August 4 in History

The Second Barons' War (1264–1267) was a civil war in England between the forces of barons led by Simon de Montfort against the royalist forces of King Henry III, led initially by the king himself and later by his son, the future King Edward I. The barons sought to force the king to rule with a council of barons, rather than through his favourites. To bolster the initial success of his baronial regime, de Montfort sought to broaden the social foundations of parliament by extending the franchise to the commons for the first time. However, after a rule of just over a year, de Montfort was killed by forces loyal to the king at the Battle of Evesham. The war also involved a series of massacres of Jews by some of de Montfort's supporters (and his sons Henry and Simon) in attacks aimed at seizing and destroying evidence of baronial debts.

Scone Palace is a Category A-listed historic house near the village of Scone and the city of Perth, Scotland. Ancestral seat of Earls of Mansfield, built in red sandstone with a castellated roof, it is an example of the Gothic Revival style in Scotland.

The First War of Scottish Independence was the first of a series of different wars between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland. It lasted from the English invasion of Scotland in 1296 until the de jure restoration of Scottish independence with the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton in 1328. De facto independence was established in 1314 AD following an English defeat at the Battle of Bannockburn. The wars were caused by the attempts of the English kings to seize territory by claiming sovereignty over Scotland, while the Scots fought to keep both English rule and authority out of Scotland.

The Battle of Alcácer Quibir (also known as "Battle of Three Kings" (Arabic: معركة الملوك الثلاثة) or "Battle of Wadi al-Makhazin" (Arabic: معركة وادي المخازن) in Morocco) was fought in northern Morocco, near the town of Ksar-el-Kebir (variant spellings: Ksar El Kebir, Alcácer-Quivir, Alcazarquivir, Alcassar, etc.) and Larache, on 4 August 1578. A Moroccan victory, the battle has been described as "the greatest military disaster the Portuguese ever suffered in the course of their overseas expansion." It marked an end to Portuguese attempts to reconquer territories it had lost in Morocco. The combatants were the army of the deposed Moroccan Sultan Abu Abdallah Mohammed II, with his ally, the King of Portugal Sebastian I, against a large Moroccan army under the new Sultan of Morocco (and uncle of Abu Abdallah Mohammed II) Abd Al-Malik I. The Christian king Sebastian I had planned a crusade after Abu Abdallah asked him to help recover his throne. Abu Abdallah's uncle, Abd Al-Malik, had taken it from him with Ottoman support. The defeat of Portugal and disappearance of the childless Sebastian led to the end of the Aviz dynasty, and the integration of the country into the Iberian Union for 60 years under the Philippine dynasty in a dynastic union with Spain.

Dom Pierre Pérignon (French: [dɔ̃ pjɛʁ peʁiɲɔ̃]; December 1638 – 14 September 1715), was a French Benedictine monk who made important contributions to the production and quality of champagne wine in an era when the region's wines were predominantly still red. Popular tales frequently, but erroneously, credit him with the invention of sparkling champagne, which did not become the dominant style of champagne until the mid-19th century. The famous champagne Dom Pérignon, the prestige cuvée of winery Moët & Chandon, is named after him. The remains of the monastery where he spent his adult life are now the property of that winery.

The Great Peace of Montreal (French: La Grande paix de Montréal) was a peace treaty between New France and 39 First Nations of North America that ended the Beaver Wars. It was signed on August 4, 1701, by Louis-Hector de Callière, governor of New France, and 1300 representatives of 39 Indigenous nations. The French, allied to the Hurons and the Algonquins, brokered a peace agreement between their allies and the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee, with over 1,300 Native Americans present, representing over 40 nations. The peace was fragile, however; although all-out war did not break out, within only three years the Odawa attacked a Haudenosaunee village near a French fort in present-day Kingston, Ontario. The warriors planted a Huron club on a dead Haudenosaunee warrior to try to provoke new fighting. This has sometimes been called the Grand Settlement of 1701, not to be confused with the unrelated Act of Settlement 1701 in England. It has often been referred to as La Paix des Braves, meaning "The Peace of the Braves".

