1521 – The Ottoman Turks occupy Belgrade.

Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. Its name translates to "White city".

Aerial view of Belgrade today.

One of the most important prehistoric cultures of Europe, the Vinca culture, evolved within the Belgrade area in the 6th millennium BC. In antiquity, Thraco-Dacians inhabited the region, and after 279 BC Celts conquered the city, naming it Singidun. It was conquered by the Romans during the reign of Augustus, and awarded city rights in the mid-2nd century. It was settled by the Slavs in the 520s, and changed hands several times between the Byzantine Empire, Frankish Empire, Bulgarian Empire and Kingdom of Hungary before it became the capital of Serbian king Stephen Dragutin (1282–1316).

The medieval walls of the Belgrade Fortress, the most visited tourist attraction in Belgrade.

Belgrade Fortress is the core and the oldest section of the urban area of Belgrade. For centuries the city population was concentrated only within the walls of the fortress, and thus the history of the fortress, until most recent times, equals the history of Belgrade itself. The first mention of the city is when it was founded in the 3rd century BC as "Singidunum" by the Celtic tribe of Scordisc.

In 1521, Belgrade was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and became the seat of the Sanjak of Smederevo. It frequently passed from Ottoman to Habsburg rule, which saw the destruction of most of the city during the Austro-Ottoman wars. Belgrade was again named the capital of Serbia in 1841. Northern Belgrade remained the southernmost Habsburg post until 1918, when the city was reunited.

Church of Saint Sava.

As a strategic location, the city was battled over in 115 wars and razed 44 times. Belgrade was the capital of Yugoslavia from its creation in 1918.

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1609 – Henry Hudson discovers Delaware Bay.

Henry Hudson (c. 1565–1611) was an English sea explorer and navigator during the early 17th century, best known for his explorations of present-day Canada and parts of the northeastern United States.

In 1609 he landed in North America and explored the region around the modern New York metropolitan area, looking for a Northwest Passage to Asia on behalf of the Dutch East India Company. He sailed up the Hudson River, which was later named for him, and thereby laid the foundation for Dutch colonisation of the region.

Map of Hudson's voyages to North America.

Hudson discovered the Hudson Strait and the immense Hudson Bay on his final expedition, while still searching for the Northwest Passage. In 1611, after wintering on the shore of James Bay, Hudson wanted to press on to the west, but most of his crew mutinied. The mutineers cast Hudson, his son, and seven others adrift. The Hudsons and their companions were never seen again.

The sailors turn against the Hudsons. John Collier's painting of Henry Hudson with his son and some crew members after a mutiny on his icebound ship. The boat was set adrift and never heard from again.

Besides being the namesake of numerous geographical features, Hudson is also the namesake of the Hudson's Bay Company that explored and traded in the vast Hudson Bay watershed in the following centuries.

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1830 – The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's new Tom Thumb steam locomotive races a horse-drawn car, presaging steam's role in US railroads.

Tom Thumb was the first American-built steam locomotive to operate on a common-carrier railroad. Designed and constructed by Peter Cooper in 1830, it was built to convince owners of the newly formed Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) to use steam engines and not intended to enter revenue service.

Race with a horse-drawn rail car. Tom Thumb, replica of design by Peter Cooper. Baltimore County Public Library.

It is especially remembered as a participant in an impromptu race with a horse-drawn car, which the horse won after Tom Thumb suffered a mechanical failure. However, the demonstration was successful; and in the following year, the railroad committed to the use of steam locomotion and held trials for a working engine.

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1859 – The Carrington event is the strongest solar storm on record to strike the Earth. Electrical telegraph service is widely disrupted.

The Solar storm of 1859, also known as the Carrington Event, was a powerful geomagnetic solar storm during solar cycle 10 (1855–1867). From August 28 to September 2, 1859, many sunspots appeared on the Sun. On August 29, southern auroras were observed as far north as Queensland, Australia. Just before noon on September 1, the English amateur astronomers Richard Carrington and Richard Hodgson independently made the first observations of a solar flare.

A magnetogram recorded at the Greenwich Observatory in London during the Carrington Event of 1859. A solar flare. Inset: Carrington’s sketch of the sunspots.

A solar coronal mass ejection hit Earth's magnetosphere and induced one of the largest geomagnetic storms on record, September 1–2, 1859. Auroras were seen around the world, those in the northern hemisphere as far south as the Caribbean; those over the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. were so bright that the glow woke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning. People in the northeastern United States could read a newspaper by the aurora's light.

