On Aug. 15, 1483, the Sistine Chapel was consecrated by Pope Sixtus IV.

In 1888, T.E. Lawrence, the British soldier who gained fame as “Lawrence of Arabia,” was born in Tremadoc, Wales.

In 1945, Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced that his country had accepted terms of surrender for ending World War II.

In 1947, India became independent after some 200 years of British rule.

In 1961, as workers began constructing a Berlin Wall made of concrete, East German soldier Conrad Schumann leapt to freedom over a tangle of barbed wire in a scene captured in a famous photograph.

In 1965, the Beatles played to a crowd of more than 55,000 at New York’s Shea Stadium.

In 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair opened in upstate New York.