What happened on 1 August?

19 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 527 Reign of Justinian I Eastern emperor who codifies Roman law, reconquers Italy and Africa, and builds Hagia Sophia.
2. 1960 The Beatles Liverpool band that became the most influential popular group of the 20th century.
3. 1526 First transatlantic slave voyage Portuguese ships carry the first enslaved Africans directly across the Atlantic to the Americas.
4. 1936 Stalin's Great Purge Mass political repression in the Soviet Union; hundreds of thousands executed.
5. 1914 Germany declares war on Russia Begins WW1 on the Eastern Front.
6. 1888 Van Gogh's Sunflowers series Series of still-lifes in yellow tones painted in Arles.
7. 1904 Siege of Port Arthur Five-month Japanese siege of the Russian-leased fortress; combination of trenches, mines, machine guns foreshadows WWI.
8. 1944 Warsaw Uprising Polish Home Army rises against Nazi occupation; Soviets halt across the Vistula; 200,000 Poles killed; Warsaw flattened.
9. 1798 Battle of the Nile Nelson destroys the French fleet in Aboukir Bay, stranding Bonaparte's army in Egypt and reasserting British naval dominance.
10. 1714 Reign of George I Reign of George I (1714-1727) as monarch of England (later Britain/UK).
11. 1981 MTV launches Music television channel launches in the US.
12. 1971 Ravi Shankar plays the Concert for Bangladesh Shankar asks George Harrison for help with famine relief and the first celebrity benefit concert follows, opening with his own set at Madison Square Garden.
13. 1714 Hanoverian Succession Queen Anne dies and the crown passes over fifty Catholic claimants to George of Hanover — the Protestant succession made fact.
14. 1774 Priestley isolates oxygen Heating mercuric oxide with a burning lens, Priestley captures 'dephlogisticated air' — the gas Lavoisier would rename oxygen.
15. 1936 Berlin Olympics 1936 Nazi-hosted games at which Jesse Owens wins four gold medals.
16. 1291 Old Swiss Confederacy founded Three alpine cantons swear a mutual defence pact against Habsburg rule, the seed of modern Switzerland.
17. 1759 Battle of Minden An Anglo-allied army defeats the French in Westphalia, securing Hanover during the Seven Years' War.
18. 1673 Three Feudatories Revolt Major Qing-era rebellion in southern China led by Wu Sangui.
19. 1664 Battle of Saint Gotthard Montecuccoli's imperial army throws the Ottomans back across the Rába — the first major field defeat of the Turks by the Habsburgs, though the peace that followed gave the victory