On this date in...
...1798, a small force of colonists, marines, armed slaves, armed commercial boats, and Royal Naval vessels thwarted the Spanish Empire's attempt to invade Belize at the Battle of St. George's Caye.
...1813, Oliver Hazard Perry shot up the British fleet on Lake Erie, capturing everything that didn't burn or drown.
...1939, the Royal Navy suffered its first loss of the Second World War when, only a couple days into the conflict, the skipper of HMS Triton got trigger happy off the coast of Norway and mistook her sister, HMS Oxley, for the boche. He put a few fish into her midships and she promptly sank.
...1945, an unnamed barnyard fowl was magically transformed into Mike the Headless Chicken, using only an ordinary hatchet.