The War of the Spanish Succession, 1701 to 1714, was a European great power conflict, caused by the death of Charles II of Spain in November 1700 without children. This led to a succession crisis between Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV of France, and Archduke Charles of Austria, backed by the Grand Alliance. Related conflicts include the Great Northern War and Queen Anne's War in North America.

The Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (Dutch: Vierde Engels-Nederlandse Oorlog; 1780–1784) was a conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Dutch Republic. The war, contemporary with the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), broke out over British and Dutch disagreements on the legality and conduct of Dutch trade with Britain's enemies in that war. Although the Dutch Republic did not enter into a formal alliance with the insurgent Americans and their French and Spanish allies, American envoy (and future president) John Adams had his credentials accepted as ambassador, establishing diplomatic relations with the Dutch Republic, making it the second European country to diplomatically recognize the United States of America in April 1782 as a sovereign nation. In October 1782, a treaty of amity and commerce was concluded as well. Most of the war consisted of a series of British operations against Dutch colonial economic interests, although British and Dutch naval forces also met once off the Dutch coast. The war ended disastrously for the Dutch and exposed the weakness of the political and economic foundations of the republic. The war exposed the decline of the Dutch Empire since the early 18th century, and further cemented Great Britain as the leading commercial power between the two empires.

Mount Asama (浅間山, Asama-yama) is an active stratovolcano in central Honshū, the main island of Japan. The volcano is the most active on Honshū. The Japan Meteorological Agency classifies Mount Asama as rank A. It stands 2,568 metres (8,425 ft) above sea level on the border of Gunma and Nagano prefectures. It is included in 100 Famous Japanese Mountains.

France, officially the French Republic, is a country primarily located in Western Europe. Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean. Metropolitan France shares borders with Belgium and Luxembourg to the north; Germany to the northeast; Switzerland to the east; Italy and Monaco to the southeast; Andorra and Spain to the south; and a maritime border with the United Kingdom to the northwest. Its metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea. Its 18 integral regions—five of which are overseas—span a combined area of 632,702 km2 (244,288 sq mi), with a total population estimated at over 69.1 million in 2026. Its capital, largest city and main cultural and economic centre is Paris, with a metropolitan population of over 13 million.

A tariff, or import tax, is a duty imposed by a national government, customs territory, or supranational union on imports of goods and is paid by the importer. Exceptionally, an export tax may be levied on exports of goods or raw materials and is paid by the exporter. Besides being a source of revenue, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and policy that burden foreign products to encourage or safeguard domestic industry. Protective tariffs are among the most widely used instruments of protectionism, along with import quotas and export quotas and other non-tariff barriers to trade.

The Treaty of Sistova ended the last Austro-Turkish war (1787–91). Brokered by Great Britain, Prussia and the Netherlands, it was signed in Sistova (modern Svishtov) in Bulgaria on 4 August 1791. The treaty was written in French and Turkish.

The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of sweeping military conflicts resulting from the French Revolution that lasted from 1792 until 1802. They pitted France against Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and several other countries. The wars are divided into two periods: the War of the First Coalition (1792–1797) and the War of the Second Coalition (1798–1802). Initially confined to Europe, the fighting gradually assumed a global dimension. After a decade of constant warfare and aggressive diplomacy, France had conquered territories in the Italian peninsula, the Low Countries, and the Rhineland with its very large and powerful military which had been totally mobilized for war against most of Europe with mass conscription of the vast French population. French success in these conflicts ensured military occupation and the spread of revolutionary principles over much of Europe.

The War of 1812 was a conflict initiated by the United States against the United Kingdom and its allies fought mainly in North America and at sea during the wider Napoleonic Wars. The United States declared war on Britain on 18 June 1812. Although peace terms were agreed upon in the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent, the war did not officially end until the peace treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on 17 February 1815.

