October 16456 – Ricimer defeats Avitus at Piacenza and becomes master of the Western Roman Empire. 690 – Empress Wu Zetian ascends to the throne of the Tang dynasty and proclaims herself ruler of the Chinese Empire. 912 – Abd ar-Rahman III becomes the eighth Emir of Córdoba. 955 – King Otto I defeats a Slavic revolt in what is now Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. 1311 – The Council of Vienne convenes for the first time. 1384 – Jadwiga is crowned King of Poland, although she is a woman. 1590 – Prince Gesualdo of Venosa murders his wife and her lover.
October 25285 or 286 – Execution of Saints Crispin and Crispinian during the reign of Diocletian, now the patron saints of leather workers, curriers, and shoemakers. 473 – Emperor Leo I acclaims his grandson Leo II as Caesar of the East Roman Empire. 1147 – Seljuk Turks defeat German crusaders under Conrad III at the Battle of Dorylaeum. 1147 – Reconquista: After a siege of four months, crusader knights reconquer Lisbon. 1415 – Hundred Years' War: Henry V of England, with his lightly armoured infantry and archers, defeats the heavily armoured French cavalry in the Battle of Agincourt.
December 20AD 69 – Antonius Primus enters Rome to claim the title of Emperor for Nero's former general Vespasian. 1192 – Richard I of England is captured and imprisoned by Leopold V of Austria on his way home to England after the Third Crusade. 1334 – Cardinal Jacques Fournier, a Cistercian monk, is elected Pope Benedict XII. 1803 – The Louisiana Purchase is completed at a ceremony in New Orleans. 1808 – Peninsular War: The Siege of Zaragoza begins. 1832 – HMS Clio under the command of Captain Onslow arrives at Port Egmont under orders to take possession of the Falkland Islands.
August 161 BC – Wang Mang consolidates his power in China and is declared marshal of state. Emperor Ai of Han, who died the previous day, had no heirs. 942 – Start of the four-day Battle of al-Mada'in, between the Hamdanids of Mosul and the Baridis of Basra over control of the Abbasid capital, Baghdad. 963 – Nikephoros II Phokas is crowned emperor of the Byzantine Empire. 1328 – The House of Gonzaga seizes power in the Duchy of Mantua, and will rule until 1708.
January 29904 – Sergius III is elected pope, after coming out of retirement to take over the papacy from the deposed antipope Christopher. 946 – Caliph al-Mustakfi is blinded and deposed by Mu'izz al-Dawla, ruler of the Buyid Empire. He is succeeded by al-Muti as caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate. 1814 – War of the Sixth Coalition: France defeats Russia and Prussia in the Battle of Brienne. 1819 – Stamford Raffles lands on the island of Singapore. 1845 – "The Raven" is published in The Evening Mirror in New York, the first publication with the name of the author, Edgar Allan Poe.
June 15763 BC – Assyrians record a solar eclipse that is later used to fix the chronology of Mesopotamian history. 844 – Louis II is crowned as king of Italy at Rome by pope Sergius II. 923 – Battle of Soissons: King Robert I of France is killed and King Charles the Simple is arrested by the supporters of Duke Rudolph of Burgundy. 1184 – The naval Battle of Fimreite is won by the Birkebeiner pretender Sverre Sigurdsson. Sigurdsson takes the Norwegian throne and King Magnus V of Norway is killed.
May 22192 – Dong Zhuo is assassinated by his adopted son Lü Bu. 760 – Fourteenth recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet. 853 – A Byzantine fleet sacks and destroys undefended Damietta in Egypt. 1176 – The Hashshashin (Assassins) attempt to assassinate Saladin near Aleppo. 1200 – King John of England and King Philip II of France sign the Treaty of Le Goulet. 1246 – Henry Raspe is elected anti-king of the Kingdom of Germany in opposition to Conrad IV. 1254 – Serbian King Stefan Uroš I and the Republic of Venice sign a peace treaty.
November 8960 – Battle of Andrassos: Byzantines under Leo Phokas the Younger score a crushing victory over the Hamdanid Emir of Aleppo, Sayf al-Dawla. 1278 – Trần Thánh Tông, the second emperor of the Trần dynasty, decides to pass the throne to his crown prince Trần Khâm and take up the post of Retired Emperor. 1291 – The Republic of Venice enacts a law confining most of Venice's glassmaking industry to the "island of Murano". 1519 – Hernán Cortés enters Tenochtitlán and Aztec ruler Moctezuma welcomes him with a great celebration.
August 130 BC – Octavian (later known as Augustus) enters Alexandria, Egypt, bringing it under the control of the Roman Republic. AD 69 – Batavian rebellion: The Batavians in Germania Inferior (Netherlands) revolt under the leadership of Gaius Julius Civilis. 527 – Justinian I becomes the sole ruler of the Byzantine Empire. 607 – Ono no Imoko is dispatched as envoy to the Sui court in China (Traditional Japanese date: July 3, 607). 902 – Taormina, the last Byzantine stronghold in Sicily, is captured by the Aghlabid army, concluding the Muslim conquest of Sicily.
July 30762 – Baghdad is founded. 1419 – First Defenestration of Prague: A crowd of radical Hussites kill seven members of the Prague city council. 1502 – Christopher Columbus lands at Guanaja in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras during his fourth voyage. 1609 – Beaver Wars: At Ticonderoga (now Crown Point, New York), Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs on behalf of his native allies. 1619 – In Jamestown, Virginia, the first Colonial European representative assembly in the Americas, the Virginia General Assembly, convenes for the first time.