2013: Egypt declares a state of emergency as security forces kill hundreds of demonstrators supporting former president Mohamed Morsi.
2007: The Kahtaniya bombings kills at least 334 people.
2006: Sixty-one schoolgirls killed in Chencholai bombing by Sri Lankan Air Force air strike.
2005: Helios Airways Flight 522, en route from Larnaca, Cyprus to Prague, Czech Republic via Athens, crashes in the hills near Grammatiko, Greece, killing 121 passengers and crew.
2003- Project Thread, an operation launched by CSIS and other Canadian law enforcement agencies, saw the arrest and incarceration of 24 innocent Muslim men, most of them young Pakistani students.: null
2003: A widescale power blackout affects the northeast United States and Canada.
1945: Japan accepts the Allied terms of surrender in World War II and the Emperor records the Imperial Rescript on Surrender (August 15 in Japan Standard Time).
1937: The beginning of air-to-air combat of the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II in general, when six Japanese bombers are shot down by Chinese fighters while raiding Chinese air bases.
1933: Loggers cause a forest fire in the Coast Range of Oregon, later known as the first forest fire of the Tillamook Burn; it is not fully extinguished until September 5, after destroying 240,000 acres (970 km2).
1914: World War I: Start of the Battle of Lorraine, an unsuccessful French offensive designed to recover the lost province of Moselle from Germany.
1912: U.S. Marines invade Nicaragua to support the U.S.-backed government installed there after José Santos Zelaya had resigned three years earlier.
1911: United States Senate leaders agree to rotate the office of President pro tempore of the Senate among leading candidates to fill the vacancy left by William P. Frye's death.
1901: The first claimed powered flight, by Gustave Whitehead in his Number 21.
1893: France becomes the first country to introduce motor vehicle registration.
1888: An audio recording of English composer Arthur Sullivan's "The Lost Chord", one of the first recordings of music ever made, is played during a press conference introducing Thomas Edison's phonograph in London, England.
1885: Japan's first patent is issued to the inventor of a rust-proof paint.
1480: Battle of Otranto: Ottoman troops behead 800 Christians for refusing to convert to Islam; they are later honored in the Church.
1457: Publication of the Mainz Psalter, the first book to feature a printed date of publication and printed colophon
1385: Portuguese Crisis of 1383-85: Battle of Aljubarrota: Portuguese forces commanded by King John I and his general Nuno Álvares Pereira defeat the Castilian army of King John I.
1183: Taira no Munemori and the Taira clan take the young Emperor Antoku and the three sacred treasures and flee to western Japan to escape pursuit by the Minamoto clan (traditional Japanese date: Twenty-fifth Day of the Seventh Month of the Second Year of Juei).
1040: King Duncan I is killed in battle against his first cousin and rival Macbeth. The latter succeeds him as King of Scotland.
29 BC: Octavian holds the second of three consecutive triumphs in Rome to celebrate the victory over the Dalmatian tribes.