July 1

  • 251 – The Goths under Cniva defeat the Roman Empire at the Battle of Abrittus and kill both Roman Emperors, Decius and his son and co-emperor Herennius Etruscus.
  • 1520 – Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire: Conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés were nearly annihilated in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, and barely succeeded in escaping by night.
  • 1569 – The Union of Lublin was signed, merging the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into a single state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
  • 1862 – The Russian State Library was founded.
  • 1867 – The British North America Act came into effect, uniting the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia into the Canadian Confederation.
  • 1879 – American evangelist Charles Taze Russell published the first issue of the religious magazine The Watchtower.
  • 1916 – World War I: The first day of the Battle of Albert, the opening phase of the Battle of the Somme, became the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army, with 57,470 casualties of which 19,240 were killed or died of wounds.
  • 1935 – Grant Park Music Festival, which continues as the United States' only annual free outdoor classical music concert series, began its tradition of free symphonic music concerts in Chicago's Grant Park.
  • 1948 – The State Bank of Pakistan, the central bank of Pakistan, commenced operation.
  • 1979 – Sony introduced the Walkman portable audio player, changing music listening habits by allowing people to carry their own choice of music with them.
  • 1991 – The Warsaw Pact was officially dissolved at a meeting in Prague.
  • 1997 – The United Kingdom transferred sovereignty of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China, ending over 150 years of British colonial rule.
  • 2002 – Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937 and DHL Flight 611 collided in mid-air over the towns of Owingen and Überlingen in Germany, killing all 71 aboard both aircraft.
  • 2002 – The Rome Statute entered into force, establishing the International Criminal Court to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression.
  • 2006 – The Qingzang railway, the first railway to connect China proper with the Tibet Autonomous Region, was inaugurated.

July 2

  • 626 – Forces led by Li Shimin, a son of Emperor Gaozu of Tang China, ambushed and killed his rival brothers Li Jiancheng, the Crown Prince, and Li Yuanji at the imperial palace in Chang'an.
  • 963 – The Eastern forces of the Byzantine army proclaimed Nicephorus Phocas to be Byzantine Emperor on the plains outside Cappadocian Caesarea.
  • 1644 – The combined forces of the Scottish Covenanters and the English Parliamentarians defeated the Royalists at the Battle of Marston Moor, one of the decisive encounters of the English Civil War, near York.
  • 1839 – Over fifty African slaves mutinied on the slave ship La Amistad off the coast of Cuba.
  • 1881 – U.S. President James A. Garfield was fatally shot at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station in Washington, D.C.
  • 1890 – The U.S. Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, the first United States government action to limit monopolies.
  • 1900 – First Zeppelin flight occurred over Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.
  • 1937 – Aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight.
  • 1964 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law, outlawing segregation in schools, at the workplace, and other facilities that served the general public.
  • 1976 – More than a year after the end of the Vietnam War, North and South Vietnam officially united under communist rule to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
  • 1997 – The Thai baht rapidly lost half of its value, marking the beginning of the Asian Financial Crisis.

July 3

  • 324 – Roman Emperor Constantine I defeated colleague Licinius in the Battle of Adrianople.
  • 987 – Hugh Capet was crowned King of France, becoming the first monarch of the Capetian dynasty, which ruled France continuously until overthrown during the French Revolution in 1792.
  • 1608 – French explorer Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec City, considered to be the first European-built city in non-Spanish North America.
  • 1767 – Adresseavisen, Norway's oldest newspaper still in print, was first published.
  • 1778 – American Revolutionary War: Loyalists and Iroquois killed over 300 Patriots at the Battle of Wyoming in Pennsylvania.
  • 1844 – The last known pair of Great Auks, the only modern species in the genus Pinguinus, were killed in Eldey, off the coast of Iceland.
  • 1863 – Pickett's Charge, a futile Confederate infantry assault against Union Army positions, occurred during the final and bloodiest day of fighting in the Battle of Gettysburg, marking a turning point in the American Civil War.
  • 1866 – Prussian forces defeated the Austrian army at the Battle of Königgrätz, the decisive battle in the Austro-Prussian War.
  • 1886 – German automobile engineer Karl Benz unveiled his Patent-Motorwagen, widely regarded as the first automobile, in Mannheim, Germany.
  • 1938 – The LNER Mallard broke the world speed record for a steam railway locomotive, reaching a speed of 126 miles (203 km) per hour.
  • 1944 – World War II: During their second phase of Operation Bagration, Soviet troops liberated Minsk, present-day Belarus, from Nazi Germany.
  • 1988 – United States Navy warship USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.

July 4

  • 993 – Pope John XV became the first pope to canonise a saint, Ulrich of Augsburg.
  • 1187 – Saladin defeated Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem, at the Battle of Hattin and captured the True Cross.
  • 1610 – Polish–Muscovite War: The outnumbered forces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth defeated the Russians at the Battle of Klushino.
  • 1754 – French and Indian War: In the aftermath of losing the Battle of Fort Necessity near present-day Farmington, Pennsylvania, George Washington accepted the terms of what would become his only military surrender and peacefully withdrew his forces.
  • 1776 – In Philadelphia, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, announcing that the thirteen American colonies were no longer a part of the British Empire.
  • 1837 – Grand Junction Railway, the world's first long-distance railway, opened between Birmingham and Liverpool.
  • 1862 – In a rowing boat travelling on the River Thames from Oxford to Godstow, author Lewis Carroll told Alice Liddell and her sisters a story that would eventually form the basis for his book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
  • 1894 – The Republic of Hawai'i was proclaimed at Ali'iolani Hale in Honolulu, with Sanford B. Dole as the first president.
  • 1941 – German AB-Aktion operation in Poland: After capturing Lwów, the Nazis executed approximately 45 professors of the University of Lwów.
  • 1945 – The Brazilian cruiser was accidentally sunk by one of her own crewmen, killing more than 300 and stranding the survivors in shark-infested waters.
  • 1954 – In what is known as the "The Miracle of Bern", the underdogs West Germany defeated the favourites Hungary 3–2 to win the FIFA World Cup.
  • 1965 – The first Annual Reminder, a series of early pickets organised by homophile organisations, one of the the earliest LGBT demonstrations in the United States, took place at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
  • 1976 – Israel Defence Forces raided Uganda's Entebbe International Airport to free hostages taken by hijackers on Air France Flight 139.
  • 2005 – The NASA space probe Deep Impact impacted the nucleus of the comet Tempel 1, excavating debris from its interior to study its composition.

