1582 - Battle of Yamazaki: Toyotomi Hideyoshi defeats Akechi Mitsuhide.
1613 - The first English expedition from Massachusetts against Acadia led by Samuel Argall.
1644 - English Civil War: the Battle of Marston Moor.
1698 - Thomas Savery patents the first steam engine
1679 - Europeans first visit Minnesota and see headwaters of Mississippi in an expedition led by Daniel Greysolon de Du Luth.
1776 - The Continental Congress adopts a resolution severing ties with Great Britain although the wording of the formal Declaration of Independence is not approved until July 4.
1777 - Vermont becomes the first American territory to abolish slavery.
1808 - Simon Fraser reaches the Pacific Ocean near New Westminster.
1823 - Bahia Independence Day: the end of Portuguese rule in Brazil, with the final defeat of the Portuguese crown loyalists in the province of Bahia.
1839 - Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, 53 rebelling African slaves led by Joseph Cinque take over the slave ship Amistad.
1850 - The self-contained gas mask is patented by Benjamin J. Lane.
1853 - The Russian Army invades Turkey, beginning the Crimean War.
1863 - American Civil War: second day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
1870 - Jules Joseph d'Anethan is elected the tenth Prime Minister of Belgium.
1871 - Victor Emmanuel II of Italy enters Rome after its conquest from the Papal States.
1881 - Charles J. Guiteau shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President James Garfield, who eventually dies from infection on September 19.
1890 - The U.S. Congress passes the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
1897 - Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi obtains patent for radio in London.
1900 - First zeppelin flight takes place on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.
1934 - The Night of the Long Knives ends with the death of Ernst Röhm.
1937 - Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan are last heard from over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first equatorial round-the-world flight.
1940 - Indian independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose is arrested and detained in Calcutta.
1950 - Henri Queuille is elected the seventh Prime Minister of the Fourth French Republic.
1962 - The first Wal-Mart store opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas.
1964 - President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 meant to prohibit segregation in public places.
1966 - The French military explodes a nuclear test bomb codenamed Aldébaran in Mururoa, their first nuclear test in the Pacific.
1976 - North and South Vietnam, divided since 1954, reunite to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
1979 - The first U.S. coin to honor a woman, the Susan B. Anthony dollar, is introduced.
1985 - Andrei Gromyko is appointed the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union.
1987 - Nilde Iotti is named as the first female President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.
1990 - A stampede inside a pedestrian tunnel leads to the deaths of 1,426 pilgrims in Mecca during hajj.
2000 - Vicente Fox Quesada is elected the first President of México from an opposition party, the Partido Acción Nacional after more than 70 years of continuous rule by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional.
2002 - Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly solo around the world nonstop in a balloon.
2003 - Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy, insults German MP Martin Schulz by calling him a "kapo" during a session of the European Parliament.
2004 - ASEAN Regional Forum accepts Pakistan as its 24th member.¨
2008 - Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other FARC hostages are rescued by the Colombian armed forces.
