This Day In History （请勿跟贴，谢谢！）

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August 12


1877:
Phonograph invented by Thomas Alva Edison.
On this day in 1877, American inventor Thomas Alva Edison made perhaps his most original discovery, the phonograph, and his early recordings were indentations embossed into a sheet of tinfoil by a vibrating stylus.

1955:
German novelist and Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann died near Zürich, Switzerland.

1944:
Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr.—U.S. naval pilot, son of Joseph P. Kennedy, and brother of President John F. Kennedy—died in a plane crash while flying on a secret mission during World War II.

1898:
The Republic of Hawaii was annexed as part of the United States.

1887:
Austrian theoretical physicist Erwin Schr鰀inger, who shared the 1933 Nobel Prize for Physics for his contributions to the wave theory of matter and to other fundamentals of quantum mechanics, was born in Vienna.

1851:
Isaac Merrit Singer patented his sewing machine and formed I.M. Singer & Company to market the product.

1676:
Metacom (also called King Philip), intertribal chief of the Wampanoag Indians, was killed, ending the conflict between Indians and English settlers known as King Philip's War.

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August 13


1521:
Fall of the Aztec empire.
On this day in 1521, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, displaying great leadership and determination, captured Tenochtitlán (now Mexico City), thereby ending the Aztec empire and winning Mexico for the crown of Spain.

2004:
The Games of the XXVIII Olympiad opened in Athens, which had hosted the first modern Summer Games in 1896.

1995:
New York Yankees baseball player Mickey Mantle died in Dallas, Texas.

1919:
Famed racehorse Man o' War suffered the only defeat of his career.

1898:
The U.S. Army took control of the Philippine port of Manila during the Spanish-American War.

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August 14


1880:
Cologne Cathedral completed.
Originally started in 1248, construction of the cathedral (K鰈ner Dom) in Cologne, Germany—the largest Gothic church in northern Europe and the city's major landmark—was finally completed on this day in 1880.

1959:
American basketball player Magic Johnson, who led the National Basketball Association (NBA) Los Angeles Lakers to five championships, was born in Lansing, Michigan.

1947:
Pakistan became a sovereign state, bringing an end to British rule there.

1941:
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the Atlantic Charter, a joint declaration that stated, among other points, that they desired no territorial changes without the free assent of the peoples concerned.

1935:
The U.S. Congress enacted the Social Security Act, establishing a permanent national old-age pension system through employer and employee contributions.

1917:
China declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary during World War I.

1900:
An international force seized Beijing to crush the Boxer Rebellion.

1457:
The first book printed in Europe with a colophon bearing the name of the printer was completed in Mainz, Germany.

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August 15


1914:
Panama Canal opened to traffic.
After some 10 years of work, the Panama Canal was opened to ships on this day in 1914 under the control of the United States, which continued to operate the canal until December 31, 1999, when it passed to Panama.

1917：
Bahrain proclaimed independence from Great Britain.

1960:
The Republic of the Congo gained independence from France.

1948:
Syngman Rhee announced the establishment of the Republic of Korea (South Korea).
1935:
American entertainers Will Rogers and Wiley Post were killed in a plane crash near Point Barrow, Alaska.

1769:
Napoleon, future emperor of France, was born on the island of Corsica.

1534:
St. Ignatius of Loyola led companions, who would become cofounders of the Jesuit order, to Montmartre, Paris, where the first Jesuits took their vows.

1057:
Macbeth, king of Scots, was killed in battle by Malcolm, eldest son of Duncan I.

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August 16


1996:
Leonel Fernández Reyna inaugurated as president of the Dominican Republic.
The youngest person ever elected president of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernández Reyna was sworn in this day in 1996 and soon instituted measures to end corruption and to improve the country's economy.

1960:
The island of Cyprus became an independent republic.

1948:
American baseball legend Babe Ruth died at age 53.

1913:
Menachem Begin—prime minister of Israel (1977–83) who was the corecipient, with Egyptian President Anwar el-Sādāt, of the 1978 Nobel Prize for Peace—was born in Russia.

1819:
A meeting of radicals held on St. Peter's Fields in Manchester, England, was dispersed with violence, an event that became known as the Peterloo Massacre.

1780:
An American force was beaten by British troops under Lord Cornwallis in the Battle of Camden during the American Revolution.

963:
Nicephorus II Phocas was crowned emperor of the Byzantine Empire in Hagia Sophia by the patriarch Polyeuctus.

