1258: Baghdad, then a city of 1 million, falls to the Mongols as the Abbasid Caliphate is destroyed, tens of thousands slaughtered, ending the Islamic Golden Age

1601: 1st British East India Company voyage departs from London, lead by John Lancaster

1689: Parliament of England adopts the Bill of Rights which establishes the rights of parliament and places limits on the crown

1942: Hitler’s Operation Sealion, the invasion of England, is cancelled

1945: Allied planes begin bombing Dresden, Germany; a firestorm results and over 22,000 die

1945: USSR captures Budapest, after a 49-day battle with Nazi Germany in which 159,000 die

1960: France becomes the 4th nuclear nation by exploding the 70 kilo-ton “Gerboise Bleue” atomic bomb in the French Algerian Sahara desert

Source: Onthisday.com