180 Triumph of the maniacal Roman Emperor Commodus for alleged victories over the Germans

1202 Count Walter III of Brienne defeats Count Dietpoldo di Acerra to secure control of Puglia

1643 Castro War: Battle of Pitigliano - Tuscans defeat a superior Papal Army, to relieve a siege

1707 Four British warships run aground in the Scilly Is., c. 2000 die

1734 Duke Charles of Bourbon-Parma captures Capua from the Austrians

1764 Battle of Bakshar: English defeat the Moguls

1797 First parachute jump: Andre-Jacques Garnerin, from a balloon 3,200 feet above Paris

1836 Sam Houston inaugurated as 1st elected President of the Republic of Texas (1836-1838)

1846 Lavinia Watson becomes the first woman to sponsor a US warship, the frigate 'Germantown'

1861 Combat at Buffalo Mills, Mo

1861 Skirmish at Hodgeville, Ky

1904 Russian fleet shoots up British fishing trawlers in the North Sea

1928 China expels all Soviet instructors and advisors'

1937 The Windsors, history's most useless couple, visit Hitler in Obersalzburg

1942 Australians land on Goodenough Island, against c. 300 Japanese troops.

1943 Archibald Wavell becomes Governor-General and Viceroy of India (1943-1947)

1944 Japanese naval forces converge on Leyte.

1946 Two British ships mined off Albania

1954 West Germany joins NATO

1962 Missile Crisis: JFK imposes naval "quarantine" on Cuba

1979 Deposed Shah of Iran arrives in NY for medical treatment