Today in 1929 Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs in his career with a home run at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio.

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 11 is the 223rd day of the year (224th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 142 days remain until the end of the year.

EVENTS

3114 BC – The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations, notably the Maya, begins.

2492 BC – Traditional date of the defeat of Bel by Hayk, progenitor and founder of the Armenian nation.

106 – The south-western part of Dacia (modern Romania) becomes a Roman province: Roman Dacia.

117 – Hadrian is proclaimed Roman emperor, two days after Trajan's death.

355 – Claudius Silvanus, accused of treason, proclaims himself Roman Emperor against Constantius II.

490 – Battle of Adda: The Goths under Theodoric the Great and his ally Alaric II defeat the forces of Odoacer on the Adda River, near Milan.

923 – The Qarmatians of Bahrayn capture and pillage the city of Basra.

1315 – The Great Famine of Europe becomes so dire that even the king of England has difficulties buying bread for himself and his entourage.

1332 – Wars of Scottish Independence: Battle of Dupplin Moor: Scots under Domhnall II, Earl of Mar are routed by Edward Balliol.

1473 – The Battle of Otlukbeli: Mehmed the Conqueror of the Ottoman Empire decisively defeats Uzun Hassan of Aq Qoyunlu.

1492 – Rodrigo de Borja is elected as Head of the Catholic Church, taking the name Pope Alexander VI.

1675 – Franco-Dutch War: Forces of the Holy Roman Empire defeat the French in the Battle of Konzer Brücke.

1685 – Morean War: The 49-day Siege of Coron ends with the surrender and massacre of its garrison by the Venetians.[

1786 – Captain Francis Light establishes the British colony of Penang in Malaysia.

1804 – Francis II assumes the title of first Emperor of Austria.

1812 – Peninsular War: French troops engage British-Portuguese forces in the Battle of Majadahonda.

1813 – In Colombia, Juan del Corral declares the independence of Antioquia.

1858 – The Eiger in the Bernese Alps is ascended for the first time by Charles Barrington accompanied by Christian Almer and Peter Bohren.

1871 – An explosion of guncotton occurs in Stowmarket, England, killing 28

1898 – Spanish–American War: American troops enter the city of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

1901–present

1918 – World War I: The Battle of Amiens ends.

1919 – Germany's Weimar Constitution is signed into law

1920 – The 1920 Cork hunger strike begins which eventually results in the deaths of three Irish Republicans including the Lord Mayor of Cork Terence MacSwiney

1920 – The Latvian–Soviet Peace Treaty, which relinquished Russia's authority and pretenses to Latvia, is signed, ending the Latvian War of Independence.

1929 – Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs in his career with a home run at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio.

1934 – The first civilian prisoners arrive at the Federal prison on Alcatraz Island.

1942 – Actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil receive a patent for a Frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication system that later became the basis for modern technologies in wireless telephones, two-way radio communications, and Wi-Fi.

1945 – Poles in Kraków engage in a pogrom against Jews in the city, killing one and wounding five.

1952 – Hussein bin Talal is proclaimed King of Jordan.

1959 – Sheremetyevo International Airport, the second-largest airport in Russia, opens.

1960 – Chad declares independence from France.

1961 – The former Portuguese territories in India of Dadra and Nagar Haveli are merged to create the Union Territory Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

1962 – Vostok 3 launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev becomes the first person to float in microgravity.

1965 – Race riots (the Watts Riots) begin in the Watts area of Los Angeles, California.

1969 – The Apollo 11 astronauts are released from a three-week quarantine following their liftoff from the Moon

1972 – Vietnam War: The last United States ground combat unit leaves South Vietnam.

1975 – East Timor: Governor Mário Lemos Pires of Portuguese Timor abandons the capital Dili, following a coup by the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT) and the outbreak of civil war between UDT and Fretilin.

1979 – Two Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-134s collide over the Ukrainian city of Dniprodzerzhynsk and crash, killing all 178 aboard both airliners.

1982 – A bomb explodes on Pan Am Flight 830, en route from Tokyo, Japan to Honolulu, Hawaii, killing one passenger and injuring 15 others.

1984 – "We begin bombing in five minutes": United States President Ronald Reagan, while running for re-election, jokes while preparing to make his weekly Saturday address on National Public Radio.

1988 – A meeting between Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif, Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, and leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad in Afghanistan culminates in the formation of Al-Qaeda

1991 – Nickelodeon's first line of “Nicktoons” (Doug, Rugrats & Ren & Stimpy) premiere on the channel.

1992 – The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota opens. At the time the largest shopping mall in the United States

2000 – An air rage incident occurs on board Southwest Airlines Flight 1763 when 19-year-old Jonathan Burton attempts to storm the cockpit, but he is subdued by other passengers and dies from his injuries

2003 – NATO takes over command of the peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, marking its first major operation outside Europe in its 54-year-history.

2003 – Jemaah Islamiyah leader Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, is arrested in Bangkok, Thailand.

2006 – The oil tanker MT Solar 1 sinks off the coast of Guimaras and Negros Islands in the Philippines, causing the country's worst oil spill.

2012 – At least 306 people are killed and 3,000 others injured in a pair of earthquakes near Tabriz, Iran.

2017 – At least 41 people are killed and another 179 injured after two passenger trains collide in Alexandria, Egypt.

2023 – Luna 25 launches from the Vostochny Cosmodrome