Today in History in 2011 A magnitude 5.8 earthquake strikes near Mineral, Virginia, and is felt all the way along the eastern seaboard of the United States. No one is killed, but damage is reported on buildings, including monuments in Washington, DC.

Our on this day in history archives contain over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

August 23 is the 235th day of the year (236th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 130 days remaining until the end of the year.

EVENTS

30 BC - After a successful invasion of Egypt, Octavian has Marcus Antonius Antyllus and Caesarion executed.

79 - Mount Vesuvius starts to show activity, a day before it erupted, destroying Pompeii and Herculaneum.

406 - Gothic king Radagaisus is executed after he is defeated by Roman general Stilicho.

476 - Odoacer, chieftain of the Germanic tribes, is proclaimed King of Italy by his troops.

1244 - Siege of Jerusalem: The city's citadel, the Tower of David, surrenders to the Kharezmian Empire.

1305 – William Wallace is executed.

1328 – Battle of Kassel: French troops stop an uprising of Flemish farmers

1328 – King Philip VI of France is crowned.

1382 - Siege of Moscow: The Golden Horde led by khan Tokhtamysh lays siege to the capital of the Grand Duchy of Moscow.

1521 - Christian II of Denmark is deposed as King of Sweden and Gustav Vasa is elected regent.

1540 – French explorer Jacques Cartier lands near Quebec City in his third voyage to Canada.

1566 – Calvinists are granted rights in the Netherlands.

1592 - Japanese invasions of Korea: Yeongwon Castle is besieged by the Japanese Fourth Division, led by Ito Suketaka.

1614 – The University of Groningen is established.

1617 – In London, the first one-way street is established.

1628 - George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham is assassinated by John Felton.

1651 – Charles II enters Worcester and starts a battle.

1655 - Battle of Sobota: The Swedish Empire led by Charles X Gustav defeats the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

1784 – Eastern Tennessee declares itself an independent state under the name of Franklin; the step is rejected by Congress one year later.

1793 – French Revolution: a levée en masse was decreed by the National Convention.

1799 – Napoleon leaves Egypt for France en route to seize power.

1813 – At the Battle of Grossbeeren, the Prussians under Von Bulow repulse the French army.

1821 – Mexico gains its independence from Spain.

1833 – Slavery abolished in the British colonies.

1839 – The UK captures Hong Kong.

1858 - The Round Oak rail accident occurs in Brierley Hill in the Black Country, England.

1864 – The Union Navy captures Fort Morgan, Alabama, thus breaking Confederate dominance of all ports on the Gulf of Mexico.

1866 – Austro-Prussian War ends with the Treaty of Prague.

1873 - The Albert Bridge is opened across the Thames in Chelsea, London, England, United Kingdom.

1889 – First wireless message from a ship to the shore received.

1896 - Start of the Philippines Revolution.

1904 – The automobile tire chain is patented.

1913 – A statue of the Little Mermaid is put up in Copenhagen.

1914 – World War I: Japan declares war on Germany and bombs Qingdao, China.

1921 - British airship R-38 experiences a structural failure over Kingston-Upon-Hull and crashes into the Humber estuary.

1924 – The distance between Earth and Mars is the smallest since the 10th century.

1927 – Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti are executed in Boston, Massachusetts.

1929 – Arabs attack Jews in Israel.

1938 - English cricketer Len Hutton sets the world record for the highest individual test innings of 364, against Australia.

1939 – World War II: Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression treaty, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. In a secret addition to the pact, Baltic states, Finland and Poland are divided between the two nations.

1940 – World War II: The Germans start bombing London.

1942 – World War II: Beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad

1943 – World War II: Kharkov liberated.

1944 – World War II: Marseille liberated.

1944 – World War II: King Michael of Romania dismisses the pro-Nazi government of General Antonescu. Romania switches sides from the Axis to the Allies.

1944 – A US Army Air Force B-24 Liberator bomber crashes into a school in Freckleton, England killing 61 people.

1944 – World War II: Ion Antonescu, Prime Minister of Romania, is arrested and a new government is established. Romania exits the war against Russia joining the Allies.

1946 - Three states are created in the British occupation zone of post-World War II Germany: North Rhine-Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein, and the short-lived state of Hanover.

1947 – The Maynard Midgets beat Lock Haven 16-7 to win the first-ever Little League World Series championship.

1948 – World Council of Churches is formed.

1950 - The Subansiri Dam break in India kills 532 people.

1952 – The Arab League goes into effect.

1958 – Chinese Civil War: The Second Taiwan Strait crisis begins with the People's Liberation Army's bombardment of Quemoy.

1960 – In Equatorial Guinea, the world's largest frog (3.3 kg) is caught.

1962 – First live television connection between the United States and Europe, via the Telstar satellite.

1966 – Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.

1968 – Ringo Starr temporarily quits The Beatles

1973 – The Intelsat communication satellite is launched.

1973 - Salvador Allende, President of Chile, named Augusto Pinochet as Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army. Just 19 days later, Pinochet takes power in a coup, overthrowing Allende, who is killed.

1975 – Successful Communist coup in Laos

1976 – A major earthquake in China kills thousands of people.

1979 – Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defects to the United States.

1982 - Bachir Gemayel is elected President of Lebanon during his country's civil war. He will not become president, as he is killed on September 14, before he can take office.

1985 – Hans Tiedge, top counter-spy of West Germany, defects to East Germany.

1987 – Heavy rains and floods in Bangladesh kill hundreds of victims.

1989 – Singing Revolution: two million people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania stand on the Vilnius-Tallinn road, holding hands (Baltic way).

1989 – All of Australia's 1,645 domestic airline pilots resign after the airlines threaten to sack them and sue them over a dispute.

1990 – Saddam Hussein appears on Iraqi state television with a number of Western "guests" (actually hostages to try to prevent the Gulf War).

1990 – Armenia declares its independence from the Soviet Union.

1990 – West Germany and East Germany announce that they will unite on October 3.

1991 - Tim Berners-Lee opens the World Wide Web to new users.

1992 – Hurricane Andrew hits South Florida.

1993 - The Galileo spacecraft discovers a moon orbiting around an asteroid; Dactyl orbits around the asteroid 243 Ida.

1999 – The Federal Republic of Germany is governed from Berlin from this day.

2000 – A Gulf Air Airbus A320 crashes into the Persian Gulf near Manama, Bahrain, killing 143 people.

2000 – Nicaragua becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty. This basically replaced the Buenos Aires Convention treaty, because as of this date, all members of the BA Convention were also signatories to Berne.

From 2001

2005 – Hurricane Katrina forms as a tropical depression.

2006 – In Austria, Natascha Kampusch manages to escape from 8 years of captivity. Her captor Wolfgang Priklopil commits suicide soon after.

2010 – Nine people, including the hostage taker, are killed in a hostage crisis on board a bus in Manila, Philippines.

2011 - 2011 Virginia earthquake: A magnitude 5.8 earthquake strikes near Mineral, Virginia, and is felt all the way along the eastern seaboard of the United States. No one is killed, but damage is reported on buildings, including monuments in Washington, DC.

2018 - Sexual harassment allegations against former First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond are made public.