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August 17


1945:
Indonesia's declaration of independence.
On this day in 1945, Sukarno declared Indonesia's independence from The Netherlands, and, after the Dutch transferred sovereignty four years later, he served as the country's first president (1949–67).

1978:
Ben L. Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman completed the first transatlantic balloon flight, in Double Eagle II.

1969:
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, a rock festival near Bethel, New York, that attracted 450,000 fans, ended.

1896:
George Washington Carmack unearthed gold in Bonanza Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River in the Yukon Territory, Canada, setting off a gold rush into the Klondike valley.

1887:
Marcus Garvey—a charismatic black leader who helped found the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which sought, among other things, to build in Africa a black-governed nation—was born in Jamaica.

1590:
John White returned to Roanoke Island, Virginia, from England and found no trace of the colony (now called the Lost Colony) that he had left there three years earlier.

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August 18


1227:
Death of Genghis Khan.
Genghis Khan—a warrior and ruler of genius who, starting from obscure and insignificant beginnings, brought all the nomadic tribes of Mongolia into a rigidly disciplined military state—died this day in 1227.

1900:
Indian political leader Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, one of the world's leading women in public life in the 20th century, was born in Allahabad.

1896:
According to lore, more than 200 outlaws from regional gangs gathered at Brown's Hole in the American West, where Butch Cassidy proposed to organize a Train Robbers' Syndicate, which became familiarly known as the Wild Bunch.

1786:
The city of Reykjavík was designated the administrative capital of Iceland.

1572:
Henry, prince of Béarn (later Henry IV of France), married Margaret of Valois of the French royal house.

1477:
Mary of Burgundy married Archduke Maximilian, son of the Habsburg emperor Ferdinand III.

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August 19


1991:
Attempted coup against Gorbachev.
On this day in 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1985–91) and president of the Soviet Union (1990–91), was briefly ousted in a coup by communist hard-liners.

1960:
Francis Gary Powers was sentenced to 10 years' confinement by the Soviet Union for espionage following the U-2 Affair, but he was later released (1962) in exchange for the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.

1945:
A commando force formed by Vo Nguyen Giap, under Vietnamese nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh, entered the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.

1847:
U.S. forces under Major General Winfield Scott began the Battle of Contreras, opening the final campaign of the Mexican War.

1812:
The USS Constitution, commanded by Captain Isaac Hull, won a brilliant victory over the British frigate Guerrière in the War of 1812.

1458:
Enea Silvio Piccolomini was elected pope as Pius II, following the death of Calixtus III.

1274:
Edward I was crowned king of England at Westminster.

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August 20


1975:
Viking 1 launched.
The robotic U.S. spacecraft Viking 1, built to explore the surface of Mars, was launched this day in 1975 and nearly one year later landed on Chryse Planitia, a flat lowland region in the northern hemisphere of the planet.

1968:
The Warsaw Pact nations (except Romania and Albania), led by the Soviet Union, invaded Czechoslovakia to put an end to the Prague Spring.

1960:
Senegal seceded from the Mali Federation, declaring its full independence.

1940:
Leon Trotsky was assassinated by a Stalinist agent in Mexico.

1914:
The German army captured Brussels during the initial German invasion of World War I.

1889:
Labour activists closed the entire Port of London in the London Dock Strike.

1865:
Austria and Prussia signed the Convention of Gastein, an agreement that temporarily postponed the final struggle between them for hegemony over Germany.
1833:
Benjamin Harrison, a moderate Republican who became the 23rd president of the United States (1889–93) despite losing the popular vote by more than 95,000 to Democrat Grover Cleveland, was born in North Bend, Ohio.

1794:
U.S. General “Mad” Anthony Wayne defeated the Northwest Indian Confederation in the Battle of Fallen Timbers.

1741:
Danish explorer Vitus Bering, who was working for Russia, encountered Alaska.

1619:
It is thought that slaves were first brought to the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia.

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August 21


1808:
French defeated at the Battle of Vimeiro.
On this day in 1808, British General Arthur Wellesley used his “thin red line” of infantry to defeat French General Andoche Junot's forces at the Battle of Vimeiro, leading to British control of Portugal.

1991:
Latvia declared its independence from the Soviet Union.

1959:
Hawaii became the 50th U.S. state.

1858:
The famous debates in Illinois between Abraham Lincoln, Republican Party nominee for the U.S. Senate, and incumbent Senator Stephen A. Douglas of the Democratic Party began.

1831:
Nat Turner began an unsuccessful slave rebellion in the American South that eventually killed 60 people before being stopped by a 3,000-man militia.

