What happened on August 31 ?

1056 - Byzantine Empress Theodora dies suddenly without children to succeed the throne, ending the Macedonian dynasty

1864 - American Civil War: Union forces led by General William T. Sherman launch an assault on Atlanta, Georgia.

1876 - Ottoman sultan Murat V is deposed and succeeded by his brother Abd-ul-Hamid II.

1886 - Earthquake kills 100 in Charleston, South Carolina

1888 - Mary Ann Nicholls is murdered. She is the first of Jack the Ripper's known victims

1895 - John Brallier is paid US$10 plus expenses to play football for the Latrobe, Pennsylvania YMCA, making him the first professional football player.

1897 - Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector.

1907 - England, Russia and France form the Triple Entente alliance.

1914 - Ecuador becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.

1915 - Brazil becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.

1920 - Polish-Bolshevik War: A decisive Polish victory in the Battle of Komarów.

1920 - First news radio program broadcast in Detroit, Michigan.

1939 - Nazi Germany mounts a staged attack on Gleiwitz radio station, giving them an excuse to attack Poland the following day, starting World War II in Europe.

1943 - The USS Harmon, the first U.S. Navy ship to be named for a black person, is commissioned.

1945 - The Liberal Party of Australia is founded by Robert Menzies.

1957 - The Federation of Malaya gains its independence from the United Kingdom.

1962 - Trinidad and Tobago become independent.

1965 - The Aero Spacelines Super Guppy Aircraft makes its first flight.

1978 - William and Emily Harris, founders of the Symbionese Liberation Army, plead guilty to the 1974 kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst.

1980 - The Solidarity trade union is formed in Poland.

1986 - An Aeroméxico Douglas DC-9 collides with a Piper PA-28 over Cerritos, California, killing 67 in the air and 15 on the ground.

1986 - The Soviet passenger liner Admiral Nakhimov sinks in the Black Sea after colliding with the bulk carrier Pyotr Vasev, killing 398.

1991 - Kyrgyzstan declares its independence from the Soviet Union.

1992 - Pascal Lissouba is inaugurated as the President of the Republic of the Congo after a multiparty presidential election, ending a long history of one-party oppressive rule under the Congolese Workers Party.

1994 - The Provisional Irish Republican Army declares a ceasefire.

1997 - Diana, Princess of Wales, dies in a car crash in Paris.

1998 - North Korea reportedly launchs Kwangmyongsong, its first satellite.

1999 - The first of a series of Russian Apartment Bombings in Moscow, killing one person and wounding 40 others.

2005 - A stampede on Al-Aaimmah bridge in Baghdad kills 1,199 people.