1814 British forces capture Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812 and destroy many landmarks.

1949 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) goes into effect.

1968 France becomes the world's fifth thermonuclear power with a detonation on Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific.

1968 Northern Ireland's first civil rights march held; many more marches would be held over the following year and Loyalists organized counter-demonstrations to get the marches banned.

1991 Ukraine declares independence from USSR

1875 Captain Matthew Webb makes the first observed and unassisted swim across the English Channel in 21 hours and 45 minutes.

1892 British naval officer David Beatty is promoted to lieutenant.

1943 Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten appointed Supreme Allied Commander in South East Asia.

1944 France 2nd Tank division under General Leclerc reaches Notre Dame in Paris.

1944 German commander Dietrich von Choltitz surrenders Paris to the Free French forces of Philippe Leclerc, disobeying Adolf Hitler's orders to destroy the city. President of the Provisional Government of the French Republic Charles de Gaulle gives a famous speech at the Hôtel de Ville.

1346 Battle of Crécy: Edward III's English longbows defeat Philip VI's army south of Calais in northern France, cannons are used for the first time in battle.

1922 Japanese cruiser Niitaka driven onto rocks in storm at Kamchatka, 284 killed.

1944 French General Leclerc's 2nd Armored Division and Charles de Gaulle parade down the Champs Elysees in Paris after the liberation of the city from Nazi occupation.

1945 Japanese diplomats board USS Missouri to receive instructions on Japan's surrender at the end of WWII

1959 British Motor Corporation introduces the Morris Mini-Minor, designed by Alec Issigonis. It is only 10 feet long yet seats four passengers.

1985 French government denies knowledge of bombing of the Greenpeace flagship the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland New Zealand.

1939 Erich Warsitz in a Heinkel He-178 makes the 1st manned jet-propelled flight, with a turbo engine designed by Hans von Ohain.

1941 WWII: British Royal Navy captures German U-boat U-570 on its maiden voyage; it is re-flagged as HMS Graph, and used by the British for nearly 2 years.

1945 US troops land in Japan after Japanese surrender.

1972 Operation Lion's Den: US Navy bombards Haiphong Harbor, North Vietnam from the sea, firing over 700 rounds in 33 minutes.

1979 Lord Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, cousin of Queen Elizabeth II and last Viceroy of India, is killed along with three companions, two of them children, by the IRA when his boat is blown up near Sligo, Ireland.

2000 The 540-meter (1,772 ft) tall Ostankino Tower in Moscow catches fire, killing three people.

2008 US Senator Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to be nominated by a major political party for President of the United States, by the Democratic Party.

1833 Britain's Slavery Abolition Act gains royal assent.

1952 Germany and Israel reach an accord about recovery payments.

1963 Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom civil rights march at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

1968 Northern Irish MP Gerry Fitt tables a House of Commons motion criticising the Royal Ulster Constabulary at Dungannon, "citizens of Northern Ireland should be allowed the same rights of peaceful demonstration as those in other parts of the United Kingdom"

1981 John Hinckley pleads innocent to attempt to assassinate US President Ronald Reagan.

1986 US Navy officer Jerry A Whitworth sentenced to 365 years for spying.

1782 British man o'war HMS Royal George capsizes at Spithead, off of Hampshire, England; more than 800 crew and visitors killed.

1842 United Kingdom and China sign the Treaty of Nanking, ending the First Opium War.

1943 Danish Navy scuttles its warships so as not to be taken by Germany.

1945 British liberate Hong Kong from Japan.

1949 Soviet Union secretly performs its first successful nuclear weapons test, at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan.

1962 US U-2 flight sees SAM launch pads in Cuba.

1967 Final TV episode of "The Fugitive" starring David Janssen is watched by 78 million people.

1990 Saddam Hussein declares America can't beat Iraq.

1994 British band Oasis release their debut album "Definitely Maybe", becomes fastest-selling album ever in UK

1146 European leaders outlaw the crossbow, intending to end war for all time.

1932 Hermann Goering elected President of the German Reichstag.

1939 Isoroku Yamamoto appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Imperial Navy combined fleet.

1941 Winston Churchill approves a nuclear program (Tube Alloys), first national leader to do so.

1945 US General Douglas MacArthur lands in Japan.

1854 A major outbreak of cholera occurs in Soho, London; physician John Snow calls it "the most terrible outbreak of cholera which ever occurred in this kingdom"

1888 The body of Jack the Ripper's first victim, Mary Ann Nichols, is found in Whitechapel in London's East End.

1939 Staged "Polish" assault on radio station in Gleiwitz.

1940 RAF Fighter Command loses 39 aircraft against Luftwaffe's 41

1942 U-boats sink and damage 131 allied ships this month (639,946 tons)

1994 The Provisional Irish Republican Army (Sinn Féin) declares a ceasefire in Northern Ireland.

1997 Diana, Princess of Wales, dies in a car crash in a road tunnel in Paris.

1752 Pennsylvania's new State House bell (known today as the Liberty Bell) arrives in Philadelphia from Whitechapel Foundry in London, England.