Frederic Edwin Church's 1865 painting "Aurora Borealis." Some speculate that Church took his inspiration from the Great Auroral Storm of 1859.

Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases giving telegraph operators electric shocks. Telegraph pylons threw sparks. Some telegraph operators could continue to send and receive messages despite having disconnected their power supplies.

Studies have shown that a solar storm of this magnitude occurring today would likely cause substantial and widespread problems for a modern and technology-dependent society. The solar storm of 2012 was of similar magnitude, but it passed Earth's orbit without striking the planet.

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1894 – The PS Rodney, a Darling River paddle steamer is burnt by unionist shearers in protest at it being used as a strike breaker.

During the 19th century, shearers in Australia endured meagre wages and poor working conditions. This led to the formation of the Australian Shearers’ Union which, by 1890, had tens of thousands of members. January to May 1891 saw the Great Shearers' Strike, marked by violent and destructive clashes between shearers and troopers. The end of the strike in May 1891 was not the end of industrial action.

Falling overseas wool prices in 1894 forced the proposal by the Pastoralist’s Association to cut the shearing rate by 12.5%. A new strike began.

The PS Rodney at the historical wharf at Echuca, loaded with wool bales collected from outlying properties to be then put onto rail trucks headed to the markets in Melbourne. Museums Victoria.

The "Rodney" was a large paddle steamer, built at Echuca in 1875. The 32 metre vessel, one of the finest, most powerful steamers on the river, was vital to the transport of goods and passengers along the Murray-Darling River system.

On 28 August 1894, the Rodney was transporting non-union labour upstream to the shearing shed at Tolarno Station on the Darling River. It was also hauling a barge carrying goods and supplies for the stations enroute. As it reached a woodpile two miles above Moorara Station, it was boarded by 150 striking shearers who removed the passengers, then proceeded to soak the Rodney in kerosene and set it alight. The paddle steamer was irreparably damaged after being burnt to the waterline.

The incident was described in the press as "the very worst outrage that has yet been perpetuated by shearers in these colonies".

A reward was offered for the capture of those involved in the destruction of the Rodney, but no one was ever convicted.

PS Rodney on the right with barges at Echuca Wharf 1890, Australian Maritime Museums Council. Wreck of the Rodney.

Today, the remains of the Rodney can still be seen, lying low down in the riverbed near Polia Station, about 40 kilometres north of the town of Pooncarie, 107 kilometres south of Menindee and around 500 kilometres away from Echuca.

The site remains of historical significance, an indication of the ferocity of the shearers' dispute. In 1994, the destruction of this noble vessel was commemorated in an event which attracted over 700 people from the sparsely-populated surrounds.

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1896 – Arthur Calwell, Leader of the Australian Labor Party from 1960 to 1967, is born in Melbourne.

Arthur Augustus Calwell KCSG (28 August 1896 – 8 July 1973) was an Australian politician. He represented the Division of Melbourne in the Australian House of Representatives for the Australian Labor Party from 1940–72, was the Minister for Information in the Curtin Government from 1943–45 and the inaugural Minister for Immigration in the Chifley Government from 1945–49, and was Leader of the Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1960–67.

During World War II, Calwell was appointed as Minister for Information in the Second Curtin Ministry following the 1943 election, and became well known for his tough attitude towards the Australian press and his strict enforcement of wartime censorship. This earned him the enmity of large sections of the Australian Press, and he was dubbed "Cocky" Calwell by his political foes, cartoonists of the period depicting him as an obstinate Australian cockatoo.

In 1945 when Ben Chifley succeeded Curtin, Calwell became the inaugural Minister for Immigration in the post-war Chifley Government. Thus, he was the chief architect of Australia's post-war immigration scheme at a time when many European refugees desired a better life far from their war-torn homelands, and he became famous for his relentless promotion of it. Calwell was also a staunch advocate of the White Australia Policy: while Europeans were welcomed to Australia, Calwell attempt to deport many Malayan, Indochinese and Chinese wartime refugees, some of whom had married Australian citizens and started families in Australia.

Calwell's attitude to Indigenous Australians should also be considered. In his memoirs he wrote: "If any people are homeless in Australia today, it is the Aboriginals, They are the only non-European descended people to whom we owe any debt. Some day, I hope, we will do justice to them."

