Michael Phelps breaks the record set in 1964 by Larisa Latynina for the most medals won at the Olympics.
Discovery Program: Lunar Prospector: NASA intentionally crashes the spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the Moon's surface.
The nation of Georgia joins the United Nations.
The United States and Soviet Union both sign the START I Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the first to reduce (with verification) both countries' stockpiles.
The Troubles: In Operation Motorman, the British Army re-takes the urban no-go areas of Northern Ireland. It is the biggest British military operation since the Suez Crisis of 1956, and the biggest in Ireland since the Irish War of Independence. Late...
Apollo program: the Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover.
Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes.
World War II: The Battle of Smolensk concludes with Germany capturing about 300,000 Soviet Red Army prisoners.
World War I: The Battle of Passchendaele begins near Ypres in West Flanders, Belgium.
Patrick Francis Healy became the first African-American inaugurated as president of a predominantly white university, Georgetown University.
The first narrow-gauge mainline railway in the world opens at Grandchester, Queensland, Australia.
The first U.S. patent is issued, to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.
Aurangzeb is proclaimed Mughal emperor of India.
On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to discover the island of Trinidad.
The oldest recorded eruption of Mount Fuji (Traditional Japanese date: Sixth day of the seventh month of the first year of the Ten'o (天応) era).
Battle of Alexandria: Mark Antony achieves a minor victory over Octavian's forces, but most of his army subsequently deserts, leading to his suicide.