On this date in

31 BCE The Battle of Actium, the decisive engagement between the forces of Octavian and the combined forces of Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, was fought.

1666 The Great Fire of London started.

1789 The U.S. Treasury Department was established.

1864 Union General William Tecumseh Sherman occupied Atlanta.

1898 A victory at The Battle of Omdurman allowed the British to take control of the Sudan.

1901 In a speech at the Minnesota State Fair, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt said "Speak softly and carry a big stick."

1944 Japanese forces shot down Navy Pilot George H.W. Bush as he completed a bombing run over the Bonin Islands. He was rescued by a U.S. submarine.

1945 Japan formally surrenders to end World War II; Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam an independent republic.

1948 Christa McAuliffe, the teacher killed in the 1986 space shuttle Challenger explosion, was born.

1963 "The CBS Evening News" became network television's first weeknight 30-minute newscast.

1969 Ho Chi Minh died.

1985 Wreckage of the Titanic located.

1998 Swissair Flight 111, bound from New York City to Geneva, Switzerland, crashed off Nova Scotia killing all 229 people aboard.