Welcoming British immigrants arriving into Australia in 1946. Immigrant ship arrival in Sydney.

Calwell is also notable for being only the second victim of an attempted political assassination in Australia (the first being Prince Alfred in 1868). On 21 June 1966, Calwell addressed an anti-conscription rally at Mosman Town Hall in Sydney. As he was leaving the meeting, and just as his car was about to drive off, a 19-year-old student named Peter Kocan approached the passenger side of the vehicle and fired a sawn-off rifle at Calwell at point-blank range. Fortunately for Calwell, the closed window deflected the bullet, which lodged harmlessly in his coat lapel, and he sustained only minor facial injuries from broken glass.

Arthur Calwell, former ALP leader, is taken to hospital after the assassination attempt in 1966.

Calwell later visited Kocan in the mental hospital (where he was confined for ten years), and through a regular correspondence encouraged his eventual rehabilitation.

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1933 – The Brisbane newspaper, The Courier-Mail, first appears.

The Courier-Mail is a daily tabloid newspaper published in Brisbane, Australia. Owned by News Corp Australia, it is published daily from Monday to Saturday in tabloid format. Its editorial offices are located at Bowen Hills and it is printed at Murarrie, in Brisbane. It is available for purchase throughout Queensland, most regions of Northern New South Wales and parts of the Northern Territory.

The first edition of The Courier-Mail.

The history of The Courier-Mail is through four mastheads. The Moreton Bay Courier later became The Courier, then the Brisbane Courier and since 1933 The Courier-Mail. The Moreton Bay Courier was established as a weekly paper in June 1846. The Moreton Bay Courier became The Courier, and then the Brisbane Courier in 1864.

The first edition of The Courier-Mail was published on 28 August 1933, after Keith Murdoch's Herald and Weekly Times acquired and merged the Brisbane Courier and the Daily Mail (first published on 3 October 1903). In 1987, Rupert Murdoch's News Limited acquired newspaper control, and outstanding shares of Queensland Newspapers Pty Ltd.

The Courier-Mail online today.

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1941 – Arthur Fadden becomes the thirteenth Prime Minister of Australia.

Sir Arthur William Fadden, GCMG (13 April 1894 – 21 April 1973) was an Australian politician who served as Prime Minister of Australia from 29 August to 7 October 1941. He was the leader of the Country Party from 1940 to 1958.

Fadden family photograph, published in a 1968 newspaper, Arthur Fadden was a schoolboy (standing on the right, behind his mother and younger brother). National Archives.

In March 1940, Fadden was named a minister without portfolio in the government of Robert Menzies, who led the United Australia Party in a coalition with the Country Party. A few months later, following the deaths of three senior ministers in an air crash, he took over as Minister for Air and Minister for Civil Aviation. Fadden served as acting prime minister for four months early in 1941 (while Menzies was away in Europe), and became popular for his conciliatory manner.

Minister for the Army Percy Spender, Arthur Fadden and Robert Menzies at an emergency meeting to discuss the Japanese crisis, 1941. State Library of Victoria.

On 27 August 1941, Menzies resigned as prime minister after losing the confidence of his ministry. Fadden was elected leader of the UAP–Country coalition in his place, and consequently became prime minister.

However, Fadden held office for just 39 days before being replaced by John Curtin, whose Labor Party had successfully moved a motion of no confidence.

After losing the prime ministership, Fadden continued on as Leader of the Opposition for two more years. He eventually resigned in favour of Menzies following the coalition's massive defeat at the 1943 election.

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International Day against Nuclear Tests

The International Day against Nuclear Tests is observed on August 29. It was established on 2 December 2009 at the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly by a unanimous resolution. The resolution in particular calls for increasing awareness "about the effects of nuclear weapon test explosions or any other nuclear explosions and the need for their cessation as one of the means of achieving the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world".

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708 – Copper coins are minted in Japan for the first time.

Wadokaichin is the oldest official Japanese coinage, having been minted starting on 29 August 708 on order of Empress Genmei.

Wadokaichin coins.

The coins, which were round with a square hole in the centre, remained in circulation until 958 AD. These were the first of a series of coins collectively called junizeni or kocho junisen. This coinage was inspired by the Chinese Tang dynasty coinage named Kaigentsuho, first minted in Chang'an in 621 CE. The Wadokaichin had the same specifications as the Chinese coin, with a diameter of 2.4 cm and a weight of 3.75 g.

