01010908 This Day In History, September 8

394: Arbogast, a general of the Roman empire (see A History Of Jerusalem: Pompey And The Caesars, A History Of Jerusalem: Titus And The Zealots, A History Of Jerusalem: Hadrian and Simon bar Kokhba and A History Of Jerusalem: Constantine and Muhammad), committed suicide after the battle of the Frigidus River that ended in victory for Theodosius.

617: The Battle of Huoyi in China. Li Yuan defeated a Sui Dynasty army, enabling his capture of the imperial capital Chang'an and the eventual establishment of the Tang Dynasty.

1011: The Danes sacked Canterbury and seized Aelfheah, the archbishop of Canterbury, who they held for 7 months before killing him in April 1012.

1264: The Statute of Kalisz, guaranteeing Jews safety and personal liberties and giving battei din jurisdiction over Jewish matters, was promulgated by Boleslaus the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland.

1331: Stephen Uros IV Dusan declared himself king of Serbia.

1380: The Battle of Kulikovo. Russian forces defeated an army of Tatars and Mongols, stopping their advance.

1504: Michelangelo's David was unveiled in Florence, Italy.

1565: The Knights of Malta lifted the Turkish siege of Malta that began on May 18.

1664: The Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York after the Duke of York.

1755: During the Seven Years War (1756-1763) in North America, English troops under the command of William Johnson defeated French and native-American force at the Battle of Lake George. Although known as "the French and Indian War" in the U.S., it was actually a world war, fought on a larger geographic scale (Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines) than the two world wars of the twentieth century.

1760: The French surrendered Montreal to British forces under the command of Jeffrey Amherst.

1831: William IV and Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen were crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

1860: The Steamship Lady Elgin sank on Lake Michigan, with the loss of around 300 lives.

1900: A hurricane with winds of 120 mph and a following tidal wave at Galveston, Texas, killed at least 8,000 people and destroyed over 2,500 buildings in the city.

1923: The Honda Point Disaster. Nine U.S. Navy destroyers ran aground off the California coast. Seven of the ships were lost, twenty-three sailors killed.

1944: Germany began the V-2 rocket bombing of Britain.

1945: Korea was partitioned into North and South by the U.S. and the Soviet Union (within a decade, the French partitioned Vietnam into North and South also).

1945: Hideki Tojo, Japanese prime minister during most of the Second World War, attempted suicide rather than face a war crimes tribunal. The attempt failed and he was later convicted and hanged.

1974: To prevent criminal prosecution of Richard Nixon, President Gerald Ford granted the former President a full pardon for "any and all crimes that he may have committed while in office."

1991: The Republic of Macedonia became independent.