The Saturday Evening Post is an American magazine published six times a year. It was first published in 1821, and published weekly from 1897 until 1963. It was published every other week until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely circulated and influential magazines among the American middle class, with fiction, nonfiction, cartoons, and features that reached two million homes every week. In the 1960s, the magazine's readership began to decline. In 1969, The Saturday Evening Post folded for two years before being revived as a quarterly publication with an emphasis on medical articles in 1971. As of the late 2000s, The Saturday Evening Post is published by the Saturday Evening Post Society, which purchased the magazine in 1982. The magazine was redesigned in 2013.

The national flag of Japan is a rectangular white banner with a red circle at its center. The flag is officially called the Nisshōki , but is more commonly known in Japan as the Hinomaru . It embodies the country's sobriquet: the Land of the Rising Sun.

Matica Slovenská (en. Slovak Matica) is the oldest Slovak national, cultural and scientific organization. The headquarters of Slovak Matica is the town of Martin, Slovakia as the center of the national culture of Slovaks, where it was founded in 1863 and revived in 1919. Slovak Matica is a public institution that operates as a national scientific and cultural centre. It has facilities both in the Slovak Republic and abroad. Slovak Matica works to develop and protect the national rights, identity, and development of Slovak culture and the Slovak nation. Slovak Matica is a legal entity. It establishes its organizational units on the territory of the Slovak Republic as well as abroad. The position and activity of Slovak Matica is regulated by Act no. 68/1997 Coll. on the Slovak Matica as amended and the Statutes of Slovak Matica.

The American Indian Wars, also known as the American Frontier Wars, and the Indian Wars, were initially fought by European colonial empires, the United States, and briefly the Confederate States of America and Republic of Texas against various American Indian tribes in North America. These conflicts occurred from the time of the earliest colonial settlements in the 17th century until the end of the 19th century. The various conflicts resulted from a wide variety of factors, the most common being the desire of settlers and governments for tribal lands. The European powers and their colonies enlisted allied Indian tribes to help them conduct warfare against each other's colonial settlements. After the American Revolution, many conflicts were local to specific states or regions and frequently involved disputes over land use; many involved retaliatory violence. As American settlement expanded westward after the American Revolution, conflicts between the United States and Native American nations increased in scale and frequency. A major turning point came during the War of 1812, when Native confederacies in the Old Northwest and the Southern United States allied with the British against the United States. Following the war, armed resistance continued in some regions, but relations between the United States and Native nations were increasingly governed through treaties that transferred large areas of Indigenous land to the United States. Historians have noted that the United States frequently failed to uphold treaty obligations, contributing to recurring disputes and further conflict. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized the president to negotiate treaties exchanging Native American lands east of the Mississippi River for lands in the west. Although the act itself provided for negotiated removals, federal and state authorities subsequently used a combination of treaties, political pressure, and coercion to relocate many Native nations from the southeastern United States to Indian Territory. The resulting removals, including the Trail of Tears, transferred millions of acres of Indigenous land to the United States and opened much of the Southeast to American settlement. As American settlement expanded across the Great Plains and the Western United States, the federal government increasingly confined Native peoples to Indian reservations through treaties, military campaigns, and congressional legislation. Native American tribes and confederacies often achieved significant military victories against American settlers and soldiers, but generally lacked the population, resources, and logistical capacity to sustain prolonged resistance against the expanding United States. Some scholars have characterized aspects of United States policies toward Native Americans, including forced removals, warfare, and reservation policies, as constituting genocide against Native Americans. Other scholars dispute the application of the term genocide to the American Indian Wars as a whole, arguing that the conflicts varied significantly across time and place.

Granny was the affectionate name eventually given to a beadlet sea anemone, Actinia equina, which in 1828 was taken from a rocky shore at North Berwick in Scotland by an amateur naturalist, John Dalyell. During her long life through the Victorian era, she was cared for by a series of Edinburgh naturalists. Long outliving Dalyell, this sea anemone lived alone in a jar where she gave birth to several hundred offspring before her death in 1887.

