Cyprus gained its independence from the United Kingdom.
Source
Michael Phelps won the 100-meter butterfly swim in a record 50:58 at the Beijing Olympic finals.
Julian Assange, who founded WikiLeaks, was given political asylum by Ecuador.
NASA launched its Active Magnetospheric Particle Tracer Explorers mission (AMPTE) from the Cape Canaveral launch pad.
More than 1,200 tin homes were destroyed after a fire broke out in the Chalantika slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Nikephoros II Phokas was crowned emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
