30 Mordad 1387 | Wednesday 20 August 2008

This day in four calendars

636 (1390 years ago) Battle of the Yarmuk: Marking the first great wave of Muslim conquests and the rapid advance of Islam outside Arabia, Arab forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid defeat the Byzantine Empire and take control of the Levant.
1948 (78 years ago) Soviet Consul General in New York, Jacob M. Lomakin is expelled by the United States, due to the Kasenkina Case.
1949 (77 years ago) Hungary adopts the Hungarian Constitution of 1949 and becomes a People's Republic.
1955 (71 years ago) Battle of Philippeville: In Algeria, a force of Berbers from the Atlas Mountains region of Algeria raid two rural settlements and kill 77 French nationals.
1991 (35 years ago) Estonia, occupied by and incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940, issues a decision on the re-establishment of independence on the basis of legal continuity of its pre-occupation statehood.
1997 (29 years ago) Souhane massacre in Algeria; over 60 people are killed and 15 kidnapped.
1998 (28 years ago) U.S. embassy bombings: The United States launches cruise missile attacks against alleged al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical weapons plant in Sudan in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
2012 (14 years ago) A prison riot in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, kills at least 20 people.

1833 (193 years ago) Benjamin Harrison, American general, lawyer, and politician, 23rd President of the United States (died 1901)
1890 (136 years ago) H. P. Lovecraft, American short story writer, editor, novelist (died 1937)
1901 (125 years ago) Salvatore Quasimodo, Italian novelist and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1968)
1941 (85 years ago) Slobodan Milošević, Serbian lawyer and politician, 1st President of Serbia (died 2006)
1944 (82 years ago) Rajiv Gandhi, Indian lawyer and politician, 6th Prime Minister of India (died 1991)
1974 (52 years ago) Amy Adams, American actress
1983 (43 years ago) Andrew Garfield, American-English actor
1992 (34 years ago) Demi Lovato, American singer-songwriter and actress

984 (1042 years ago) Pope John XIV,
1153 (873 years ago) Bernard of Clairvaux, French theologian and saint (born 1090)
1823 (203 years ago) Pope Pius VII,
1914 (112 years ago) Pope Pius X,
1915 (111 years ago) Paul Ehrlich, German physician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1854)
1917 (109 years ago) Adolf von Baeyer, German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1835)
1961 (65 years ago) Percy Williams Bridgman, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1882)
2017 (9 years ago) Jerry Lewis, American actor and comedian (born 1926)