The Great Spokane Fire—known locally as The Great Fire—affected downtown Spokane, Washington (called "Spokane Falls" at the time) on August 4, 1889. It began just after 6:00 p.m. and destroyed the city's downtown commercial district. Due to technical problems with a pump station, there was no water pressure in the city when the fire started. In a desperate bid to starve the fire, firefighters began razing buildings with dynamite. Eventually winds died down and the fire exhausted of its own accord. As a result of the fire and its aftermath, virtually all of Spokane's downtown was destroyed, though only one person was killed. The cause of the fire was never determined. Theories included a cooking fire in a lunchroom, a curling iron being heated in a kerosene lamp, and a spark from a passing train.

Lizzie Andrew Borden (July 19, 1860 – June 1, 1927) was an American woman who was tried and acquitted of the murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts. No other individuals were charged with the murders. After the trial, Borden and her older sister Emma bought a house in the wealthier Highlands, or Hill District, of Fall River, where Borden lived out her life. Emma moved away after twelve years and lived in New Hampshire. Borden died of pneumonia at age 66; nine days later Emma also died. The Borden murders and 1893 trial received widespread publicity in the United States, and have remained a topic in American popular culture depicted in numerous films, theatrical productions, literary works, and even folk rhymes.

World War I, or the First World War, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, World War I resulted in an estimated 15 to 22 million deaths, including those in war crimes and genocides. The war also helped spread the Spanish flu pandemic. The conflict saw important developments in weaponry, including the first large-scale use of machine guns, artillery, aircraft, chemical weapons, and tanks.

The 12th Army (German: 12. Armee / Armeeoberkommando 12 / A.O.K. 12) was an army level command of the German Army in World War I formed in August 1915 by the redesignation of Armee-Gruppe Gallwitz. It served exclusively on the Eastern Front and was dissolved on 9 October 1916 when its commander, General der Infanterie Max von Fabeck, was transferred to 8th Army.

İsmâil Enver Pasha (Ottoman Turkish: اسماعیل انور پاشا; Turkish: İsmail Enver Paşa; 23 November 1881 – 4 August 1922) was a Turkish military officer, revolutionary, and convicted war criminal who served as the Ottoman Empire's Minister of War from 1914 to 1918. Along with Talaat and Djemal, he was one of the Three Pashas that ruled the Ottoman Empire during World War I and one of the principal perpetrators of the Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian genocides. While stationed in Ottoman Macedonia, Enver joined the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), an organization affiliated with the Young Turks movement that was agitating against Sultan Abdul Hamid II's despotic rule. He was a key leader of the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, which reestablished the Constitution and parliamentary democracy in the Ottoman Empire. Along with Ahmed Niyazi, Enver was hailed as "hero of the revolution". However, a series of crises in the empire, including the 31 March Incident, the Balkan Wars, and the power struggle with the Freedom and Accord Party, left Enver and the Unionists disillusioned with liberal Ottomanism. After the 1913 Ottoman coup d'état brought the CUP directly to power, Enver became War Minister, while Talaat assumed control over the civilian government. As war minister and de facto Commander-in-Chief, Enver was one of the most powerful figures in the Ottoman government. He initiated the formation of an alliance with Germany, and was instrumental in the Ottoman entry into World War I. Enver led a disastrous attack on Russian forces in the Battle of Sarikamish, after which he blamed Armenians for his defeat. Following defeat in World War I, Enver, along with other leading Unionists, escaped the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Military Tribunal convicted him and other Unionists and sentenced them to death in absentia for bringing the empire into World War I and organizing massacres against Greeks and Armenians. Enver sought to return during the Turkish War of Independence, but Mustafa Kemal refused to allow him to join the Turkish National Movement. He attempted to realise his pan-Turkic ideals by leading the Basmachi Revolt against the Bolsheviks in Bukhara, where he was killed in 1922. As Enver rose through the ranks of the military, he was known by increasingly esteemed titles, including Enver Efendi (انور افندی), Enver Bey (انور بك), and finally Enver Pasha. "Pasha" was the honorary title granted to Ottoman military officers upon promotion to the rank of Mirliva (major general). In the Republic of Turkey, he became a controversial figure due to his rivalry with Kemal, but his image was rehabilitated in the 1990s by Turkish President Süleyman Demirel, who praised his contributions to Turkish nationalism. In 1996, his remains were repatriated and reburied in Turkey.

