626 – In an early example of the importance of the city, Avar and Slav armies abandon the siege of Constantinople.

1461 – Chinese general Cao Qin stages a coup against the Tianshun Emperor.

1556 – A UFO appears above the Swiss town of Basel.

1782 – In America General George Washington sets in place the creation of the Badge of Military Merit to honor soldiers wounded in battle. It is later renamed the more poetic Purple Heart.

1933 – In Iraq 3,000 Assyrians are killed in the village of Simele. This date is subsequently commemorated as Martyrs Day or National Day of Mourning by the Assyrian community in memory of the massacre.

1947 – Thor Heyerdahl’s balsa wood raft, Kon-Tiki, runs aground on the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 7,000 kilometres voyage across the Pacific Ocean. His intrepid adventure aimed to prove that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.

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