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1498 – Vasco da Gama decides to depart Calicut and return to Kingdom of Portugal. He finally arrived back in Lisbon a year later on 29 August 1499.

Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (circa 1460s–1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea. His initial voyage to India in 1497–1499 was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and therefore, the West and the Orient.

Vasco da Gama leaving the port of Lisbon, Portugal.

On 8 July 1497 Vasco da Gama led a fleet of four ships with a crew of 170 men from Lisbon. The distance traveled in the journey around Africa to India and back was greater than around the equator. One storage ship of unknown name was lost along the east coast of Africa on the outward voyage.

The route followed in Vasco da Gama's first voyage 1497–1499. Vasco Da Gama landing at Calicut.

After leaving the African port of Malindi for India on 24 April 1498, the fleet arrived in Kappadu near Calicut, now Kozhikode on 20 May 1498. The King of Calicut Zamorin, away at the time, returned to Calicut on hearing the news of the foreign fleets's arrival. The navigator was received with traditional hospitality, including a grand procession of at least 3,000 armed Nairs. Despite trading and diplomatic problems, da Gama's expedition was successful beyond all reasonable expectation, bringing in cargo that was worth sixty times the cost of the expedition.

Vasco da Gama meeting Zamorin of Calicut.

From "A comprehensive history of India, civil, military, and social, from the first landing of the English to the suppression of the Sepoy revolt; including an outline of the early history of Hindoostan”, 1900, p 7.

Vasco da Gama left Calicut on 29 August 1498. Eager to set sail for home, he ignored the local knowledge of monsoon wind patterns that were still blowing onshore. The fleet initially inched north along the Indian coast, and then anchored in at Anjediva island for a spell. They finally struck out for their Indian Ocean crossing on 3 October 1498. But with the winter monsoon yet to set in, it was a harrowing journey. Da Gama's fleet finally arrived back in Malindi on 7 January 1499, in a terrible state – approximately half of the crew had died during the crossing, and many of the rest were afflicted with scurvy.

Not having enough crewmen left standing to manage three ships, da Gama ordered the Sao Rafael scuttled off the East African coast, and the crew re-distributed to the remaining two ships, the São Gabriel and the Berrio.

Triumphal parade for Vasco da Gama in Lisbon, September 1499.

After mourning the loss of his brother in the Azores, Vasco da Gama finally arrived back in Lisbon on 29 August 1499.

The expedition had exacted a large cost – two ships and over half the men had been lost. It had also failed in its principal mission of securing a commercial treaty with Calicut. Nonetheless, the spices brought back on the remaining two ships were sold at an enormous profit to the crown.

More: Vasco da Gama. Calicut or Kozhikode.

1728 – The city of Nuuk in Greenland is founded as the fort of Godt-Haab by the royal governor Claus Paarss.

Nuuk is the capital and largest city of Greenland and the municipality of Sermersooq. It is the seat of government and the country's largest cultural and economic centre. In January 2016, Nuuk had a population of 17,316 and contained almost a third of Greenland's population. Nuuk also has the tallest building in Greenland.

Nuussuaq district of Nuuk with the Sermitsiaq mountain in the background.

The site has a long history of habitation. The area around Nuuk was first occupied by the ancient pre-Inuit, Paleo-Eskimo people of the Saqqaq culture as far back as 2200 BC when they lived in the area around the now abandoned settlement of Qoornoq. For a long time it was occupied by the Dorset culture around the former settlement of Kangeq but they disappeared from the Nuuk district before AD 1000.

The Nuuk area was later inhabited by Viking explorers in the 10th century, and shortly thereafter by Inuit peoples. Inuit and Norsemen both lived with little interaction in this area from about 1000 until the disappearance of the Norse settlement for uncertain reasons during the 15th century.

The statue of Hans Egede in Nuuk.

The city proper was founded as the fort of Godt-Haab in 1728 by the royal governor Claus Paarss, when he relocated the missionary and merchant Hans Egede's earlier Hope Colony from Kangeq Island to the mainland. At that time, Greenland was formally still a Danish colony under the united Dano-Norwegian Crown, but the colony had not had any contact for over three centuries. Paarss's colonists consisted of mutinous soldiers, convicts, and prostitutes and most died within the first year of scurvy and other ailments. In 1733 and 1734, a smallpox epidemic killed most of the native population as well as Egede's wife. Hans Egede went back to Denmark in 1736 after 15 years in Greenland, leaving his son Poul to continue his work. Around 1850, Greenland, and especially the area around Nuuk, were in crisis. The Europeans had brought diseases and a culture that conflicted with the ways of the native Greenlanders.