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August 22


1485:
Wars of the Roses ended in England.
Henry Tudor (the future Henry VII) defeated the Yorkist king Richard III in the Battle of Bosworth Field on this day in 1485, effectively ending the Wars of the Roses and establishing the Tudor dynasty on the English throne.

2004:
The Scream (1893), a painting by Edvard Munch, was stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway.

1978:
Rebel Sandinistas occupied the National Palace in Managua, Nicaragua, holding more than 1,000 hostages for two days, in opposition to the Somoza government.

1973:
U.S. President Richard M. Nixon named Henry Kissinger secretary of state.

1862:
French composer Claude Debussy, a seminal force in the music of the 20th century, was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

1851:
The first America's Cup was won by the American yacht America in a race around the Isle of Wight.

1642:
The English Civil Wars, fought between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians, began when King Charles I formally raised the royal standard at Nottingham.

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August 23


1609:
Telescope presented by Galileo.
Italian astronomer and mathematician Galileo greatly improved the telescope, producing increasingly powerful instruments, and on this day in 1609 presented an eight-powered telescope to the Venetian Senate.

1939:
Germany and the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact dividing eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence.

1927:
Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed for murder in Massachusetts, despite a mishandled trial and the widespread belief that they were innocent.

1926:
“The Great Lover,” motion-picture actor Rudolph Valentino, died suddenly at age 31, prompting widespread public grief from his fans.

1849:
English poet, critic, and editor William Ernest Henley, who introduced the early work of many of the great English writers of the 1890s in his journals, was born in Gloucester.

1514:
The Ottomans won a decisive victory over the Ṣafavids of Iran at the Battle of Chāldirān.

1305:
Scottish national hero and resistance leader Sir William Wallace was executed in London.

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August 24


79:
Eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
Mount Vesuvius in Italy erupted on this day in AD 79, destroying the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and the excavations of these sites in the mid-18th century precipitated the modern science of archaeology.

1949:
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) entered into force, following the signing of its treaty four months earlier.

1821:
The Treaty of Córdoba was signed, giving Mexico its independence from Spain.

1803:
Irish revolutionary James Napper Tandy died in France.

1572:
The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, plotted by Catherine de Médicis against the French Huguenots, was carried out by Roman Catholic nobles and other citizens.

410:
Alaric, chief of the Visigoths, led an army into Rome, an event that symbolizes the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

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August 25


1944:
Paris liberated.
On this day in 1944, some two months after the Allied invasion of Normandy, Paris was liberated from German occupiers as the Free French 2nd Armoured Division under General Jacques-Philippe Leclerc entered the city.

1945:
John Birch, an American Baptist missionary and U.S. Army intelligence officer, was killed by Chinese communists, which later inspired the foundation of the John Birch Society—a private organization that considered Birch to be the first hero of the Cold War.

1919:
George C. Wallace—a four-time governor of Alabama (1962–66, 1970–78, 1982–86) who led the American South in a fight, eventually abandoned, against federal orders to end racial segregation—was born in Clio, Alabama.

1900:
German Classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture Friedrich Nietzsche died.

1530:
Ivan IV (the Terrible), grand prince of Moscow and first tsar of Russia, was born.

325:
The Council of Nicaea—the first ecumenical council of the Christian church—brought to an end the controversy of Arianism, concluding that God the Father was of equal status with God the Son.

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August 26


1429:
Joan of Arc's arrival in the outskirts of Paris.
In preparation for an attack on Paris, part of Charles VII's campaign to drive the English from French soil, Joan of Arc and her soldiers reached the city's outskirts on this day in 1429, but the assault ultimately failed.

1978:
Cardinal Albino Luciani was elected pope as John Paul I, but he died of a heart attack 33 days later.

1975:
Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I—who steered his country into the mainstream after World War II, overseeing its entrance into the League of Nations and the United Nations—died, possibly assassinated.

1936:
The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty established Egypt as a sovereign state after 50 years of British occupation.

1920:
The Nineteenth Amendment became part of the Constitution of the United States, giving women the right to vote.

1914:
During World War I the Battle of Tannenberg, fought between the Germans and the Russians, began.

1883:
The volcano Krakatoa in Indonesia began to erupt, and 36,000 people were killed by the eruption and the resulting tsunami.

1629:
English Puritan stockholders of the Massachusetts Bay Company pledged to emigrate to New England under the terms of the Cambridge Agreement.

1346:
During the Hundred Years' War the English, led by Edward III, defeated the French at the Battle of Crécy.

