On This Day: August 19th

The first temple to Venus, the Roman goddess of love, beauty and fertility, is dedicated by Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges during the Third Samnite War.

In the wake of the murder of Julius Caesar, his nephew and heir, Octavian, uses the threat of military force to compel the Roman Senate to elect him Consul.

Salem witch trials: In Salem, province of Massachusetts Bay, Martha Carrier, George Jacobs Sr., John Proctor, John Willard, and clergyman George Burroughs are executed after being convicted of witchcraft.

Second Anglo-Dutch War: Rear Admiral Robert Holmes leads a raid on the Dutch island of Terschelling, destroying 116 to 160 merchant ships, an act later known as "Holmes's Bonfire".

Eighty Years War: a besieging Dutch and English army led by Maurice of Orange forces the Spanish garrison of Sluis to capitulate.

Mary, Queen of Scots, aged 18, returns to Scotland after spending 13 years in France.

In Ireland, the Hiberno-Norman de Burghs (Burkes) and Cambro-Norman Fitzgeralds fight in the Battle of Knockdoe.

Pope Pius II is elected the 211th Pope.

After a six month siege, Baldwin III of Jerusalem captures Ascalon, obtaining a vast amount of plunder and securing the southern border of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Abu Yazid, a Kharijite rebel leader, is defeated and killed in the Hodna Mountains in modern-day Algeria by Fatimid forces.