Today is Wednesday, August 15, the 227th day of 2018. There are 138 days left in the year.

1057 King Macbeth is killed at the Battle of Lumphanan by the forces of Máel Coluim mac Donnchada. 1185 The cave city of Vardzia is consecrated by Queen Tamar of Georgia. 1261 Michael VIII Palaiologos is crowned Byzantine emperor in Constantinople. 1309 The city of Rhodes surrenders to the forces of the Knights of St. John, completing their conquest of Rhodes. The knights establish their headquarters on the island and rename themselves the Knights of Rhodes.

1483 Pope Sixtus IV consecrates the Sistine Chapel. 1519 Panama City, Panama is founded. 1695 French forces end the bombardment of Brussels.

1824 The Marquis de Lafayette, the last surviving French general of the American Revolutionary War, arrives in New York and begins a tour of 24 states. 1843 Tivoli Gardens, one of the oldest still intact amusement parks in the world, opens in Copenhagen, Denmark.

1915 A story in New York World newspaper reveals that the Imperial German government had purchased excess phenol from Thomas Edison that could be used to make explosives for the war effort and diverted it to Bayer for aspirin production. 1939 The Wizard of Oz premieres at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, California.

1945 Jewel Voice Broadcast by the Emperor Showa following effective surrender of Japan in the World War II, Korea gains Independence from the Empire of Japan. 1947 India gains Independence from British rule after near 190 years of Crown rule and joins the Commonwealth of Nations.

1948 The Republic of Korea is established south of the 38th parallel north.

1965 The Beatles play to nearly 60,000 fans at Shea Stadium in New York City, an event later regarded as the birth of stadium rock. 1995 In South Carolina, Shannon Faulkner becomes the first female cadet matriculated at The Citadel ( she drops out less than a week later). 2005 Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan to evict all Israelis from the Gaza Strip and from four settlements in the northern West Bank begins.

2005 The Helsinki Agreement between the Free Aceh Movement and the Government of Indonesia was signed, ending almost three decades of fighting. 2007 An 8.0- magnitude earthquake off the Pacific coast devastates Ica and various regions of Peru.