1936 Spanish generals Francisco Franco and Emilio Mola lead a right-wing uprising, starting the Spanish Civil War.

On the morbid nature of commercial 'art'
 

1925 Adolf Hitler publishes Mein Kampf (original title was the catchy "Four and a Half Years (of Struggle) Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice").

1942 Test flight of German Messerschmitt Me-262 using only its jet engines for the first time.

2012 Kim Jong-un is officially appointed Supreme Leader of North Korea and given the rank of Marshal in the Korean People's Army.

1843 Brunel's steamship the SS Great Britain is launched, becomes first ocean-going craft with an iron hull or screw propeller and the largest vessel afloat in the world.

1918 World War I: German armies retreat across Marne River in France.

1940 Hitler orders Great Britain to surrender.

1941 British PM Winston Churchill launched his "V for Victory" campaign.

1945 USS Cod saves 51 sailors from Dutch sub in only sub-to-sub rescue.

1969 1st Moon Landing: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from Apollo 11, 530 million watch live global broadcast.

1918 U-156 shells Nauset Beach, in Orleans, Massachusetts.

1941 Himmler orders building of Majdanek concentration camp.

1969 Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to step on the Moon at 2:56:15 AM (GMT).

A dangerous fellow, that Feldt
 

A handful of the shells fired by the U-boat’s U-156http://www.attackonorleans.com/uploa...483541.jpg?156, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Richard Feldt, two deck guns struck Nauset Beach, giving the modest town of Orleans the distinction of being the first, and only, spot in the United States to receive fire from the enemy during the entire World War. Meanwhile, HS-1L flying boats and R-9 seaplanes were dispatched from the Chatham Naval Air Station and dive-bombed the enemy raider with payloads of TNT. It was the first time in history that American aviators engaged an enemy vessel in the western Atlantic.Alas Feldt and all hands were lost shortly on 25 SEP 1918 off the north sea probably by a mine. The one warship attributed to U-156 was the USS San Diego, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...npcc_32729.jpg sunk by a mine 19SEP1918 off New York, two days previous to the Orleans Massachusetts attack. She had sunk in 28 minutes with the loss of six lives, the only major warship lost by the United States in World War I.
http://www.attackonorleans.com/uploa...897243.jpg?494http://www.attackonorleans.com/uploa...30921_orig.jpg
There was no lack of response to this attack:yeah: http://www.attackonorleans.com/uploa...1439235953.png

1812 Duke of Wellington defeats French at Battle of Salamanca, Spain.

1942 Warsaw Ghetto Jews (300,000) are sent to Treblinka Extermination Camp.

2011 Norway is the victim of twin terror attacks, the first a bomb blast targeting government buildings in central Oslo, second a massacre at a youth camp on island of Utøya.

1942 Hitler's Directive number 45: order to occupy Stalingrad.

1943 Battle of Kursk, USSR ends in German defeat (6,000 tanks).

1941 Nazis kill entire Jewish population of Grodz, Lithuania.

1943 Operation Gomorrah begins - RAF begins bombing Hamburg (till 3rd August), creating firestorm and killing 42,600.

1944 Soviet forces liberate concentration camp Majdanek.

1945 US destroyer Underhill torpedoed West of Guam.

1950 V-2/WAC Corporal rocket launch; 1st launch from Cape Canaveral.

1797 Horatio Nelson loses more than 300 men and his right arm during the failed conquest attempt of Tenerife (Spain).

1814 English engineer George Stephenson introduces the 1st steam locomotive.

1943 Benito Mussolini dismissed as Italian Premier and arrested on the authority of King Victor Emmanuel III.

1943 1st warship named after an African American launched - USS Leonard Roy Harmon, a Buckley class destroyer.

1944 1st jet fighter used in combat (Messerschmitt 262).

1944 World War II: Operation Spring - one of Canada's bloodiest days, 18,444 casualties and 5,021 killed.

Year of 1581
The northern provinces of the Netherlands declare their independence of Spain at the Act of Abjuration signed at the Hague. The step came because Spain had oppressed these small states with religious persecution.
Authority for the date: Stevenson, William. Story of the Reformation. Richmond: John Knox Press

1944 The first German V-2 rocket hits Great Britain (nicknamed "gasometer").

1945 Declaration of Potsdam: US, Britain and China demand the Japanese surrender during WWII.

1945 US cruiser Indianapolis reaches Tinian with atom bomb.

1953 Fidel Castro begins rebellion, the "26th of July Movement," against Fulgenico Batista's regime in Cuba.

1586 Sir Walter Raleigh brings first tobacco to England from Virginia.

1866 Atlantic telegraph cable successfully laid (1,686 miles long).

1944 1st British jet fighter used in combat (Gloster Meteor).

1944 Soviet Army frees Majdanek concentration camp.

1949 1st jet-propelled airliner (De Havilland Comet) flies.

1916 Germans execute British seaman Captain Charles Fryatt