Spanair Flight 5022, from Madrid to Gran Canaria, skids off the runway and crashes at Barajas Airport. 146 people are killed in the crash, and 8 more die later. Only 18 people survive.

A group of Iraqis opposed to the regime of Saddam Hussein take over the Iraqi Embassy in Berlin for five hours before releasing their hostages and surrendering.

U.S. embassy bombings: the United States launches cruise missile attacks against alleged al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical plant in Sudan in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The Supreme Court of Canada rules that Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government's approval.

Souhane massacre in Algeria; over 60 people are killed and 15 kidnapped.

After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, the Oslo Peace Accords are signed, followed by a public ceremony in Washington, D.C. the following month.

Estonia, annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, issues a decision on the re-establishment of independence on the basis of historical continuity of her pre-World War II statehood.

Collapse of the Soviet Union, August Coup: more than 100,000 people rally outside the Soviet Union's parliament building protesting the coup aiming to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev.

The pleasure boat Marchioness sinks on the River Thames following a collision, 51 people are killed.

Iran–Iraq War: a cease-fire is agreed after almost eight years of war.

Peru becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.

"Black Saturday" of the Yellowstone fire in Yellowstone National Park

In Edmond, Oklahoma, U.S. Postal employee Patrick Sherrill guns down 14 of his co-workers and then commits suicide.

Lebanese Civil War: a multinational force lands in Beirut to oversee the Palestine Liberation Organization's withdrawal from Lebanon.

The East Coast Main Line rail route between England and Scotland is restored when the Penmanshiel Diversion opens.

Voyager Program: NASA launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.

Viking Program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars.

Senegal breaks from the Mali federation, declaring its independence.

In Morocco, a force of Berbers from the Atlas Mountains region of Algeria raid two rural settlements and kill 77 French nationals.

The Soviet Union publicly acknowledges that it had tested a hydrogen bomb.

WWII: 168 captured allied airmen, including Phil Lamason, accused by the Gestapo of being "terror fliers", arrive at Buchenwald concentration camp.

In Mexico City exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded with an ice axe by Ramon Mercader. He dies the next day.

Lou Gehrig hits his 23rd career grand slam – a record that still stands.

Japan's public broadcasting company, Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK) is established.

The National Football League, (NFL), is founded in the United States.

The first commercial radio station, 8MK (WWJ), begins operations in Detroit, Michigan.

World War I: German forces occupy Brussels.

The Great Fire of 1910 (also commonly referred to as the Big Blowup or the Big Burn) occurred in northeast Washington, northern Idaho (the panhandle), and western Montana, burning approximately 3 million acres.

Mutineers imprison Emin Pasha at Dufile.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ''1812 Overture'' debuts in Moscow.

President Andrew Johnson formally declares the American Civil War over.

Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution through natural selection in ''The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London'', alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory.

Lewis and Clark Expedition: the "Corps of Discovery", exploring the Louisiana Purchase, suffers its only death when sergeant Charles Floyd dies, apparently from acute appendicitis.

Battle of Fallen Timbers

The Spanish establish a ''presidio'' (fort) in the town that became Tucson, Arizona.

Former Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis are brutally murdered by an angry mob in The Hague.

Konrad von Wallenrode becomes the 24th Hochmeister of the Teutonic Order.

Canonization of the first King of Hungary, Saint Stephen and his son Saint Emeric.

The foundation of the Hungarian state by Saint Stephen. Today celebrated as a National Day in Hungary.

Battle of Acheloos: Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria decisively defeats a Byzantine army.

Battle of Yarmouk: Arab forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid take control of Syria and Palestine away from the Byzantine Empire, marking the first great wave of Muslim conquests and the rapid advance of Islam outside Arabia.