July 5

  • 1687 – The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton was first published, describing his laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation.
  • 1934 – Police opened fire on striking longshoremen in San Francisco.
  • 1937 – The Hormel Foods Corporation introduced Spam, the canned precooked meat product that would eventually enter into pop culture, folklore, and urban legend.
  • 1946 – Named after Bikini Atoll, the site of the nuclear weapons test Operation Crossroads in the Marshall Islands, the modern bikini was introduced at a fashion show in Paris.
  • 1950 – The Israeli Knesset enacted the Law of Return, granting Jews around the world the right to migrate to and settle in Israel and gain citizenship.
  • 1962 – The Late Late Show, the world's longest-running chat show by the same broadcaster, aired on RTÉ One for the first time.
  • 1977 – General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq overthrew Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan in a military coup d'état.
  • 1989 – Oliver North was sentenced for his part in the Iran-Contra Affair.
  • 1996 – A cloned sheep named Dolly, the first mammal to have been successfully cloned from an adult cell, was born at the Roslin Institute in Midlothian, Scotland near Edinburgh.
  • 2004 – Indonesia held its first direct presidential elections; Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono would later be elected president during the second round of the elections on September 20.
  • 2006 – The United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting hours after North Korea reportedly tested at least seven separate missiles.
  • 2009 – A series of violent riots broke out in Ürümqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China.
  • 2009 – The largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever discovered, consisting of more than 1,500 items, was found near the village of Hammerwich, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, England.

July 6

  • 371 BC – The Post-Peloponnesian War Conflicts: The Thebans defeated the Spartans at the Battle of Leuctra in Boeotia in the territory of Thespiae, weakening Sparta's influence over the Greek peninsula.
  • 1415 – The Council of Constance executed Jan Hus, founder of the Christian Hussite reform movement, for committing heresy.
  • 1777 – American Revolutionary War: American troops at Fort Ticonderoga in New York retreated from the advancing British forces, causing an uproar in the American public since the fort was widely believed to be virtually impregnable.
  • 1785 – The dollar, a decimal currency system, was unanimously chosen as the money unit for the United States.
  • 1809 – Napoleon's French forces defeated Archduke Charles' Austrian army at the Battle of Wagram, the decisive confrontation of the War of the Fifth Coalition.
  • 1885 – French chemist Louis Pasteur successfully tested his vaccine against rabies on nine-year-old Joseph Meister after he was bitten by an infected dog.
  • 1887 – King Kalakaua of Hawai'i was forced to sign the Bayonet Constitution, stripping the Hawaiian monarchy of much of its authority as well as disfranchising all Asians, most native Hawaiians, and the poor.
  • 1892 – Striking steelworkers engaged in a day-long battle against Pinkerton agents during the Homestead Strike in Homestead, Pennsylvania, US, leaving ten dead and dozens wounded.
  • 1942 – Anne Frank and her family went into hiding in the "Secret Annexe" above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.
  • 1957 – At a concert by The Quarrymen at the St. Peter's Church Woolton Garden fête, band member John Lennon met Paul McCartney, triggering a series of events that led to the forming of The Beatles.
  • 1966 – Hastings Banda became the first president of Malawi, exactly two years after the country was granted independence from the United Kingdom.
  • 1978 – A sleeping car train at Taunton, England caught fire, killing 12 people and had causing British Rail to install state-of-the art fire prevention measures.
  • 1998 – Hong Kong International Airport, built on the island of Chek Lap Kok by land reclamation, opened for commercial operations, becoming one of the world's busiest airports.
  • 2006 – Nathu La, a mountain pass in the Himalayas connecting India and China, sealed during the Sino-Indian War, re-opened for trade after more than 40 years.
  • 2009 – Jadranka Kosor became the first female Prime Minister of Croatia.

July 7

  • 1575 – Anglo-Scottish Wars: In the the last major battle between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland, Scottish forces defeated English troops at Carter Bar near Redesdale.
  • 1585 – The Treaty of Nemours was first signed, forcing Henry III of France to give in to the demands of the Catholic League and revoking all edicts granting concessions to the Huguenots.
  • 1798 – The Quasi-War, an undeclared war fought entirely at sea, began after the United States rescinded their treaties with France.
  • 1807 – Tsar Alexander I of Russia and Napoleon I of France signed the first agreement of the Treaties of Tilsit, ending the War of the Fourth Coalition.
  • 1846 – Mexican-American War: American forces led by Commodore John D. Sloat occupied Monterey, beginning the annexation of California.
  • 1898 – The Newlands Resolution, an act of the Congress of the United States to annex the Republic of Hawai'i, was signed.
  • 1928 – The Chillicothe Baking Company in Chillicothe, Missouri, US, first produced sliced bread, advertised as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped", which then led to the popular phrase "the greatest thing since sliced bread".
  • 1937 – The Imperial Japanese Army engaged the Republic of China's National Revolutionary Army on Beijing's Marco Polo Bridge, marking the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
  • 1991 – The Slovenian War formally ended with the signing of the Brioni Agreement.
  • 1994 – Yemen troops reoccupied Aden, completing the Yemenite reunification.
  • 2005 – Suicide bombers killed 52 people in a series of four explosions on London's public transport system.
  • 2007 – Pope Benedict XVI issued the Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum, removing restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass.

July 8

  • 1497 – Vasco da Gama set sail on the first direct European voyage to India.
  • 1579 – Our Lady of Kazan, a holy icon of the Russian Orthodox Church, was discovered underground in Kazan, present-day Tatarstan, Russia.
  • 1709 – Great Northern War: Peter I of Russia defeated Charles XII of Sweden in Poltava, Ukraine, effectively ending Sweden's role as a major power in Europe.
  • 1758 – French and Indian War: French forces defeated the British at Fort Carillon on the shore of Lake Champlain in the British Colony of New York.
  • 1859 – Charles XV became King of Sweden and Norway following the death of his father Oscar I.
  • 1889 – The first issue of The Wall Street Journal, an influential international daily newspaper, was published.
  • 1898 – American con artist and gangster Soapy Smith was killed in Skagway, Alaska, when an argument with fellow gang members turned into an unexpected gunfight.
  • 1947 – After various news agencies reported the capture of a "flying disc" by U.S. Army Air Force personnel from the Roswell Army Air Field in Roswell, New Mexico, the U.S. Military issued a press release maintaining that what was actually recovered was debris from an experimental high-altitude surveillance weather balloon.
  • 2004 – After a 19-month trial, U.S. Marine Corps Major Michael Brown was convicted by a court in Naha, Okinawa, for an attempted indecent assault on a Filipina bartender.