During World War II, there was a reawakening to Greenlandic national identity. Greenlanders shared a written language and assembled a council under Eske Brun's leadership in Nuuk. The city boomed during the 1950s when Denmark began to modernise Greenland. As in Greenland as a whole, Nuuk is populated today by both Inuit and Danes.

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1817 – Explorers Oxley and Evans return to Bathurst after their unsuccessful attempt to follow the Lachlan River.

John Oxley (1784-1828) was an English naval officer who, shortly after arriving in Australia in 1802, was made Surveyor-General of the New South Wales colony. George Evans was Deputy Surveyor-General, and went on numerous expeditions, both in his own right and accompanying Oxley.

George Evans had discovered the Lachlan River in 1815, so in 1817, Oxley set out to determine its course with Evans as his second-in-command, in the first large-scale exploring expedition in Australian history. On 12 May, west of the present township of Forbes, they found their progress impeded by an extensive marsh as it was a flood year. He was unable to continue with either horses or boats, as the flooding hid snags and dangerous obstacles lurking just below the surface.

The Lachlan River at Jemalong, around 30 kilometres west of Forbes.

Oxley departed from what he called "the immense marshes of this desolate and barren country" and headed south-west in search of further rivers. Oxley's party stopped just fifty kilometres short of the Murrumbidgee River, ironically because of lack of water, passing near Rankins Springs to the Lachlan River where the river channel was again lost amongst floods and swampland. This led Oxley to the conclusion that the interior of NSW was largely marshland and unsuitable for settlement. Early in July, Oxley declared what is now valuable pastureland around the Lachlan River to be "forever uninhabitable, and useless for the purposes of civilised man".

They left the Lachlan at Kiacatoo up-stream of the present site of Lake Cargelligo and crossed to the Bogan River and then across to the Wellington Valley on the upper waters of the Macquarie River, which they followed back to Bathurst, arriving on 29 August 1817.

View of Wellington Valley by Conrad Martens, 1840. The Prisoners' Barracks are visible in the middle distance among a line of buildings. State Library of NSW.

Despite his disappointment at the results of following the Lachlan River, Oxley was able to report on fertile country he had discovered around an area he called Wellington Valley, and to which he returned for further exploration the following year. The Wellington Valley would later be made the site of a convict settlement mostly for "convict specials" i.e. invalids, the insane or educated gentlemen convicts.

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NB: My great grandfather came to the Lachlan as a young man in 1839 or 1840 finding employment on a station west of Forbes. After the death of the station owner, he married the widow and became the owner of a nearby station which later proved to be one of the most valuable properties on the river. My grandfather was born and raised there. I was born and raised on the Lachlan as well, a little further west.

1869 – The Mount Washington Cog Railway opens, making it the world's first mountain-climbing rack railway.

The Mount Washington Cog Railway is the world's first mountain-climbing cog railway (rack-and-pinion railway). The railway is still in operation, climbing Mount Washington in New Hampshire, USA.

Mount Washington Cog Railway.

It uses a Marsh rack system and one or two steam locomotives and six biodiesel powered locomotives to carry tourists to the top of the mountain. Its track is built to 4 ft 8 in gauge, which is technically a narrow gauge railway. The railway is approximately 4.8 kilometres long and the train ascends the mountain at 4.5 km/h and descends at 7.4 km/h. It takes approximately 65 minutes to ascend and 40 minutes to descend although the diesel can go up in as little as 37 minutes.

Leaving the depot circa 1880s, Partway up the mountain, Arrival on the summit, "Devil's shingles" down.

"Devil's shingle" slideboards: In the early days of the railway's construction, the workers wanted to minimise time when climbing and descending the ramp, so they invented slideboards fitting over the cog rack and providing enough room for themselves and their tools. These boards were made of wood with hand-forged iron and with two long hardwood handles usually attached at the down-mountain end. The average time for the descent of the mountain using these boards was about 15 minutes. The record descent time was 2 minutes and 45 seconds, an average speed above 100 km/h.

The Mount Washington Cog Railway is the second steepest rack railway in the world after the Pilatus railway in Switzerland, with an average grade of over 25% and a maximum grade of 37.41%.

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