Events

• 612 BC - Killing of Sinsharishkun, King of Assyrian Empire. Destruction of Nineveh.
• 610 - In Islam, the traditional date of the Laylat al-Qadr, when Muhammed began to receive the Qur'an.
• 955 - Battle of Lechfeld: Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor defeats Magyars, ending 50 years of Magyar invasion of the West.
• 991 - Battle of Maldon: English, led by Bryhtnoth, confront a band of inland-raiding Vikings near Maldon in Essex. The English are defeated and the story is immortalised in a well-known poem.
• 1316 - Second Battle of Athenry
• 1519 - Ferdinand Magellan's five ships set sail from Seville to circumnavigate the globe.
• 1557 - Battle of St. Quentin Spanish victory over the French in the Habsburg-Valois Wars
• 1628 - The Swedish warship Vasa sinks in the Stockholm harbour after only about 20 minutes on her maiden voyage.
• 1675 - The foundation stone of the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London was laid.
• 1680 - Pueblo Revolt begins in New Mexico.
• 1776 - American Revolutionary War: Word of the United States Declaration of Independence reaches London.
• 1792 - French Revolution: Storming of the Tuileries Palace. Louis XVI of France is arrested and taken into custody.
• 1809 - Quito, now the capital of Ecuador, declares independence from Spain.
• 1821 - Missouri is admitted as the 24th U.S. state.
• 1846 - The Smithsonian Institution is chartered by the U.S. Congress after $500,000 was given for such a purpose by scientist James Smithson.
• 1856 - In Last Island, Louisiana, the 1856 Last Island Hurricane kills between 200 and 400 people.
• 1861 - American Civil War: Battle of Wilson's Creek - The war enters Missouri when a band of raw Confederate troops defeat Union forces in the southwestern part of the state.
• 1893 - At Augsburg, Rudolf Diesel's prime model runs on its own power for the first time. Because of this, August 10 is the International Biodiesel Day.
• 1901 - The U.S. Steel Recognition Strike by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers begins.
• 1904 - The Battle of the Yellow Sea between the Russian and Japanese battleship fleets.
• 1905 - Russian and Japanese peace negotiations begin in Portsmouth.
• 1913 - Second Balkan War ends: Delegates from Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece sign the Treaty of Bucharest, ending the war.
• 1920 - World War I: Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI's representatives sign the Treaty of Sèvres which divides up the Ottoman Empire between the Allies.
• 1923 - US: Carlo Tresca, Italian-American anarchist, arrested.
• 1932 - A 5.1-kg (11.2-pound) chondrite-type meteorite breaks into at least seven pieces and lands near the town of Archie in Cass County, Missouri.
• 1934 - US: Anarchist conference at Stelton, N.J., August 10-11
• 1944 - World War II: American forces defeat the last Japanese troops on Guam.
• 1948 - Candid Camera makes its television debut after being on radio for a year as Candid Microphone.
• 1949 - US President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act Amendment, streamlining the defense agencies of the United States government, and replacing the National Military Establishment with the United States Department of Defense.
• 1954 - At Massena, New York, the groundbreaking ceremony for the St. Lawrence Seaway is held.
• 1969 - A day after murdering Sharon Tate and four others, members of Charles Manson's cult kill Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.
• 1971 - Harmon Killebrew becomes the 10th member of the 500 home run club with a home run at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota.
• 1971 - The Society for American Baseball Research is founded in Cooperstown, New York.
• 1977 - In Yonkers, New York, 24-year-old postal employee David Berkowitz ("Son of Sam") is arrested for a series of killings in the New York City area over a year's period.
• 1981 - The head of John Walsh's son Adam is found in Hollywood, Florida. This event will later prompt the U.S. Congress to pass the Missing Children's Act to give the Federal Bureau of Investigation greater authority to track the disappearance of children, as well as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. It also makes Walsh a national spokesman against crime and eventually leads to the establishment of America's Most Wanted.
• 1988 - Japanese American Internment: US President Ronald Reagan signs the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, providing $20,000 payments to Japanese-Americans who were either interned or relocated by in the United States during World War II.
• 1990 - The Magellan space probe reaches Venus.
• 1990 - The Massacre of more than 127 Muslims in the North East Sri Lanka by the paramilitaries.
• 1995 - Oklahoma City bombing: Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols are indicted for the bombing. Michael Fortier pleads guilty in a plea-bargain agreement for his testimony.
• 1995 - Los Angeles Dodgers are forced to forfeit against the St. Louis Cardinals after fans throw souvenir baseballs on to the field en masse.
• 1998 - The Royal Proclamation of HRH Prince Al-Muhtadee Billah as the Crown Prince of Brunei.
• 2000 - World Population reaches 6 billion according to www.ibiblio.org world population tracker.
• 2001 - The Hudson River Way is opened to traffic.
• 2003 - The highest temperature ever is recorded in the UK, 38.5°C (101.3°F), occurs in Kent (External Link). It is the first time the UK has recorded a temperature over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
• 2003 - Yuri Ivanovich Malenchenko becomes the first person to marry in space.
• 2004 - Kutt Calhoun releases debut album B.L.E.V.E. from Strange Music featuring appearances from label mates Tech N9ne, Skatterman & Snug Brim and Big Krizz Kaliko
• 2005 - Lee Seung Seop dies from exhaustion in South Korea after playing the computer game StarCraft continuously for 49 hours.
• 2006 - Scotland Yard disrupts major terrorist plot to destroy aircraft travelling from the United Kingdom to the United States.

Births