What Happened Today in History on August 22

The Battle of Bosworth Field. The last significant battle of the Wars of the Roses, the civil war between the houses of Lancaster and York that extended across England. The battle was won by an alliance of Lancastrians and disaffected Yorkists. Their leader Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, became the first English monarch of the Tudor dynasty by his victory and subsequent marriage to a Yorkist princess. His opponent Richard III, the last king of the House of York, was killed during the battle. Historians consider the Bosworth Field battle one of the defining moments of English history. More

The first recorded coordinated use of balloons in warfare for an aerial attack takes place during the First Italian War of Independence by the Austrian imperial forces against the Italian city of Vienna as Austria deploys approximately 200 paper hot air balloons, each carrying  a 20-to-30-pound bomb, designed to be dropped over the besieged city via a time fuse.  Expand +

President Abraham Lincoln replies to Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, abolitionist editorial entitled “The Prayer of Twenty Millions" with a carefully worded letter hinting to a future change in his policy regarding the issue of slavery. More 

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), created in 1863 comes into being as the draft convention submitted to the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick of Armies in the Field, conference is adopted by 12 nations at meeting. "The ICRC is an independent, neutral organization ensuring humanitarian protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence." More

The Louvre announces the theft of the Mona Lisa. The theft had actually occurred the day before but it was believed to have been moved for cleaning or photography and it took over 24 hours for the official announcement. The painting had been stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia a temporary Italian worker at the Louvre who reportedly, "wanted to return the Mona Lisa to Italy where it belonged" It was recovered two years later on December 1913 in Italy and returned to the Louvre. Expand +

Charles de Gaulle survives an assassination attempt in Paris when he and his wife narrowly escaped from an organized machine gun ambush while traveling in their Citroën DS limousine. The attack was arranged by Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry of the Organisation armée secrète (OAS) who had targeted him in retaliation for his Algerian initiatives. Reportedly, there had been at least  30 assassination attempts against de Gaulle throughout his lifetime. 

A volcanic eruption under Lake Nyos in Cameroon caused deadly fumes which killed more than 1,500 persons. More