1223: In France, Louis VIII succeeded his father, Philip Augustus.
1430: Joan of Arc, taken prisoner by the Burgundians in May, was handed over to Pierre Cauchon, the bishop of Beauvais.
1456: Hungarians defeated the Ottomans at the Battle of Belgrade.
1536: France and Portugal signed the naval treaty of Lyons, which aligned them against Spain.
1789: French Revolution began with Parisians stormed the Bastille prison and released the seven prisoners inside.
1798: The U.S. Congress passed the Sedition Act. The act made it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false or malicious statements about the U.S. government.
1868: Alvin J. Fellows patented the tape measure.
1891: The primacy of Thomas Edison's lamp patents was upheld in the court decision Electric Light Company vs. U.S. Electric Lighting Company.
1900: European Allies retook Tientsin, China, from the rebelling Boxers.
1908: "The Adventures of Dolly" opened at the Union Square Theatre in New York City.
1911: Harry N. Atwood landed an airplane on the lawn of the White House to accept an award from U.S. President William Taft.
1914: Robert H. Goddard patented liquid rocket-fuel.
1933: All German political parties except the Nazi Party were outlawed.
1940: A force of German Ju-88 bombers attacked Suez, Egypt, from bases in Crete.
1941: Vichy French Foreign Legionaries signed an armistice in Damascus, which allowed them to join the Free French Foreign Legion.
1945: American battleships and cruisers bombarded the Japanese home islands for the first time.
1946: Dr. Benjamin Spock’s "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care" was first published.
1951: The first sports event to be shown in color, on CBS-TV, was the Molly Pitcher Handicap at Oceanport, NJ.
1951: The George Washington Carver National Monument in Joplin, MO, became the first national park to honor an African American.
1958: The army of Iraq overthrew the monarchy.
1965: The American space probe Mariner 4 flew by Mars, and sent back photographs of the planet.
1966: In a Chicago dormitory, Richard Speck murdered eight student nurses.
1967: Eddie Mathews of the Houston Astros hit his 500th career home run.
1968: Hank Aaron, while with the Atlanta Braves, hit his 500th career home run.
1981: The All-Star Game was postponed because of a 33-day-old baseball players strike. The game was held on August 9.
1998: Los Angeles sued 15 tobacco companies for $2.5 billion over the dangers of secondhand smoke.
2001: Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympics. It was the first time that the China had been awarded the games.
2003: Jerry Springer officially filed papers to run for the U.S. Senate from Ohio.
2008: The iTunes Music Store reached 10 million applications downloaded.
2009: The iTunes Music Store reached 1.5 billion applications downloaded.
