1687

Having stood more than 2,000 years, the grand and glorious Parthenon of Athens is nearly destroyed during the Morean War (1684–1699) when a Venetian mortar round ignites Ottoman Turk gunpowder stored inside.

1918

Meuse-Argonne offensive opens after a six-hour-long bombardment over the previous night. More than 700 Allied tanks, followed closely by infantry troops, and supported by some 500 aircraft from the U.S. Air Service advance against German positions in the Argonne Forest and along the Meuse River.

1944

Operation Market Garden, a plan to seize bridges in the Dutch town of Arnhem, fails, as thousands of British and Polish troops are killed, wounded, or taken prisoner.

1945

America’s first casualty in Vietnam; Lt. Col. Peter Dewey, a U.S. Army officer with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), is shot and killed in Saigon.

1960

For the first time in U.S. history, a debate between major party presidential candidates is shown on television.