July 9

  • 1789 – French Revolution: The National Constituent Assembly was formed from the National Assembly, and began to function as a governing body and a drafter for a new constitution.
  • 1816 – The Congress of Tucumán declared the independence of Argentina, then known as the United Provinces of South America, from Spain.
  • 1868 – The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, including the Citizenship Clause, the Equal Protection Clause and the Privileges or Immunities Clause among others, was ratified by the minimum required twenty-eight U.S. states.
  • 1900 – Queen Victoria gave her Royal Assent to an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, ratifying the Constitution of Australia.
  • 1918 – In one of the deadliest rail accidents in United States history, two passenger trains collided head-on in Nashville, Tennessee, killing 101 people and injuring 171.
  • 1922 – Johnny Weissmuller swam the 100-meter freestyle in 58.6 seconds, breaking a world swimming record and the "minute barrier."
  • 1943 – World War II: American forces defeated Japanese forces on the island of Saipan in the Mariana Islands.
  • 1943 – World War II: The Allies began their invasion of Sicily, a large scale amphibious and airborne operation, followed by six weeks of land combat.
  • 1955 – The Russell–Einstein Manifesto, signed by Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell and nine other preeminent intellectuals and scientists, was issued during a press conference in London in the midst of the Cold War, calling for a conference where scientists would assess the dangers posed to the survival of humanity by weapons of mass destruction.
  • 1962 – In a seminal moment for pop art, Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans exhibition opened at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles.
  • 1999 – Six days of student protests began after Iranian police attacked a University of Tehran dormitory following a peaceful student demonstration against the closure of the reformist newspaper Salam.
  • 2002 – The African Union was formed as a successor to the amalgamated African Economic Community and the Organisation of African Unity, with President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki as its first chairman.

July 10

  • 48 BC – Caesar's civil war: Julius Caesar barely avoided a catastrophic defeat to Pompey in the Battle of Dyrrhachium in Macedonia.
  • 1553 – Four days after the death of her predecessor, Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey was officially proclaimed Queen of England, beginning her reign as "The Nine Days' Queen".
  • 1584 – William the Silent, the Prince of Orange, was assassinated at his home in Delft, Holland, by Balthasar Gérard.
  • 1645 – English Civil War: The Parliamentarians destroyed the last Royalist field army at the Battle of Langport, ultimately giving Parliament control of the West of England.
  • 1796 – German mathematician and scientist Carl Friedrich Gauss discovered that every positive integer is representable as a sum of at most three triangular numbers.
  • 1800 – Lord Wellesley, Governor-General of the British Raj, founded Fort William College in Fort William, India, to promote Bengali, Hindi and other vernaculars of the subcontinent.
  • 1913 – The air temperature in California's Death Valley reached 134 °F, the highest reading ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere.
  • 1925 – Indian mystic and spiritual master Meher Baba began his silence until his death in 1969, only communicating by means of an alphabet board or by unique hand gestures.
  • 1941 – The Holocaust: A group of non-Jewish ethnic Poles from around the nearby area murdered hundreds of Jewish residents of Jedwabne in occupied Poland.
  • 1962 – Telstar, the world's first active, direct relay communications satellite, was launched by NASA aboard a Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral.
  • 1976 – An industrial accident in a chemical manufacturing plant near Milan, Italy, resulted in the highest known exposure to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin in residential populations, which gave rise to numerous scientific studies and standardised industrial safety regulations.
  • 1978 – Moktar Ould Daddah, the first President of Mauritania, was ousted in a coup d'état led by Mustafa Ould Salek.
  • 1985 – French intelligence agents bombed and sank the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior while docked in the port of Auckland to prevent her from interfering in a nuclear test in Moruroa.

July 11

  • 1302 – Flemish infantry successfully halted a French invasion near Kortrijk at the Battle of the Golden Spurs.
  • 1789 – French Revolution: Jacques Necker was dismissed as Director-General of Finances of France, sparking public demonstrations in Paris that led to the Storming of the Bastille three days later.
  • 1804 – U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded former U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton during a duel in Weehawken, New Jersey.
  • 1833 – Noongar Australian aboriginal warrior Yagan, wanted for leading attacks on white colonists in Western Australia, was killed, becoming a symbol of the unjust and sometimes brutal treatment of the indigenous peoples of Australia by colonial settlers.
  • 1882 – Anglo-Egyptian War: British naval forces began their bombardment of Alexandria against Urabi Forces.
  • 1889 – Tijuana, the westernmost city in Mexico, was founded.
  • 1893 – Japanese entrepreneur and inventor Mikimoto Kokichi first created the hemispherical cultured pearl.
  • 1921 – The Irish War of Independence ended with a truce between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Irish Republican Army, resulting in negotiations that eventually led to the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the establishment of the Irish Free State.
  • 1930 – Australian cricketer Don Bradman scored a world record 309 runs in one day, on his way to the highest individual Test innings of 334, during a Test match against England.
  • 1943 – In a massive ethnic cleansing operation, units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army attacked various Polish villages in the Volhynia region of present-day Ukraine, killing the Polish civilians and burning those settlements to the ground.
  • 1947 – The passenger ship Exodus departed France with the intent of taking Jewish emigrants to British-controlled Palestine.
  • 1957 – Prince Karim al-Hussayni succeeded Sultan Mahommed Shah as the Aga Khan, becoming the 49th Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims.
  • 1960 – To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel by Harper Lee, featuring themes of racial injustice and the destruction of innocence in the American Deep South, was first published.
  • 1995 – Bosnian Genocide: Bosnian Serb forces began the Srebrenica massacre in the region of Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, eventually killing an estimated total of 8,000 Bosniaks.
  • 2006 – A series of seven bombs exploded over a period of 11 minutes on the Suburban Railway in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, killing 209 people and injuring over 700 others.

July 12

  • 1543 – King Henry VIII of England married Catherine Parr, his sixth and last wife, at Hampton Court Palace.
  • 1580 – Ostrog Bible, the first Bible in Old Church Slavonic, was printed in Ostroh, Ukraine by Ivan Fyodorov.
  • 1690 – Williamite forces defeated Jacobite troops at the Battle of the Boyne just outside Drogheda, Ireland, marking a turning point in the Williamite War.
  • 1790 – The Civil Constitution of the Clergy was passed, a law that subordinated the Roman Catholic Church in France to the French government.
  • 1806 – Sixteen German states left the Holy Roman Empire and formed the Confederation of the Rhine.
  • 1862 – The Medal of Honour, the highest military decoration awarded by the United States government, was first authorised by the U.S. Congress.
  • 1920 – The Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty was signed, with Soviet Russia agreeing to recognise an independent Lithuania.
  • 1943 – World War II: Nazi German and Soviet forces engaged each other at the Battle of Prokhorovka, one of the largest tank battles in military history.
  • 1967 – Race riots began in Newark, New Jersey, leading to 27 deaths in four days.
  • 1975 – São Tomé and Príncipe declared independence from Portugal.
  • 1979 – The Gilbert Islands gained independence from the United Kingdom and became known as Kiribati.
  • 2005 – Prince Albert II was enthroned as ruler of Monaco.
  • 2006 – Hezbollah forces crossed the Israel–Lebanon border and attacked Israeli military positions while firing rockets and mortars at Israeli towns, sparking a five-week war.