1071:
Seljuq Turk forces under Alp-Arslan vanquished the Byzantine army and captured the emperor Romanus IV Diogenes at the Battle of Manzikert.

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August 27


1576:
The death of Titian.
Titian, the greatest Italian Renaissance painter of the Venetian school, who was once described as “the sun amidst small stars not only among the Italians but all the painters of the world,” died this day in 1576.

1979:
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, was assassinated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

1939:
German Ernst Heinrich Heinkel's He 178, a turbojet-powered aircraft, made the first jet flight.

1928:
The Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed between France and the United States in a series of peacekeeping efforts after World War I.
1859: Edwin Laurentine Drake struck oil while drilling in Titusville, Pennsylvania, becoming the first driller of a productive oil well in the United States.

1776:
During the American Revolution, British forces under General William Howe defeated George Washington and the American Continental Army in the Battle of Long Island.

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August 28


1963:
Civil rights march on Washington.
On this day in 1963, some 200,000 people marched on Washington, D.C., an event that became a high point of the civil rights movement, especially remembered for the famous “I Have a Dream” speech of Martin Luther King, Jr.

1993:
The spacecraft Galileo took pictures of the asteroid Ida.

1952:
Writer and teacher Rita Dove, poet laureate of the United States (1993–95) and winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Thomas and Beulah (1986), was born in Akron, Ohio.

1914:
The first major engagement of the British and German navies during World War I occurred at the Battle of Helgoland Bight.

1850:
Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin was performed for the first time, at Weimar, Germany.

1793:
The Siege of Toulon in the French Revolutionary Wars began.

476:
The fall of the Western Roman Empire was completed as Emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed by the German warrior Odoacer.

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August 29


2005:
New Orleans hit by Hurricane Katrina.
On this day in 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the U.S. Gulf Coast and devastated the area, especially New Orleans, which experienced catastrophic flooding after its levees were breached the following day.

1877:
Brigham Young, American religious leader and second president of the Mormon church, died in Salt Lake City, Utah.

1862:
Union Major General John Pope opened the Second Battle of Bull Run (also called Second Manassas) with heavy but futile attacks on Confederate General Stonewall Jackson during the American Civil War.

1842:
China signed the Treaty of Nanjing, providing for the cession of Hong Kong to Great Britain, the opening of five treaty ports, the rights of British nationals accused of criminal acts in China to be tried in British courts, and a limitation on duties on imports and exports.

1756:
The Seven Years' War—a conflict that arose from the Austrian Habsburgs' attempt to win back Silesia, which had been taken from them by Frederick II of Prussia during the War of the Austrian Succession—began.

70:
Jerusalem fell to Roman forces—which included Josephus, a former general in the Jewish army who had defected to Rome—marking the collapse of the Jewish state.

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August 30


1983:
Historic spaceflight by Guion S. Bluford, Jr..
U.S. astronaut Guion S. Bluford, Jr., became on this day in 1983 the first African American to travel into space, serving as a mission specialist aboard the shuttle orbiter Challenger, and later flew on three other missions.

1862:
During the American Civil War, the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas) ended with a decisive Confederate victory.

1813:
During the Creek War, some 250 frontiersmen were killed by the Red Sticks, a Native American faction, in what became known as the Fort Mims Massacre, and in retaliation a militia led by General Andrew Jackson later destroyed two Indian villages.

1800:
Gabriel, an African American bondsman, assembled an army of about 1,000 slaves outside Richmond, Virginia, in the first major slave rebellion in U.S. history.
1637: Anne Hutchinson was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for her liberal viewpoints and criticism of the Puritans.

1282:
The Aragonese landed at Trapani in support of the Sicilian revolt against Charles I, Angevin king of Naples-Sicily, which had begun with the Sicilian Vespers, a massacre of the French.

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August 31


1864:
Confederates evacuated from Atlanta.
During the American Civil War, the Confederate evacuation of Atlanta began this day in 1864, shortly before Union troops led by William Tecumseh Sherman occupied the city, providing a much-needed victory for the North.

1991:
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan declared independence from the Soviet Union.

1980:
Polish labour activist Lech Wałęsa and Mieczysław Jagielski, Poland's first deputy premier, signed an agreement that conceded to workers the right to organize freely and independently.

1966:
The Harrier “jump-jet” fighter-bomber made its first flight.

1895:
The first American professional gridiron football game was played in the township of Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

1850:
King Kamehameha III officially declared Honolulu a city and the capital of his kingdom.

1751:
Robert Clive of Britain seized Arcot, India, and then withstood a 53-day siege that began a few weeks later.