490 BC – Battle of Marathon: The conventionally accepted date for the Battle of Marathon. The Athenians and their Plataean allies, defeat the first Persian invasion force of Greece.
1940 – An explosion at the Hercules Powder Company plant in Kenvil, New Jersey kills 51 people and injures over 200.
1942 – World War II: RMS Laconia, carrying civilians, Allied soldiers and Italian POWs is torpedoed off the coast of West Africa and sinks with a heavy loss of life.
1944 – World War II: The liberation of Serbia from Nazi Germany continues. Bajina Bašta in western Serbia is among those liberated cities. Near Trier, American troops enter Germany for the first time.
1970 – Dawson's Field hijackings: Palestinian terrorists blow up three hijacked airliners in Jordan, continuing to hold the passengers hostage in various undisclosed locations in Amman.
1983 – The USSR vetoes a United Nations Security Council Resolution deploring the Soviet shooting down of a Korean civilian jetliner on September 1.
1984 – Dwight Gooden sets the baseball record for strikeouts in a season by a rookie with 246, previously set by Herb Score in 1954. Gooden's 276 strikeouts that season, pitched in 218 innings, set the current record.
1988 – Hurricane Gilbert devastates Jamaica; it turns towards Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula 2 days later, causing an estimated $5 billion in damage.
2001 – Ansett Australia, Australia's first commercial interstate airline, collapses due to increased strain on the international airline industry, leaving 10,000 people unemployed.
2015 – A series of explosions involving propane triggering nearby illegally stored mining detonators in the Indian town of Petlawad in the state of Madhya Pradesh kills at least 105 people with over 150 injured.