July 13

  • 1174 – William the Lion, a key rebel in the Revolt of 1173–1174, was captured at Alnwick by forces loyal to Henry II of England.
  • 1643 – English Civil War: Royalists defeated the Parliamentarians at the Battle of Roundway Down near Devizes in central Wiltshire.
  • 1772 – Under the command of explorer James Cook, HMS Resolution set sail from Plymouth, England, along with HMS Adventure.
  • 1787 – The Northwest Ordinance was passed by the Congress of the Confederation, creating the Northwest Territory as the first organised territory of the United States.
  • 1793 – Charlotte Corday assassinated Jean-Paul Marat, a leader in both the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, in his bathtub.
  • 1830 – The Scottish Church College, the oldest continuously running Christian liberal arts and sciences college in India, was founded as the General Assembly's Institution.
  • 1863 – Three days of rioting began in New York City by opponents of new laws passed by the United States Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War.
  • 1878 – The major powers in Europe signed the Treaty of Berlin, redrawing the map of the Balkans.
  • 1923 – The Hollywoodland Sign was officially dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, California. The last four letters of the sign were removed in 1949.
  • 1977 – A power outage in New York City resulted in city-wide looting and other disorder.
  • 1985 – Live Aid rock music concerts, organised by singers Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia, were held at Wembley Stadium in London and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia.
  • 2005 – Three trains collided in Ghotki, Pakistan, killing over 150 people.

July 14

  • 1223 – Louis VIII became King of France.
  • 1698 – The Darien scheme began with five ships departing Leith to establish a Scottish colony on the Isthmus of Panama.
  • 1789 – French Revolution: Parisians stormed the Bastille, freeing its inmates and taking the prison's large quantities of arms and ammunition.
  • 1791 – The Priestley Riots began, in which Joseph Priestley and other religious Dissenters were driven out of Birmingham, England.
  • 1798 – The Sedition Act became United States law, making it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false or malicious statements about the U.S. government.
  • 1881 – American frontier outlaw and gunman Billy the Kid was killed by sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner, New Mexico.
  • 1902 – Venice's St Mark's Campanile collapsed, also demolishing the loggetta but only killed the caretaker's cat.
  • 1933 – Gleichschaltung: All political parties in Germany were outlawed, except the National Socialist German Workers Party.
  • 1950 – In an early battle of the Korean War, North Korean troops began attacking the headquarters of the American 24th Infantry Division in Taejon, South Korea.
  • 1958 – King Faisal II, the last king of Iraq, was overthrown by a military coup d'état led by Abd al-Karim Qasim.
  • 1965 – The NASA spacecraft Mariner 4 flew past Mars, collecting the first close-up pictures of another planet.
  • 1969 – Political conflicts between El Salvador and Honduras erupted into the four-day Football War, so-named because it coincided with the inflamed rioting during the second CONCACAF qualifying round for the 1970 FIFA World Cup.
  • 1995 – The MP3 audio encoding format was named.
  • 2002 – After being treated for medical conditions, the orca Springer was released into the Johnstone Strait off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, becoming the first whale in history to be re-integrated into a wild pod after human intervention.

July 15

  • 1240 – Swedish–Novgorodian Wars: A Novgorodian army led by Alexander Nevsky defeated the Swedes on the Neva River near Ust-Izhora, present-day Russia.
  • 1410 – The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeated the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights in the Battle of Grunwald, the decisive engagement of the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War.
  • 1685 – James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, was executed for his role in the Monmouth Rebellion, an attempt to overthrow King James II of England.
  • 1799 – French soldiers uncovered the Rosetta Stone in the Egyptian port city of Rashid.
  • 1806 – The Pike expedition, led by Zebulon Pike to explore the Louisiana Territory, began near St. Louis, Missouri.
  • 1823 – A fire, accidentally started by a workman who was repairing the lead of the roof, destroyed the ancient Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. The church was restored by 1840.
  • 1870 – Manitoba and the Northwest Territories were established following the transfer of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory from the Hudson's Bay Company to Canada.
  • 1888 – The volcano Mount Bandai erupted, killing at least 470 people in the Fukushima Prefecture of Japan.
  • 1955 – Eighteen Nobel laureates signed the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons.
  • 1974 – Greek-sponsored nationalists overthrew Makarios III, President of Cyprus, in a coup d'état and replaced him with Nikos Sampson.
  • 1997 – Serial killer Andrew Phillip Cunanan gunned down fashion designer Gianni Versace outside his home in Miami, Florida.
  • 2003 – The non-profit Mozilla Foundation was founded to ensure the open source Mozilla project would survive after AOL Time Warner disbanded Netscape Communications.

July 16

  • 622 – The epoch of the Islamic calendar occurred, marking the year that Muhammad began his Hijra from Mecca to Medina.
  • 1769 – Spanish friar Junípero Serra founded Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the first Franciscan mission in the Alta California region of New Spain.
  • 1790 – The United States Congress passed the Residence Act, selecting a new permanent site along the Potomac River for the capital of the United States, which later became Washington, D.C..
  • 1945 – Manhattan Project: "Trinity", the first nuclear test explosion, was detonated near Alamogordo, New Mexico, United States.
  • 1965 – South Vietnamese Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao—an undetected communist spy—was hunted down and killed after being sentenced to death in absentia for a February 1965 coup attempt against Nguyen Khanh.
  • 1979 – Saddam Hussein replaced the resigning Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as President of Iraq, after having gradually usurped power from his cousin.
  • 1983 – A British Airways Sikorsky S-61 helicopter crashed in the Celtic Sea when en route from Penzance in England to St Mary's, Isles of Scilly in thick fog, killing 20 of the 26 on board, and sparking a review of helicopter safety in the United Kingdom.
  • 1994 – Fragments of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet began hitting the planet Jupiter, with the first one causing a fireball which reached a peak temperature of about 24,000K.
  • 1999 – John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette were killed in a plane crash off the coast of Martha's Vineyard.
  • 2001 – Russia and the People's Republic of China signed the Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation, a twenty-year strategic treaty.
  • 2004 – Chicago's Millennium Park, currently the world's largest rooftop garden, opened.
  • 2005 – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth book in the popular Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, was released to record sales of nine million copies in its first 24 hours, at the time making it the fastest selling book in history.

