1000: Battle of Svolder, Baltic Sea: King Olaf on board the Long Serpent defeated in one of the greatest naval battles of the Viking Age. He leaps to his death overboard.

1776: Congress officially renames the country as the United States of America (from the United Colonies)

1817: Alexander Twilight, probably first African American to graduate from a US college, receives BA degree at Middlebury College

1914: First fully mechanized unit in the British Army created – the Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade (WWI)

1993: Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization exchange letters of mutual recognition

2015: Queen Elizabeth II becomes Great Britain’s longest-reigning monarch at 63 years and seven months, beating the previous record set by her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria

Source: Onthisday.com