479 BC – Greco-Persian Wars: Battle of Mycale won by Greek forces over Persian naval troops on Ionian coast, double victory with that at Plataea ends Persian invasion
663 – Battle of Baekgang: Tang Chinese and Silla Korean forces defeat Korean Baekje forces and their Yamato Japanese allies on the Geum River in Korea. Last Japanese invasion of Korea for 900 years.
1576 – 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.
1789 – French National Assembly issues the “Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen”
1883 – Krakatoa volcano, west of Java in Indonesia, erupts with a force of 1,300 megatons and kills approximately 40,000 people
1928 – The Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed between France and the United States in a series of peacekeeping efforts after World War I.
1979 – 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, cousin of Queen Elizabeth II and last Viceroy of India, is killed along with three companions, two of them children by the IRA when his boat is blown up near Sligo, Ireland
2008 – Democratic politician Barack Obama became the first African American to be nominated for the presidency by either major party; he later defeated Republican John McCain to win the office.
2011 – After causing extensive damage to various Caribbean islands, Hurricane Irene made landfall in the United States, striking North Carolina’s Outer Banks before moving along the Eastern Seaboard; property damage in the United States exceeded $7 billion, making Irene one of the most expensive Atlantic hurricanes in the country’s history.
Births & Deaths: 1979 – Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, was assassinated by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, who placed on a bomb on his boat, which was in Donegal Bay, Ireland.
Sport: 2004 – German kayaker Birgit Fischer wins gold in K-4 500m & silver in K-2 500m in Athens; first woman in any sport to win gold medals at 6 different Olympics, gold 24 years apart, and 1st person to win 2 or more medals in 5 different Games
Music: 1965 – The Beatles spend an evening with Elvis Presley
TV & Film: 1964 – Walt Disney’s “Mary Poppins” directed by Robert Stevenson and starring Julie Andrews and Dick van Dyke premieres in Los Angeles