July 17

  • 1762 – Peter III was killed while in custody at Ropsha, a few days after he was deposed as Emperor of Russia and replaced by his wife Catherine II.
  • 1791 – French Revolution: Members of the National Guard fired into a large crowd that was gathered at the Champ de Mars in Paris to sign a petition demanding the removal of King Louis XVI.
  • 1899 – The Nippon Electric Company became the first Japanese joint venture with foreign capital.
  • 1918 – Russian Revolution: Bolsheviks executed Tsar Nicholas II and his family at Yekaterinburg.
  • 1936 – Nationalist rebels attempted a coup d'état against the Second Spanish Republic, sparking the Spanish Civil War.
  • 1938 – American aviator Douglas Corrigan earned the nickname "Wrong Way" after he flew east from Brooklyn, New York City, to County Dublin, Ireland, when he intended to go west to Long Beach, California.
  • 1944 – Two ships laden with ammunition for World War II exploded at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Port Chicago, California, killing 320 sailors and civilians, and injuring more than 400 others.
  • 1945 – Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Harry S. Truman met at the Potsdam Conference to decide how to administer post-World War II Germany.
  • 1955 – Disneyland, the only theme park to be designed and built under the direct supervision of Walt Disney, opened in Anaheim, California, US, during a televised ceremony.
  • 1973 – Mohammed Zahir Shah, the last King of Afghanistan, was ousted in a coup by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan while in Italy undergoing eye surgery.
  • 1998 – A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake devastated 10 villages in Papua New Guinea, killing an estimated 1,500 people, leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for, and destroying the homes of thousands more.
  • 1998 – Biologists reported in the scientific journal Science how they sequenced the genome of Treponema pallidum, the bacterium that causes syphilis.
  • 2007 – TAM Airlines Flight 3054 crashed upon landing during rain at the Congonhas-São Paulo Airport in São Paulo, Brazil, killing 199 people, the highest death toll of any aviation accident in Latin America and the highest death toll of any accident involving an Airbus A320 airliner in the world.

July 18

  • 64 – The Great Fire of Rome started among the shops around the Circus Maximus, eventually destroying three of fourteen Roman districts and severely damaging seven others.
  • 1831 – Pedro II of Brazil was enthroned at the age of five under a regency, starting a rule of 58 years.
  • 1863 – American Civil War: Led by Union Army Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first formal African American military unit, spearheaded an assault on Fort Wagner near Charleston, South Carolina.
  • 1925 – The first volume of Adolf Hitler's personal manifesto Mein Kampf was published.
  • 1944 – General Hideki Tojo was forced to resign as Prime Minister of Japan after a series of setbacks towards the end of World War II.
  • 1969 – After a party on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts, United States Senator Ted Kennedy drove his car off a wooden bridge into a tidal channel, killing his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne, a former campaign worker.
  • 1982 – Guatemalan military forces and their paramilitary allies slaughtered over 250 Mayans in the village of Plan de Sánchez, Baja Verapaz.
  • 1984 – A gunman massacred 21 people and injured 15 others at a McDonald's restaurant in the San Ysidro section of San Diego, California.
  • 1989 – American actress Rebecca Schaeffer was shot and killed by stalker Robert John Bardo, eventually prompting the passage of anti-stalking laws in California.
  • 1992 – A university professor and nine students from La Cantuta University in Lima, Peru were abducted and "disappeared" by a military death squad.
  • 1995 – During the fifteenth stage of the 1995 Tour de France, Italian cyclist Fabio Casartelli suffered a fatal crash on the descent of the Col de Portet d'Aspet.
  • 1996 – Paris-bound TWA Flight 800 exploded at about 00:31 UTC (20:31, July 17 EDT) off the coast of Long Island, New York, killing all 230 on board.
  • 2005 – In a joint statement, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then U.S. President George W. Bush announced the Indo-U.S. civilian nuclear agreement, a bilateral accord on civil nuclear cooperation between their two respective countries.

July 19

  • 711 – According to estimations made by historian David Levering Lewis, Muslim Arabs and Berbers led by Tariq ibn Ziyad defeated Roderic and the Visigoths at the Battle of Guadalete on this date.
  • 1333 – Second War of Scottish Independence: Scottish forces under Sir Archibald Douglas were heavily defeated by the English at the Battle of Halidon Hill while trying to relieve Berwick-upon-Tweed.
  • 1545 – The English warship Mary Rose foundered and sank just outside Portsmouth during the Battle of the Solent.
  • 1553 – Lady Jane Grey was replaced by Mary I of England as Queen of England after holding that title for just nine days.
  • 1843 – SS Great Britain, the first ocean-going ship that had both an iron hull and a screw propeller, launched from Bristol, UK.
  • 1848 – The two-day Women's Rights Convention, the first women's rights and feminist convention held in the United States, opened in Seneca Falls, New York.
  • 1870 – A dispute over who would become the next Spanish monarch following the deposition of Isabella II during the 1868 Glorious Revolution led France to declare war on Prussia.
  • 1908 – Feyenoord Rotterdam, today one of the "big three" professional football teams in the Netherlands, was founded as the club Wilhelmina in a pub.
  • 1916 – World War I: Australian forces engaged the Germans at the Battle of Fromelles in France, described as "the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history" since 5,533 Australian soldiers were eventually killed, wounded or taken prisoner in the failed operation.
  • 1919 – Following Peace Day celebrations marking the end of World War I, ex-servicemen who were unhappy with unemployment and other grievances rioted and burnt down the town hall of Luton, England.
  • 1947 – Burmese nationalist Aung San and six members of his newly formed cabinet were assassinated during a cabinet meeting.
  • 1979 – Sandinista rebels overthrew the US-backed government of the Somoza family in Nicaragua.
  • 1989 – After suffering an uncontainable failure of its number 2 engine which destroyed all three of its hydraulic systems, United Airlines Flight 232 broke up during an emergency landing in Sioux City, Iowa, USA, killing 111 people.