The nations Mexico and Russia initially established diplomatic relations in 1890. In 1924, Mexico recognized and established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. In 1930, Mexico broke diplomatic relations with the USSR and granted asylum to Leon Trotsky (who was later killed in Mexico City in 1940). In 1943, Mexico and the USSR re-established diplomatic relations. After the dissolution of the union, Mexico once again established diplomatic relations with the current Russian Federation in 1992. Both nations are members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, G-20 major economies and the United Nations.

The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered around six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, approximately two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were committed primarily through mass shootings across Eastern Europe and poison gas chambers in extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chełmno and Majdanek death camps in occupied Poland. Concurrent Nazi persecutions killed millions of other non-Jewish civilians and prisoners of war (POWs); the term Holocaust is sometimes used to include the murder and persecution of non-Jewish groups, such as the Romani and Soviet POWs.

The 1946 Dominican Republic earthquake occurred on August 4 at 13:51 AST near Samaná, Dominican Republic. It was the largest earthquake to occur in the instrumental era in the Caribbean. It generated a tsunami that was observed as far as New Jersey. A total of 1,790 deaths were reported.

The Supreme Court of Japan , located in Hayabusachō, Chiyoda, Tokyo, is the highest court in Japan. It has ultimate judicial authority to interpret the Japanese constitution and decide questions of national law. It has the power of judicial review, which allows it to determine the constitutionality of any law or official act.

The civil rights movement was a social movement in the United States from 1954 to 1968 which aimed to abolish legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the country, which most commonly affected African Americans. The movement had origins in the Reconstruction era in the late 19th century, and modern roots in the 1940s and in Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent movement in India. After years of nonviolent protests and civil disobedience campaigns, the civil rights movement achieved many of its legislative goals in the 1960s, during which it secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident refers to a naval confrontation in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam, which led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. On 2 August 1964 there was a clash between a destroyer of the United States Navy that was collecting signals intelligence close to North Vietnamese waters, and three North Vietnamese naval vessels. On the night of 4 August, two US destroyers reported they were attacked by North Vietnamese vessels and that they were returning fire. Later investigation revealed that the 4 August attack did not happen; no North Vietnamese vessels had been present. Shortly after the events, the National Security Agency, an agency of the US Defense Department, deliberately skewed intelligence to create the impression that an attack had been carried out.

The politics of the Cook Islands takes place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democracy within a constitutional monarchy. The monarch of New Zealand, represented in the Cook Islands by the King or Queen's Representative, is the head of state; the prime minister is the head of government of a multi-party system. The nation is self-governing and fully responsible for its internal and foreign affairs; it has run its own foreign and defence policy since 2001. Executive power is exercised by the government, while legislative power is vested in both the government and the parliament. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislatures.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

The president of the Republic of Uganda is the head of state and the head of government of Uganda. The president leads the executive branch of the government of Uganda and is the commander-in-chief of the Uganda People's Defence Force.

The Italicus Express massacre was a terrorist bombing in Italy on a train of the public rail network. On 4 August 1974, the bomb attack killed 12 people and wounded 48. Responsibility was claimed by the neo-fascist terrorist organization Ordine Nero.

The Japanese Red Army was a far-left militant organization active from 1971 to 2001. The JRA was founded by Fusako Shigenobu and Tsuyoshi Okudaira in February 1971, and was most active in the 1970s and 1980s, operating mostly out of Lebanon with PFLP collaboration and funding from Muammar Gaddafi's Libya, as well as Ba'athist Syria and North Korea.

The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.

Jean-Baptiste Philippe Ouédraogo, also referred to by his initials JBO, is a Burkinabé physician and retired military officer who served as President of Upper Volta from 8 November 1982 to 4 August 1983. He has since mediated a few national political disputes and operates a clinic in Somgandé.

