August 29 - Events

Events

• 708 – Copper coins are minted in Japan for the first time (Traditional Japanese date: August 10, 708).
• 1350 – Battle of Winchelsea (or Les Espagnols sur Mer): The English naval fleet under King Edward III defeats a Castilian fleet of 40 ships.
• 1475 – The Treaty of Picquigny ends a brief war between France and England.
• 1498 – Vasco da Gama decides to depart Calicut and return to Portugal.
• 1521 – The Ottoman Turks capture Nándorfehérvár, now known as Belgrade.
• 1526 – Battle of Mohács: The Ottoman Turks led by Suleiman the Magnificent defeat and kill the last Jagiellonian king of Hungary and Bohemia.
• 1541 – The Ottoman Turks capture Buda, the capital of the Hungarian Kingdom.
• 1756 – Frederick the Great attacks Saxony, beginning the Seven Years' War.
• 1758 – The first American Indian Reservation is established, at Indian Mills, New Jersey.
• 1778 – American Revolutionary War: British and American forces battle indecisively at the Battle of Rhode Island.
• 1786 – Shays' Rebellion, an armed uprising of Massachusetts farmers, begins in response to high debt and tax burdens.
• 1825 – Portugal recognizes the Independence of Brazil.
• 1831 – Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction.
• 1833 – The United Kingdom legislates the abolition of slavery in its empire.
• 1842 – Treaty of Nanking signing ends the First Opium War.
• 1861 – American Civil War: US Navy squadron captures forts at Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina.
• 1869 – The Mount Washington Cog Railway opens, making it the world's first rack railway.
• 1871 – Emperor Meiji orders the Abolition of the han system and the establishment of prefectures as local centers of administration. (Traditional Japanese date: July 14, 1871).
• 1885 – Gottlieb Daimler patents the world's first internal combustion motorcycle, the Reitwagen
• 1898 – The Goodyear tire company is founded.
• 1903 – The Russian battleship Slava, the last of the five Borodino-class battleships, is launched.
• 1907 – The Quebec Bridge collapses during construction, killing 75 workers.
• 1910 – The Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910, also known as the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty, becomes effective, officially starting the period of Japanese rule in Korea.
• 1911 – Ishi, considered the last Native American to make contact with European Americans, emerges from the wilderness of northeastern California.
• 1915 – US Navy salvage divers raise F-4, the first U.S. submarine sunk in accident.
• 1916 – The United States passes the Philippine Autonomy Act.
• 1918 – Bapaume taken by the New Zealand Division in the Hundred Days Offensive.
• 1922 – The first radio advertisement is broadcast on WEAF-AM in New York City.
• 1930 – The last 36 remaining inhabitants of St Kilda are voluntarily evacuated to other parts of Scotland.
• 1941 – Tallinn, the Capital of Estonia is occupied by Nazi Germany following an occupation by the Soviet Union.
• 1943 – German-occupied Denmark scuttles most of its navy; Germany dissolves the Danish government.
• 1944 – Slovak National Uprising takes place as 60,000 Slovak troops turn against the Nazis.
• 1946 – USS Nevada (BB-36) is decommissioned.
• 1949 – Soviet atomic bomb project: The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, known as First Lightning or Joe 1, at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan.
• 1950 – Korean War: British troops arrive in Korea to bolster the US presence there.
• 1958 – United States Air Force Academy opens in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
• 1965 – The Gemini V spacecraft returns to Earth, landing in the Atlantic ocean.
• 1966 – The Beatles perform their last concert before paying fans at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
• 1970 – Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War, East Los Angeles, California. Police riot kills three people, including journalist Ruben Salazar.
• 1982 – The synthetic chemical element Meitnerium, atomic number 109, is first synthesized at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, Germany.
• 1991 – Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union suspends all activities of the Soviet Communist Party.
• 1991 – Libero Grassi, an Italian businessman from Palermo is killed by the Mafia after taking a solitary stand against their extortion demands.
• 1996 – Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801, a Vnukovo Airlines Tupolev Tu-154, crashes into a mountain on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen, killing all 141 aboard.
• 1997 – At least 98 villagers are killed by the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria GIA in the Rais massacre, Algeria.
• 2003 – Ayatollah Sayed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the Shia Muslim leader in Iraq, is assassinated in a terrorist bombing, along with nearly 100 worshippers as they leave a mosque in Najaf.
• 2005 – Hurricane Katrina devastates much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing more than 1,836 and causing over $80 billion in damage.
• 2007 – 2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident: six US cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads are flown without proper authorization from Minot Air Force Base to Barksdale Air Force Base.
• 2012 – The opening ceremony of the Summer Paralympic Games is held in London.
• 2012 – At least 26 miners are killed and 21 missing after a blast in the Xiaojiawan coal mine, located at Panzhihua in Sichuan Province, China.