• 55 BC - Julius Caesar invades Britain.
• 1071 - Battle of Manzikert: The Seljuk Turks defeat the Byzantine Army at Manzikert.
• 1278 - Ladislaus IV of Hungary and Rudolph I of Germany defeat Premysl Ottokar II of Bohemia in the Battle of Marchfield near Dürnkrut in Moravia.
• 1303 - Ala ud din Khilji won Chittor.
• 1346 - Hundred Years' War: The military supremacy of the English longbow over the French combination of crossbow and armoured knights is established at the Battle of Crécy.
• 1466 - A conjure against Piero di Cosimo de' Medici in Florence, led by Luca Pitti, is discovered.
• 1498 - Michelangelo commissioned to carve the Pietà.
• 1748 - The first Lutheran denomination in North America, the Pennsylvania Ministerium, is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• 1768 - HM Bark Endeavour expedition under Captain James Cook sets sail from England.
• 1778 - The first ascent of Triglav, the highest mountain of Slovenia.
• 1789 - Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen approved by Constituent Assembly at Palace of Versailles.
• 1818 - The first Illinois Constitution was signed in Kaskaskia.
• 1839 - The ship Amistad is captured off Long Island.
• 1858 - First news dispatch by telegraph.
• 1862 - American Civil War: The Second Battle of Bull Run begins.
• 1883 - Eruption of Mount Krakatoa.
• 1914 - World War I: Germans defeat Russians in Battle of Tannenberg, a decisive engagement which resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russian 2nd Army.
• 1914 - World War I: The British Expeditionary Force briefly checks the German advance at Le Cateau.
• 1914 - World War I: The German colony of Togoland is invaded by French and British forces, who take it after 5 days.
• 1920 - 19th amendment to U.S. Constitution gives women the right to vote.
• 1922 - Turkish Army started the last attack on Greeks in the Turkish War of Independence.
• 1924 - (August 13 Old Style) Catastrophe of Smyrna, known as the Asia Minor Catastrophe to Greeks, occurs. The Ottoman army expels Greeks and other non-Turks from Asia Minor in systematic ethnic cleansing. One of the first cases of ethic cleansing in the 20th Century.
• 1939 - The first Major League Baseball game is telecast, a double-header between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field, in Brooklyn, New York.
• 1940 - Chad is the first French colony to join the Allies under the administration of Félix Éboué, France's first black colonial governor.
• 1942 - Holocaust in Chortkiv, western Ukraine: At 2.30 am the German Schutzpolizei starts driving Jews out of houses, splits in groups of 120, packs them in freight cars and deports 2000 Jews to Belzec death camp. 500 of sick and children murdered on the spot.
• 1944 - World War II: Charles de Gaulle enters Paris.
• 1957 - The USSR announces the successful test of an ICBM - a "super long distance intercontinental multistage ballistic rocket ... a few days ago," according to the Soviet news agency, TASS.
• 1968 - The Democratic National Convention opens in Chicago, Illinois.
• 1972 - Games of the XX Olympiad open in Munich, Germany.
• 1976 - Raymond Barre becomes Prime Minister of France.
• 1977 - Charter of the French Language is adopted by the National Assembly of Quebec
• 1978 - Papal conclave, 1978 (August): Pope John Paul I is elevated to the Papacy.
• 1978 - Sigmund Jähn becomes first German cosmonaut on board of the Soyuz 31 spacecraft.
• 1980 - John Birges plants a bomb at Harvey's Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada.
• 1983 - Flooding destroys most of the old town of Bilbao, Spain.
• 1987 - President Ronald Wilson Reagan proclaims September 11, 1987 as 9-1-1 Emergency Number Day.
• 1988 - Merhan Karimi Nasseri arrives at Charles de Gaulle International Airport.
• 1996 - Bill Clinton signs welfare reform into law, representing major shift in US welfare policy
• 1997 - Beni-Ali massacre in Algeria; 60-100 people killed.
• 1999 - Michael Johnson breaks the 400 metres world record with a time of 43.18 seconds.
• 2002 - Earth Summit 2002 begins in Johannesburg, South Africa.
• 2003 - Columbia Accident Investigation Board releases its final reports on Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

Births