In 1453, Constantinople (now Istanbul), capital of the Byzantine Empire, was captured by the Turks.

In 1660, Charles II was restored to the English throne.

In 1790, Rhode Island became the last of the original 13 states to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

In 1848, following approval by the territory’s citizens, Wisconsin entered the Union as the 30th state.

In 1865, U.S. President Andrew Johnson issued a proclamation giving a general amnesty to all who took part in the rebellion against the United States.

In 1953, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal became the first men to reach the top of Mount Everest.

In 1977, a flash fire swept through a nightclub in Southgate, Ky., killing 162 people and injuring 30.

In 1985, British soccer fans attacked Italian fans preceding the European Cup final in Brussels. The resulting stadium stampede killed 38 people and injured
400.

In 1989, Chinese students in Tiananmen Square erected a 33-foot statue similar to the Statue of Liberty.

In 1990, renegade communist Boris Yeltsin was elected president of Russia.

In 1991, scientists from Emory University discovered the gene that causes fragile-X syndrome, an untreatable mental retardation.

In 1996, in Israel’s first selection of a prime minister by direct vote, Binyamin Netanyahu defeated Shimon Peres to become leader of Israel. The margin
of victory was less than 1 percent.

In 1997, Lt. Kelly Flinn, the Air Force’s first female B-52 bomber pilot, was discharged following an investigation stemming from adultery charges.

The same day, the Army relieved Brig. Gen. Stephen Xenakis of his command of the Dwight David Eisenhower Army Medical Center at Fort Gordon, Ga., because
of an apparently “improper relationship” with a civilian nurse caring for his wife.

Also in 1997, Zaire rebel leader Laurent Kabila was sworn in as president of what was again being called the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In 2000, the Indonesian government placed former President Suharto under house arrest on charges of corruption and abuse of power.

In 2002, FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington might have been avoided if the
FBI had acted on available information.

In 2003, comedian Bob Hope was honored by the White House on his 100th birthday with establishment of the Bob Hope Patriotism Award for those showing extraordinary
love of country and devotion to the personnel of the U.S. armed forces.

Also in 2003, Microsoft agreed to pay AOL Time Warner $750 million to end a private antitrust suit brought by AOL’s Netscape Communications.

In 2004, the World War II memorial was dedicated on the National Mall in Washington. Some 70,000 veterans of that war were on hand.

Also in 2004, a residential compound in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, was invaded by four armed militants who killed 22 and wounded 25, mostly workers in the oil
industry from several counties.

In 2006, relief workers struggled to prevent sickness and hunger among hundreds of thousands of survivors from the Indonesian earthquake in Java. More
than 5,000 people were killed in the 6.3 quake.

Also in 2006, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe won a second term by a sizable margin.

In 2007, U.S. President George Bush announced tougher economical sanctions against Sudan for failure to adequately help end the humanitarian crisis in
the country’s embattled Darfur region.

Also in 2007, two car bombings within an hour killed 38 people and injured at least 100 others in Baghdad. Elsewhere, reports said gunmen abducted five
British workers at the Iraqi Finance Ministry headquarters.

In 1588, the Spanish Armada began to set sail for the English Channel.

In 1798, the U.S. Congress empowered President John Adams to recruit an American army of 10,000 volunteers.

In 1892, the Sierra Club was founded by famed naturalist John Muir.

In 1934, the Dionne sisters, Emilie, Yvonne, Cecile, Maria and Annette, first documented set of quintuplets to survive, were born near Callander, Ontario,
and soon became world famous. Emilie died in 1954, Maria in 1970 and Yvonne in 2001.

In 1961, Amnesty International was founded in London by lawyer Peter Berenson.

In 1987, West German Mathias Rust, 19, flew a single-engine plane from Finland through Soviet radar and landed beside the Kremlin in Moscow. Three days
later, the Soviet defense minister and his deputy were fired.

In 1988, Syrian troops moved into southern Beirut to end 22 days of fighting between rival Shiite Muslim militias.

In 1995, Bosnia’s foreign minister and five other people were killed when Serb forces downed their helicopter.

In 1996, Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker and two former business associates of U.S. President Bill Clinton were convicted of fraud and conspiracy charges
in connection with Whitewater loans. Tucker resigned.

In 1998, Pakistan conducted five underground nuclear tests, prompting U.S. President Bill Clinton to impose economic sanctions against the Asian nation.

Also in 1998, in a first, digitized pictures taken by the Hubbell Space Telescope seemed to show an image of a planet outside the solar system. The planet
circled two stars in the constellation Taurus.

In 2000, Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori easily won the runoff election but nationwide demonstrations against him continued and he would resign in
September.

In 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law his modified tax reduction plan which lowered the tax rate for upper- and middle-income taxpayers
and trimmed rates on capital gains and dividends.

Also in 2003, a spokesman for al-Qaida told an Arabic-language magazine the terror network wanted to poison the U.S. water supply.

In 2004, the Iraqi governing council gave unanimous approval to the appointment of Iyad Alawi, a prominent secular-minded Shiite and anti-Saddam exile,
as prime minister.

In 2006, San Francisco slugger Barry Bonds hit his 715th home run to move past Babe Ruth as No. 2 on the all-time major league homer list. Hank Aaron was
the career leader at that point with 755.

In 2007, diplomats from the United States and Iran met in Baghdad in the first formal talks between the two nations in 27 years.

Also in 2007, the co-owners of a Greek excursion company were charged with manslaughter and causing bodily harm through negligence in the deaths of at
least six holiday hikers in a rain-swollen river in southern Greece.