July 20

  • 1402 – Forces under Timur defeated the Ottomans in the Battle of Ankara and captured Sultan Bayezid I.
  • 1656 – Led by King Charles X Gustav, the armies of Sweden and Brandenburg defeated the forces of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth near Warsaw.
  • 1866 – Third Italian War of Independence: The Austrian Navy led by Wilhelm von Tegetthoff defeated a much larger Italian fleet at the Battle of Lissa on the Adriatic Sea near present-day Vis, Croatia.
  • 1927 – Five-year-old Michael became King of Romania upon the death of his grandfather Ferdinand.
  • 1936 – The Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Turkish Straits was signed in Montreux, Switzerland, allowing Turkey to fortify the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus but guaranteeing free passage to ships of all nations in peacetime.
  • 1944 – Adolf Hitler survived an assassination attempt by German Resistance member Claus von Stauffenberg, who hid a bomb inside a briefcase during a conference at the Wolfsschanze military headquarters in East Prussia.
  • 1951 – Abdullah I of Jordan was assassinated while visiting Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
  • 1969 – The Apollo 11 lunar module landed on the Sea of Tranquillity, where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon six-and-a-half hours later.
  • 1982 – Members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated two bombs in Hyde Park and Regent's Park in London, killing eleven people and wounding over 50 others.
  • 2001 – Twenty-three-year-old Italian anti-globalist Carlo Giuliani was shot dead by a police officer while protesting during the 27th G8 summit in Genoa, Italy.

July 21

  • 356 BC – The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was destroyed in an act of arson by a man named Herostratus.
  • 1298 – English and Irish forces led by Edward Longshanks defeated William Wallace's Scottish troops at the Battle of Falkirk.
  • 1403 – Forces under Henry IV of England defeated a rebel army led by Henry 'Hotspur' Percy at the Battle of Shrewsbury in what is now Battlefield, Shropshire, England.
  • 1774 – The Russo-Turkish War officially ended after the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, with the latter ceding parts of the Yedisan region to the former.
  • 1831 – In Brussels, Leopold I was inaugurated as the first King of the Belgians.
  • 1861 – In the First Battle of Bull Run, the first major land battle in the American Civil War, the Confederate Army under Joseph E. Johnston and P. G. T. Beauregard routed Union Army troops under Irvin McDowell.
  • 1918 – World War I: An Imperial German U-boat opened fire on the American town of Orleans, Massachusetts, and several merchant vessels nearby.
  • 1925 – Creation–evolution controversy: High school biology teacher John T. Scopes was found guilty of violating Tennessee's Butler Act by teaching evolution in class.
  • 1944 – World War II: American troops landed on Guam to liberate it from Japanese control.
  • 1954 – First Indochina War: The Vietnamese Demilitarised Zone was established at the Geneva Conference, partitioning Vietnam along the 17th parallel north into two zones: North Vietnam led by Ho Chi Minh and South Vietnam under Bao Dai.
  • 1960 – Sirimavo Bandaranaike became Prime Minister of Ceylon and thus the world's first female prime minister.
  • 1964 – Race riots began in Padang, Singapore, then part of Malaysia, during a Malay procession marking Muhammad's birthday, leaving 23 people killed, 450 people injured, significant damage to property and vehicles, and a government imposed 11-day curfew.
  • 1969 – Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first men to walk on the Moon.
  • 1970 – The Aswan High Dam in Egypt was completed after 11 years of construction.
  • 1995 – The Chinese People's Liberation Army began firing missiles into the waters north of Taiwan, starting the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis.

July 22

  • 838 – Byzantine–Arab Wars: The forces of the Abbasid Caliphate defeated Byzantine Empire troops, led by Emperor Theophilos himself, at the Battle of Anzen near present-day Dazman, Turkey.
  • 1099 – First Crusade: Godfrey of Bouillon was elected the first Protector of the Holy Sepulchre in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
  • 1456 – Forces under John Hunyadi lifted the Siege of Belgrade and defeated an Ottoman invasion into the Kingdom of Hungary.
  • 1793 – Two days after becoming the first recorded European to complete a transcontinental crossing of North America north of Mexico, Scottish-Canadian explorer Alexander Mackenzie reached the westernmost point of his journey and inscribed his name on a rock.
  • 1802 – Gia Long conquered Hanoi and unified modern-day Vietnam.
  • 1812 – Peninsular War: An Anglo-Portuguese force led by Arthur Wellesley inflicted a severe defeat on Marshal Auguste de Marmont and his French troops near Salamanca, Spain.
  • 1864 – American Civil War: Confederate forces unsuccessfully attacked Union troops at the Battle of Atlanta.
  • 1933 – Wiley Post became the first pilot to fly a fixed-wing aircraft solo around the world, landing after a seven-day, nineteen-hour flight at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York City.
  • 1934 – Bank robber John Dillinger, whose exploits were sensationalised across the United States, was shot dead by police in an ambush outside the Biograph Theatre in Chicago.
  • 1944 – In opposition to the Polish government-in-exile, the Polish Committee of National Liberation published its manifesto, calling for radical reforms, a continuation of fighting in World War II against Nazi Germany, nationalisation of industry, and a "decent border in the West".
  • 1946 – A bomb destroyed the headquarters of the British Mandate of Palestine at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing about 90 people and injuring 45 others.
  • 2002 – A court in São Paulo sentenced Suzane von Richthofen to 39½ years in prison for parricide.
  • 2003 – Coalition forces attacked a compound in Mosul, Iraq, killing two of Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay, the "aces of hearts and clubs" on the U.S. list of most-wanted Iraqis after the invasion of Iraq.

July 23

  • 1793 – After a siege of 18 weeks, French troops in Mainz surrendered to Prussian forces, effectively ending the Republic of Mainz, the first democratic state on the current German territory.
  • 1881 – The International Federation of Gymnastics, the world's oldest international sport federation, was founded in Liège, Belgium.
  • 1927 – Fourteen-year-old Pedro II of Brazil, who had been ruling under a regent for nine years, was declared of age.
  • 1927 – Wilfred Rhodes of England and Yorkshire became the only person to reach 1,000 first-class cricket matches.
  • 1952 – Egyptian Army officers in the Free Officers Movement led by Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser staged a military coup against King Farouk of Egypt.
  • 1967 – A police raid of a blind pig in Detroit sparked a riot that eventually left 43 dead, 467 injured, over 7200 arrests, and more than 2000 buildings burned down.
  • 1970 – Qaboos overthrew his father Said bin Taimur to become Sultan of Oman.
  • 1983 – The Sri Lankan Civil War began after members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ambushed a convoy of Sri Lanka Army soldiers in northern Sri Lanka, which was followed by large-scale riots carried out by Sinhalese against Tamils that became known as Black July.
  • 1983 – Air Canada Flight 143 made an emergency landing in Gimli, Manitoba, Canada, without loss of life after the crew was forced to glide the aircraft when it completely ran out of fuel.
  • 1984 – Vanessa Williams resigned as Miss America in scandal after Penthouse magazine published nude photos of her that were taken two years prior.
  • 1986 – Sarah Ferguson married Prince Andrew, Duke of York at London's Westminster Abbey, joining the British Royal Family as the Duchess of York.
  • 1995 – Hale-Bopp, one of the most widely observed comets of the twentieth century, was discovered by two independent observers, Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp, at a great distance from the Sun.
  • 2001 – Megawati Sukarnoputri became the first female president of Indonesia after the People's Consultative Assembly removed Abdurrahman Wahid.
  • 2005 – Three bombs hit the Naama Bay area of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, killing 88 people.

