1. 715 - Pope Gregory II is elected.

2. 1051 - Henry I of France marries Anne of Kiev.

3. 1314 - Visby, on the Swedish island of Gotland, is almost completely destroyed by fire.

4. 1364 - Charles V of France and Jeanne de Bourbon are crowned French king and queen respectively.

5. 1445 - John II of Castile defeats the Infantes of Aragon at the First Battle of Olmedo.

6. 1499 - Catherine of Aragon is married by proxy to Arthur Tudor.

7. 1535 - Jacques Cartier sets sail on his third voyage to North America.

8. 1536 - Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England's King Henry VIII, is beheaded after being convicted of adultery.

9. 1542 - The Prome Kingdom falls to the Taungoo Dynasty in present - day Burma.

10. 1568 - Elizabeth I of England orders the arrest of Mary, Queen of Scots.

11. 1643 - Thirty Years' War: French forces defeat Spain in the Battle of Rocroi.

12. 1643 - Delegates from four New England colonies meet in Boston to form a confederation.

13. 1649 - An act of parliament declares England a commonwealth in a law passed by the Long Parliament, making England a republic.

14. 1649 - The Qing army captured Guangzhou, and the Shaowu regime of the Southern Ming Dynasty perished.

15. 1655 - The invasion of Jamaica begins during the Anglo - Spanish War.

16. 1743 - Jean - Pierre Christin develops the centigrade temperature scale, similar to the Celsius scale.

17. 1749 - George II of Great Britain grants a charter of land to the Ohio Company around the forks of the Ohio River.

18. 1776 - American Revolutionary War: A Continental Army garrison surrenders in the Battle of the Cedars.

19. 1780 - New England's Dark Day: Thick smoke and heavy cloud cause darkness to fall over parts of eastern Canada and New England.

20. 1781 - King Louis XVI of France surprisingly fires his economic advisor Jacques Necker.

21. 1792 - George Vancouver and members of his expedition become the first Europeans known to have seen Mount St. Helens.

22. 1792 - The French revolutionary Marat published an article in The Friend of the People calling on the people to resist the monarchy.

23. 1802 - Napoleon Bonaparte founds the Legion of Honour.

24. 1832 - Tang Tingshu, a representative figure of the Westernization Movement in the late Qing Dynasty, is born.

25. 1845 - John Franklin's ill - fated Arctic expedition leaves England.

26. 1848 - Mexican - American War: Mexico ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the war and ceding territories to the US.

27. 1853 - The Taiping Army begins its western expedition.

28. 1864 - American Civil War: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House ends.

29. 1883 - The Battle of Paper Bridge: The Chinese Black Flag Army engages in a fierce battle with the French invaders in the Paper Bridge area of Hanoi, Vietnam.

30. 1886 - American poet Walt Whitman passes away.

31. 1897 - Oscar Wilde is released from Reading Gaol prison.

32. 1900 - The Second Summer Olympic Games open in Paris, France.

33. 1900 - The ministers of the foreign powers in Beijing hold a meeting and decide to jointly send troops to suppress the Boxer Rebellion.

34. 1903 - David Dunbar Buick founds the Buick Motor Company.

35. 1911 - Parks Canada, the world's first national park service, is founded.

36. 1917 - Norwegian football club Rosenborg BK is founded.

37. 1919 - The Chinese delegation to the Paris Peace Conference decides not to recognize the Treaty of Versailles and refuses to sign it.

38. 1919 - Some warships of the German Navy's "High Seas Fleet" mutiny in Wilhelmshaven, becoming the prelude to the German November Revolution.

39. 1921 - Congress passes the Emergency Quota Act, which establishes national quotas for immigrants.

40. 1922 - The First National Congress of the Socialist Youth League of China is held in Guangzhou.

41. 1922 - The Soviet Young Pioneers are established.

42. 1935 - T. E. Lawrence, also known as "Lawrence of Arabia," dies in England from injuries sustained in a motorcycle crash.

43. 1938 - The Xuzhou Campaign ends.

44. 1938 - The Chinese Air Force makes its first long - distance raid on the Japanese mainland.

45. 1941 - The Italian forces in Ethiopia surrender.

46. 1943 - In an address to the US Congress, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill pledges his country's full support in the war against Japan.

47. 1943 - The Nazis launch their final sweep of the Warsaw Ghetto, triggering a large - scale uprising by the Jewish resistance.

48. 1945 - The US Air Force attacks Tokyo with more than 400 bombers.

49. 1945 - The US Marine Corps captures Okinawa Island in the Pacific theater.

50. 1950 - The Zhoushan Archipelago is completely liberated.