1914 The last passenger pigeon, a female named Martha, dies in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio.

1915 The German ambassador to the US pledges again that German submarines will no longer sink liners without warning and providing safety of passengers and crew following the sinking of the British liner "Arabic"

1939 Adolf Hitler orders extermination of mentally ill through the "Aktion T4 Euthanasia Program," arguing that wartime "was the best time for the elimination of the incurably ill"

1939 The Wound Badge for Wehrmacht, SS, Kriegsmarine, and Luftwaffe soldiers is instituted. The final version of the Iron Cross was also instituted on this date.

1939 World War II starts when Germany invades Poland by attacking the Free City of Danzig.

1941 Jews living in Germany are required to wear a yellow Star of David.

1944 King George VI promotes Montgomery to field marshal.

1950 13 North Korean divisions open assault on UN lines.

1951 Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion orders establishment of Israeli secret service Mossad.

1666 Great Fire of London begins at 2am in Pudding Lane, 80% of London is destroyed.

1792 September Massacres of the French Revolution: In Paris rampaging mobs slaughter three Roman Catholic bishops, more than two hundred priests, and prisoners believed to be royalist sympathizers.

1807 The Royal Navy bombards Copenhagen with firebombs and phosphorus rockets to prevent Denmark from surrendering its fleet to Napoleon.

1942 German troops enter Stalingrad.

1944 Future US President George H. W. Bush bails from a burning plane during a mission in the Pacific.

1945 V-J Day, formal surrender of Japan signed aboard the USS Missouri, marks the end of World War II

1958 U.S. Air Force C-130A-II is shot down by fighters over Yerevan, Armenia when it strays into Soviet airspace while conducting a sigint mission. All crew lost.

2015 US President Barack Obama becomes the first president to visit the Arctic Circle at Kotzebue, Alaska.

1918 5 soldiers hanged for alleged participation in Houston riot (or Camp Logan riot); in all 19 mutineers were executed.

1939 German submarine U-30, commanded by Oberleutnant Fritz-Julius Lemp, sinks British passenger ship SS Athenia; 117 people die, among them 28 Americans.

1939 World War II: Britain declares war on Germany after the invasion of Poland; France follows six hours later, quickly joined by Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada.

1940 Adolf Hitler orders an invasion of Great Britain for Sept 21 (Operation Seelöwe/Sealion).

1944 Holocaust diarist Anne Frank is sent to Auschwitz concentration camp.

1884 Britain ends its policy of penal transportation to New South Wales in Australia.

1886 Apache Chief Geronimo surrenders ending last major US-Indian war.

1914 France, Russia, and Britain agree in a Pact of London that none will make a separate peace.

1940 Nazi collaborator Anton Mussert puts the fate of Netherlands in Hitler's hands.

1941 US destroyer Greer fires on German submarine U-652

1965 Rock group The Who's van is vandalized with $10,000 worth of equipment stolen; group was inside the Battersea Dogs Home, buying a guard dog at the time.

1970 An Irish Republican Army (IRA) member, Michael Kane (35), is killed in the premature explosion of the bomb he was planting at an electricity transformer in Belfast.

1666 Great Fire of London ends, leaving 13,200 houses destroyed and eight dead.

1800 Malta surrenders to British after they blockade French troops.

1914 US President Woodrow Wilson orders US Navy to make its wireless stations accessible for any transatlantic communications - even to German diplomats sending coded messages; leads to interception of the Zimmermann telegram, helping bring the US into the war.

1939 FDR declares US neutrality at start of WW II in Europe.

1939 New Zealand Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage declares New Zealand's support for Britain in the war with Germany; Savage famously told the nation 'where she goes, we go. Where she stands, we stand'

1942 American sailor Charles J. French (22) swims for over six hours in waters near Guadalcanal while towing a life raft with fifteen survivors from his US Navy ship which was sunk by Japanese gunfire.

1946 Amon Göth, former head of Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, found guilty of imprisonment, torture, and extermination of individuals and groups of people, the first conviction of homicide at a war crimes court.

1948 In France, Robert Schuman becomes President of the Council while being Foreign minister, As such, he is the negotiator of the major treaties of the end of World War II.

1979 Earl of Mountbatten's Ceremonial Funeral held in Westminster Abbey, London.

2018 UK Prime Minister Theresa May confirms in parliament two Russian military intelligence officers undertook novichok nerve agent attack, prompts international condemnation.

1886 Queen Victoria establishes Distinguished Service Order (DSO)

1898 Lord Kitchener destroys Mahdi's tomb in Omdurman.

1901 US President William McKinley is shot and assassinated by anarchist Leon Czolgosz, while visiting the Pan-American Exposition in New York.

1989 Police computer accuses 41,000 Parisians of murder/prostitution.

1997 Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales held at Westminster Abbey in London.