July 24

  • 1411 – Forces of Donald of Islay, Lord of the Isles, fought an army commanded by Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar, at the Battle of Harlaw near Inverurie in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
  • 1567 – Mary, Queen of Scots was forced to abdicate the Scottish throne and was replaced by her one-year-old son James.
  • 1701 – French explorer Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac established Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit in New France, which later grew and became the city of Detroit.
  • 1847 – After 17 months of travel, Brigham Young led the first group of Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley of Utah, at the time a part of Mexico.
  • 1911 – In the Peruvian Andes, American explorer Hiram Bingham re-discovered Machu Picchu, then thought to be the "Lost City of the Incas".
  • 1915 – The passenger ship S.S. Eastland rolled over while tied to a dock in the Chicago River, killing 844 passengers and crew, the largest loss of life disaster from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes.
  • 1923 – The Treaty of Lausanne was signed to settle the Anatolian part of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, establishing the boundaries of modern Turkey.
  • 1927 – The Menin Gate war memorial in Ypres, Belgium, marking the starting point for one of the main roads out of the town that led Allied soldiers to the front line during World War I, was unveiled.
  • 1929 – The Kellogg-Briand Pact, renouncing war as an instrument of foreign policy, went into effect.
  • 1943 – World War II: RAF Bomber Command began Operation Gomorrah, the strategic bombing of Hamburg, Germany, eventually killing at least 50,000 and leaving over a million others homeless.
  • 1967 – During a speech in Montreal, French President Charles de Gaulle declared "Long live free Quebec!", a statement that was interpreted as support for Quebec independence from Canada.
  • 1977 – The Libyan–Egyptian War, a short border war between Libya and Egypt, ended after the combatants agreed to a ceasefire organised by Algeria.
  • 1980 – At the Moscow Olympics, Australia's Quietly Confident Quartet swimming team won the gold medal in the men's 4 × 100 metre medley relay, the only time that the United States, who were boycotting these games, has not won the event at Olympic level.
  • 2001 – Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the last Tsar of Bulgaria when he was a child, was sworn in as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, becoming one of the first monarchs in history to regain political power through a democratic election to a different office.
  • 2007 – The Libyan government extradited six foreign medical workers who were charged with conspiring to deliberately infect over 400 children with HIV in 1998.

July 25

  • 306 – Constantine I was proclaimed Roman Emperor by his troops after the death of Constantius Chlorus.
  • 1261 – The Latin Empire ended when Michael VIII Palaiologos and his Nicaean forces captured Constantinople to re-establish the Byzantine Empire.
  • 1536 – Spanish conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar founded Santiago de Cali in present-day western Colombia while on his search for the mythical city of El Dorado.
  • 1567 – Caracas, today the capital and largest city of Venezuela, was founded as Santiago de Leon de Caracas by Spanish explorer Diego de Losada.
  • 1792 – French Revolutionary Wars: Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick issued the Brunswick Manifesto to the population of Paris, promising vengeance if King Louis XVI and other members of the French Royal Family were harmed.
  • 1909 – French aviator Louis Blériot crossed the English Channel in a heavier-than-air flying machine, flying from near Calais, France, to Dover, England.
  • 1943 – Benito Mussolini was forced out of office by his own Italian Grand Council and was replaced by Pietro Badoglio.
  • 1948 – In Test cricket, Australia set a world record for the highest successful run-chase in history during the Fourth Test of The Ashes series against England.
  • 1957 – More than a year after obtaining independence from France, Tunisia abolished its monarchy, the Husainid Dynasty, and became a republic.
  • 1969 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon declared the Nixon Doctrine, stating that the United States will now expect its Asian allies to take care of their own military defence.
  • 1978 – Louise Brown, the world's first test-tube baby, was born in Oldham, England.
  • 1978 – Two Puerto Rican pro-independence activists were killed by police at Cerro Maravilla in Villalba, Puerto Rico, sparking a series of political controversies where the officers were eventually convicted of murder, and several high-ranking local government officials were accused of planning or covering up the incident.
  • 2000 – Air France Concorde Flight 4590, en route from Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, crashed in Gonesse, France, killing all 100 passengers and nine crew members, as well as four people on the ground.

July 26

  • 811 – Bulgarian forces led by Khan Krum defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Pliska, annihilating almost the whole army and killing Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros I.
  • 1139 – After a victory over the Almoravid Moors at the Battle of Ourique, Afonso the Conqueror was proclaimed the first king of an independent Portugal by his soldiers.
  • 1581 – The Act of Abjuration, the formal declaration of independence of the Dutch Low Countries from the Spanish king, Philip II, was signed.
  • 1759 – French and Indian War: Rather than defend Fort Carillon near present-day Ticonderoga, New York, from an approaching 11,000-man British force, French Brigadier General François-Charles de Bourlamaque withdrew his troops and attempted to blow the fort up.
  • 1822 – José de San Martín met with Simón Bolívar in Guayaquil to plan for the future of Peru and South America in general.
  • 1863 – American Civil War: Union forces captured Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and 360 of his volunteers in northeastern Ohio, ending Morgan's Raid.
  • 1882 – Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal, loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's epic poem Parzival about Arthurian knight Percival and his quest for the Holy Grail, officially premiered at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, present-day Germany.
  • 1887 – L. L. Zamenhof published Unua Libro, the first publication to describe Esperanto, a constructed international language.
  • 1908 – Unable to use the services of U.S. Secret Service agents as investigators because of a federal law, U.S. Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte established what is now known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation to organise his own staff of special agents.
  • 1936 – The Canadian National Vimy Memorial, a memorial site near Vimy, Pas-de-Calais, France, dedicated to the memory of Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during World War I, was unveiled.
  • 1953 – Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl led a group of approximately 160 rebels in an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks, thus beginning the Cuban Revolution.
  • 1963 – A 6.1 Mw earthquake struck Skopje, SR Macedonia, killing over 1,000 people, injuring over 3,000 more, and leaving between 120,000 to 200,000 people homeless.
  • 1963 – Syncom 2, the world's first geosynchronous communication satellite, was launched by NASA on a Delta B rocket from Cape Canaveral.
  • 1968 – After coming second to Nguyen Van Thieu in a rigged presidential election in 1967, Truong Dinh Dzu was jailed by a military court for illicit currency transactions.
  • 1990 – U.S. President George H. W. Bush signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act, a wide-ranging civil rights law that prohibits, under certain circumstances, discrimination based on disability.
  • 1999 – Fighting in the Kargil War ended after Indian troops cleared the Drass in Kashmir of Pakistani forces.

