- **1936:** Sixteen opponents of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin are executed after a show trial.
- **1944:** Paris is liberated when the local German commander surrenders to the Allies.
- **1997:** Egon Krenz, the last hardline communist leader of East Germany, is sentenced to six and a half years in prison for the deaths of citizens while trying to flee over the Berlin Wall.
- **2000:** Hitachi releases the world's first video recorder using Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) technology.
- **2001:** American singer Aaliyah dies along with eight others when a passenger plane catches fire after takeoff in the Bahamas.
- **2003:** Two car bomb explosions in Mumbai, India’s financial capital, kill 51 people and injure at least 150 others.
- **2004:** South African police arrest Mark Thatcher, the son of Margaret Thatcher, on suspicion of involvement in a coup plot in Equatorial Guinea. Thatcher later pleads guilty and avoids prison in a deal with prosecutors.
- **2006:** Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko is sentenced to nine years in prison and fined $10 million in a U.S. court after being convicted of extortion and money laundering in 2004.
- **2007:** Former French Prime Minister Raymond Barre, an economist who helped steer Europe towards a common currency, passes away at the age of 83.
- **2017:** Hurricane Harvey makes landfall in Texas.