The Republic of Upper Volta, or simply Upper Volta, was a landlocked West African country established on 11 December 1958 as a self-governing state within the French Community. Before becoming autonomous, it was part of the French Union as the French Upper Volta. On 5 August 1960, it gained full independence from France. On 4 August 1984, it changed its name to Burkina Faso.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, Wi-Fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction over the areas of broadband access, fair competition, radio frequency use, media responsibility, public safety, and homeland security.

Operation Storm in August 1995 was the last major battle of the Croatian War of Independence and a major factor in the outcome of the Bosnian War. It was a decisive victory for the Croatian Army (HV), which attacked across a 630-kilometre (390 mi) front against the self-declared proto-state Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK), and a strategic victory for the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH). The HV was supported by the Croatian special police advancing from the Velebit Mountain, and the ARBiH located in the Bihać pocket, in the Army of the Republic of Serbian Krajina's (ARSK) rear. The battle, launched to restore Croatian control of 10,400 square kilometres of territory – representing 18.4% of the territory it claimed – and Bosniak control of Western Bosnia, was the largest land battle that took place in Europe between the end of World War II and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Operation Storm commenced at dawn on 4 August 1995 and was declared complete on the evening of 7 August, despite significant mopping-up operations against pockets of resistance lasting until 14 August.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the United States' civil space program, as well as research in aeronautics and space. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., NASA operates ten field centers across the US and is organized into three mission directorates: Human Spaceflight, Research and Technology, and Science. Established in 1958 amid the Space Race, NASA succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the US space program a distinct civilian orientation focused on peaceful applications. Since then, it has led most American spaceflight programs, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the Apollo program, Skylab, the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station (ISS), and the ongoing multinational Artemis program.

The Syrian civil war was an armed conflict that began with the Syrian revolution in March 2011, when popular discontent with the Ba'athist regime ruled by Bashar al-Assad triggered large-scale protests and pro-democracy rallies across Syria, as part of the wider Arab Spring. The Assad regime responded to the protests with lethal force, which led to a series of defections, the emergence of armed opposition groups, and the civilian uprising descending into a civil war. The war lasted almost 14 years and culminated in the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024. Many sources regard this as the end of the civil war even though clashes have continued into 2026.

An ongoing socioeconomic and political crisis began in Venezuela during the presidencies of Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro and Delcy Rodríguez. It has been marked by hyperinflation, starvation, disease, crime, and mortality rates, resulting in massive emigration. Food shortages and hyperinflation have ended, but inflation remains high. It is the worst economic crisis in Venezuela's history and considered by some sources as more severe than the Great Depression in the United States, the 1985–1994 Brazilian economic crisis, or the 2008–2009 hyperinflation in Zimbabwe. In 2019, the Institute of International Finance called it the single largest economic collapse outside of war in 45 years. Writers have compared aspects, such as unemployment and GDP contraction, to Bosnia and Herzegovina after the 1992–95 Bosnian War, and those in Russia, Cuba and Albania following the Revolutions of 1989.

On August 4, 2019, 24-year-old Connor Betts shot and killed nine people, including his brother, and wounded 17 others near the entrance of the Ned Peppers Bar in the Oregon Historic District of Dayton, Ohio, United States. Betts was fatally shot by responding police officers 32 seconds after the first shots were fired. A total of 27 people were taken to area hospitals. It is the deadliest mass shooting to occur in Ohio since the 1975 Easter Sunday Massacre.

On 4 August 2020, a major explosion occurred in Beirut, Lebanon, caused by the ignition of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate. The chemical, confiscated in 2014 from the cargo ship MV Rhosus and stored at the Port of Beirut without adequate safety measures for six years, detonated after a fire broke out in a nearby warehouse. The explosion resulted in at least 218 deaths, 7,000 injuries, and approximately 300,000 displaced people, alongside property damage estimated at US$15 billion. The blast released energy comparable to 1.1 kilotons of TNT, ranking it among the most powerful non-nuclear explosions ever recorded and the largest single detonation of ammonium nitrate.