). The world's flagship communist state, it was governed by the Communist Party under Marxism–Leninism, through soviet councils. The Soviet economy was also centrally planned. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

The government of the Soviet Union presented a note to its Turkish counterparts which refuted the latter's sovereignty over the Turkish Straits, thus beginning the Turkish Straits crisis.

Thor Heyerdahl KStJ was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in biology with specialization in zoology, botany and geography.

Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is the governing civic body of Mumbai, the capital city of Maharashtra.

The Bombay Municipal Corporation formally takes over the Bombay Electric Supply and Transport (BEST).

Sony Group Corporation, colloquially known as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered at the Sony City building in Minato, Tokyo. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including electronics, imaging and sensing, film and television, music, video games, and others.

Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, the precursor to Sony, sells its first transistor radios in Japan.

The Lincoln Memorial is a U.S. national memorial honoring Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, located on the western end of the National Mall of Washington, D.C. The memorial is built in a neoclassical style in the form of a classical temple. The memorial's architect was Henry Bacon. In 1920, Daniel Chester French designed the large interior Abraham Lincoln statue, which was carved in marble by the Piccirilli brothers. Jules Guérin painted the interior murals, and the epitaph above the statue was written by Royal Cortissoz. Dedicated on May 30, 1922, it is one of several memorials built to honor an American president. It has been a major tourist attraction since its opening, and over the years, has occasionally been used as a symbolic center focused on race relations and civil rights.

The Lincoln Memorial design on the U.S. penny goes into circulation. It replaces the "sheaves of wheat" design, and was minted until 2008.

The Explorers Program is a NASA exploration program that provides flight opportunities for physics, geophysics, heliophysics, and astrophysics investigations from space. Launched in 1958, Explorer 1 was the first spacecraft of the United States to achieve orbit. Over 90 space missions have been launched since. Starting with Explorer 6, it has been operated by NASA, with regular collaboration with a variety of other institutions, including many international partners.

Explorer program: Explorer 6 launches from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire and officially as the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital, Yamoussoukro, is located in the centre of the country, while Abidjan is its largest city and economic centre. It borders Guinea to the northwest, Liberia to the west, Mali to the north, Burkina Faso to the northeast, Ghana to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean's Gulf of Guinea to the south. With 31.5 million inhabitants in 2024, Ivory Coast is the third-most populous country in West Africa after Nigeria and Ghana. Its official language is French, and indigenous languages are also widely used, including Bété, Baoulé, Dyula, Dan, Anyin, and Cebaara Senufo. In total, there are around 78 languages spoken in Ivory Coast. The country has a religiously diverse population, including numerous followers of Islam, Christianity and traditional faiths often entailing animism.

Ivory Coast becomes independent from France.

Frances Kathleen Oldham Kelsey was a Canadian-American pharmacologist and physician who had a 45-year career with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). As a reviewer, she refused to authorize thalidomide for market because she had concerns about the lack of evidence regarding the drug's safety. Her concerns proved to be justified when it was shown that thalidomide caused serious birth defects. Kelsey's career intersected with the passage of laws strengthening FDA oversight of pharmaceuticals. Kelsey was the first woman to receive a PhD in pharmacology and the second woman to receive the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service, awarded to her by John F. Kennedy in 1962.

Canadian-born American pharmacologist Frances Oldham Kelsey awarded the U.S. President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service for her refusal to authorize thalidomide.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

Vietnam War: The U.S. Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnamese attacks on American forces.

Harold Joseph Haley was an American judge. He was a Superior Court judge in Marin County, California. He was taken hostage in his courtroom, along with several others, during the course of a trial, and was killed during the attempted escape of his captors with their hostages.

California judge Harold Haley is taken hostage in his courtroom and killed during an effort to free George Jackson from police custody.

Philippe Petit is a French highwire artist who gained fame for his unauthorized highwire walks between the towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in 1971 and of Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1973, as well as between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City on August 7, 1974.

Philippe Petit performs a high wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center 1,368 feet (417 m) in the air.

The Viking program consisted of a pair of identical American space probes, Viking 1 and Viking 2 both launched in 1975, and landed on Mars in 1976. The mission effort began in 1968 and was managed by the NASA Langley Research Center. Each spacecraft was composed of two main parts: an orbiter spacecraft which photographed the surface of Mars from orbit, and a lander which studied the planet from the surface. The orbiters also served as communication relays for the landers once they touched down.

Viking program: Viking 2 enters orbit around Mars.

James Earl Carter Jr. was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, Carter served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975 and in the Georgia State Senate from 1963 to 1967. He lived longer than any other president in U.S. history, reaching age 100.

U.S. President Jimmy Carter declares a federal emergency at Love Canal due to toxic waste that had been disposed of negligently.

The Washington Star, previously known as the Washington Star-News and the Washington Evening Star, was a daily afternoon newspaper published in Washington, D.C., between 1852 and 1981. The Sunday edition was known as the Sunday Star. The paper was renamed several times before becoming Washington Star by the late 1970s.

The Washington Star ceases all operations after 128 years of publication.

Takao Doi is a Japanese astronaut, engineer and veteran of two NASA Space Shuttle missions.

Takao Doi, Mamoru Mohri and Chiaki Mukai are chosen to be Japan's first astronauts.

Lynne Cox is an American long-distance open water swimmer, writer, and speaker. She is best known for being the first person to swim between the United States and the Soviet Union, across the Bering Strait, a feat which has been recognized for easing Cold War tensions between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Lynne Cox becomes first person to swim from the United States to the Soviet Union, crossing the Bering Strait from Little Diomede Island in Alaska to Big Diomede in the Soviet Union

George Thomas "Mickey" Leland III was an American politician and anti-poverty activist. He served as a congressman from the Texas 18th District and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. He was a Democrat.

U.S. Congressman Mickey Leland (D-TX) and 15 others die in a plane crash in Ethiopia.

The Gulf War was an armed conflict between Iraq and a 42-country coalition led by the United States. The coalition's efforts were in two phases: Operation Desert Shield, which marked the military buildup from August 1990 to January 1991; and Operation Desert Storm, from the bombing campaign against Iraq on 17 January until the American-led liberation of Kuwait on 28 February.

First American soldiers arrive in Saudi Arabia as part of the Gulf War.

The 1998 United States embassy bombings were a series of terrorist attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998. More than 220 people were killed in two nearly simultaneous truck bomb explosions in two East African capital cities, one at the United States embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and the other at the United States embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.

Bombings at United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya kill approximately 212 people.

Chechnya, officially the Chechen Republic, is a republic of Russia. It is situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, between the Caspian Sea and Black Sea. The republic forms a part of the North Caucasian Federal District, and shares land borders with Georgia to its south; with the Russian republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia, and North Ossetia–Alania to its east, north, and west; and with Stavropol Krai to its northwest.

The Chechnya-based Islamic International Brigade invades neighboring Dagestan.

The August 2008 Russo-Georgian War, also known as the Russian invasion of Georgia, was a war waged against Georgia by the Russian Federation and the Russian-backed separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The fighting took place in the strategically important South Caucasus region. It is regarded as the first European war of the 21st century.

The start of the Russo-Georgian War over the territory of South Ossetia.