On August 29th...

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1350 The English naval fleet under King Edward III defeated a Castilian fleet of 40 ships (Battle of Winchelsea).

1484 Giovanni Battista Cibo was elected as Pope Innocent VIII.

1526 The Hungarian Empire was conquered by Ottomans led by Suleiman the Magnificent ( Battle of Mohács).

1632 Philosopher John Locke was born.

1640 King Charles I of England signed a peace treaty with Scotland.

1742 Edmond Hoyle published his "Short Treatise" on the card game whist.

1758 The New Jersey Legislature formed the first Indian reservation.

1769 Author Edmond Hoyle died.

1780 American diplomat Richard Rush was born.

1786 A band of armed farmers stormed a debtor's court in Northampton, Massachusetts.

1793 Slaves in the French colony of St. Dominique (now Haiti) were freed.

1799 Pope Pius VI died.

1809 Author Oliver Wendell Holmes was born.

1825 Portugal recognized the independence of Brazil.

1833 The Slavery Abolition Act became law in Great Britain.

1842 Great Britain and China signed the Treaty of Nanking, ending the Opium War.

1854 Daniel Halladay patented the self-governing windmill.

1862 The Second Battle of Bull Run (Manassas, Virginia) began.
1862 The U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing began operation.
1862 Poet and dramatist Maurice Maeterlinck was born.

1864 William Huggins discovered the chemical composition of nebulae.

1876 Inventor Charles F. Kettering was born.

1877 Mormon leader Brigham Young died.

1885 Gottlieb Daimler received a German patent for a motorcycle.

1891 J. C. Hall, founder of Hallmark Cards, was born.

1893 Whitcomb Judson received a patent for a "clasp-locker" device.

1895 The Northern Rugby Union was formed at the George Hotel in Huddersfield, England.

1898 The Goodyear Tire Company was founded.

1899 Lyman Louis Lemnitzer, U.S. and NATO General, was born.

1900 Gaetano Bresci, the assassin of King Umberto I of Italy, was sentenced to life imprisonment.

1907 The Quebec Bridge in St. Lawrence, Canada, collapsed during construction, killing 75 workers.

1909 Glenn Curtiss won the world's first air race, in Rheims, France.

1910 Japan changed Korea's name to Chosen.

1914 The Arizonian became the first vessel to arrive in San Francisco via the Panama Canal.

1915 Actress Ingrid Bergman was born.

1916 The U.S. Naval Reserve was created by Congress.
1916 The U.S. Congress formally granted independence to the Philippines.

1917 Actress Isabel Sanford was born.

1920 Jazz musician Charlie "Bird" Parker was born.

1922 Fashion critic Richard Sylvan Selzer, aka Mr. Blackwell, was born.

1923 Film director Richard Attenborough was born.

1929 Anne Morrow Lindbergh made her first solo flight.
1929 The German airship Graf Zeppelin ended a round-the-world flight.
1929 Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was born.

1931 Businessman David Abercrombie died.

1932 The International Anti-War Committee was formed in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

1936 U.S. Senator John McCain was born.

1938 Actor Elliott Gould was born.

1940 James Brady, White House Press Secretary under U.S. Preident Ronald Reagan, was born.

1941 Television personality Robin Leach was born.
1941 Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic was born.

1944 15,000 American troops liberating Paris marched down the Champs Elysees.

1945 British troops liberated Hong Kong from the Japanese.
1945 U.S. General Douglas MacArthur was named Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in Japan.

1949 The U.S.S.R. performed its first nuclear test.
1949 Painter John Steuart Curry died.

1953 The Soviet Union exploded its first hydrogen bomb.

1954 San Francisco International Airport opened.

1957 The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was passed by the U.S. Congress.

1958 The United States Air Force Academy opened in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
1958 Singer Michael Jackson was born.

1960 An Air France airliner crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Dakar, Senegal, while attempting to land in bad weather, killing all 63 persons aboard.
1960 Jordanian Prime Minister Hazzaa Majali and 11 others were killed by a bomb that exploded in his Amman office.

1962 The lower level of the George Washington Bridge was opened to traffic, making it the only 14-lane suspension bridge in the world.
1962 Fire in a bamboo-built section of Guayaquil, Ecuador, killed 20 persons, injured 30, and left 700 homeless.

1964 Failing brakes caused a bus to plunge into a ravine near Zempala, Mexico, killing 20 persons.
1964 Walt Disney's Mary Poppins was released.

1966 The Beatles played their last public concert, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

1967 The last new episode of "The Fugitive" aired.

1975 Eamon de Valera, former President of Ireland, died.

1976 Singer Jimmy Reed died.

1978 The USTA National Tennis Center opened in Flushing, New York.

1981 Journalist Lowell Thomas died.

1982 The element Meitnerium, atomic number 109, was first synthesized at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, Germany.
1982 Actress Ingrid Bergman died.

1987 Actor Lee Marvin died.

1990 A C-5 transport plane crashed atRamstein Air Force Base, Germany, killing 13 persons.

1991 The Soviet Union suspended Communist Party activities.

1995 NATO launched Operation Deliberate Force against Bosnian Serb forces.

1996 A Vnukovo Airlines Tu-154 crashed into a mountain on the island of Spitsbergen, killing all 141 persons aboard.

2003 Ayatollah Sayed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the Shia Muslim leader in Iraq, and nearly worshippers were killed by a terrorist bomb at a mosque in Najaf.

2005 Hurricane Katrina made its second landfall, killing more than 1,836 persons and causing more than $115 billion in damage along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

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This page was last updated on August 29, 2018.