July 27

  • 1214 – Philip II of France decisively won the Battle of Bouvines and took undisputed control of the territories of Anjou, Brittany, Maine, Normandy and the Touraine.
  • 1694 – A Royal Charter was granted to the Bank of England as the English Government's banker.
  • 1789 – The U.S. State Department, then known as the Department of Foreign Affairs, became the first federal agency created under the U.S. Constitution.
  • 1794 – The National Convention ordered the arrest and execution of Reign of Terror leader Maximilien Robespierre after he encouraged the execution of more than 17,000 "enemies of the French Revolution."
  • 1865 – A group of Welsh settlers arrived at Chubut Valley in Argentina's Patagonia region.
  • 1880 – Second Anglo-Afghan War: In a pyrrhic victory, Afghan forces led by Ayub Khan defeated the British Army near Maiwand, Afghanistan.
  • 1914 – Félix Manalo established the modern-day Iglesia ni Cristo religion, an independent, nontrinitarian Christian church, in the Philippines.
  • 1919 – Red Summer: Race riots erupted in Chicago after a racial incident occurred on a South Side beach, leading to 38 fatalities and 537 injuries over a five-day period.
  • 1940 – Bugs Bunny debuted in the animated cartoon A Wild Hare.
  • 1949 – The de Havilland Comet, the world's first commercial jet airliner to reach production, made its maiden flight.
  • 1953 – An armistice was signed to end hostilities in the Korean War, officially making the Division of Korea indefinite by creating an approximately 4 km (2.5 mi) wide demilitarised zone running across the Korean Peninsula.
  • 1996 – A pipe bomb exploded during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, killing two people and injuring 111 others.
  • 2002 – A Ukrainian Air Force Sukhoi Su-27 aircraft crashed during an aerobatics presentation at an airshow near Lviv, Ukraine, killing 84 people and injuring over 100 others.

July 28

  • 1794 – French Revolution: Reign of Terror leader Maximilien Robespierre was guillotined one day after the National Convention ordered his arrest.
  • 1809 – Peninsular War: French forces under Joseph Bonaparte suffered 7,270 casualties while Sir Arthur Wellesley's Anglo-Spanish army had 6,700 at an inconclusive battle in Talavera, Spain.
  • 1896 – Miami, today the principal city and the centre of the South Florida metropolitan area, the seventh largest metro area in the United States, was incorporated with a population of just over 300.
  • 1914 – Austria-Hungary declared war after rejecting Serbia's conditional acceptance of only part of the July Ultimatum following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, starting World War I.
  • 1942 – World War II: Intending to increase Soviet morale and patriotism, Joseph Stalin issued Order No. 227, ordering troops "Not a step back!" (not to retreat) without an order or be subject to a military tribunal.
  • 1973 – About 600,000 people attended what was the largest musical concert in history at the Watkins Glen International Raceway near Watkins Glen, New York, US.
  • 1976 – An earthquake measuring at least 8.2 on the Richter magnitude scale, one of the deadliest in history, flattened Tangshan, China, killing at least 240,000 people.
  • 1990 – Alberto Fujimori took office as President of Peru, becoming the first person of Japanese descent to be the head of government of a Latin American nation.
  • 1995 – Two perpetrators of the 1985 Rajneeshee assassination plot were convicted for their role in a conspiracy by high-ranking followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh to assassinate the United States Attorney for the District of Oregon.
  • 1996 – The remains of the prehistoric Kennewick Man were discovered on a bank of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington, US.
  • 2001 – At the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, Australian Ian Thorpe became the first swimmer to win six gold medals at a single World Championships.
  • 2005 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army announced an end to its armed campaign to overthrow British rule in Northern Ireland to create a United Ireland.

July 29

  • 1014 – Byzantine-Bulgarian Wars: Forces of the Byzantine Empire defeated troops of the Bulgarian Empire at the Battle of Kleidion in the Belasica Mountains near present-day Klyuch, Bulgaria.
  • 1030 – King Olaf II fought and died in the Battle of Stiklestad, trying to regain his Norwegian throne from the Danes.
  • 1588 – Anglo-Spanish War: English naval forces under command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake defeated the Spanish Armada off the coast of Gravelines, France.
  • 1693 – Nine Years' War: France won a pyrrhic victory over the Allied forces of William III of England at the Battle of Landen in present-day Neerwinden, Belgium.
  • 1848 – Irish Potato Famine: An unsuccessful nationalist revolt against British rule in Tipperary was put down by police.
  • 1858 – Japan reluctantly signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, an Unequal Treaty giving the United States various commercial and diplomatic privileges.
  • 1900 – Italian American anarchist Gaetano Bresci assassinated King Umberto I of Italy.
  • 1947 – ENIAC, the world's first general-purpose electronic digital computer, was turned on in its new home at the Ballistic Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, remaining in continuous operation until October 2 1955.
  • 1957 – The International Atomic Energy Agency was established, promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
  • 1958 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act into law, establishing a new federal non-military space agency known as NASA.
  • 1967 – Vietnam War: During preparation for another strike in the Gulf of Tonkin, the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal was hit by a series of chain-reaction explosions caused by an unusual electrical anomaly on its flight deck, killing 134 sailors and injuring 161 others.
  • 1981 – A worldwide television audience of over 700 million people watched the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana Spencer at St Paul's Cathedral in London.

July 30

  • 762 – The caliph al-Mansur founded Baghdad along the River Tigris as the new capital of the Abbasid Caliphate.
  • 1419 – Hussite Wars: Jan Žižka and others threw several town councillors out of the window at the First Defenestrations of Prague.
  • 1619 – The first representative assembly in the Americas, Virginia's House of Burgesses, convened for the first time.
  • 1756 – Architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli presented the Catherine Palace, a Rococo palace in Tsarskoye Selo, to Empress Elizabeth of Russia.
  • 1825 – Malden Island, now one of Kiribati's Line Islands, was discovered.
  • 1864 – American Civil War: Union forces failed to break Confederate lines by exploding a large mine under their trenches at the Battle of the Crater in Petersburg, Virginia.
  • 1930 – Uruguay defeated Argentina, 4–2, in front of their home crowd at Estadio Centenario in Montevideo to win the first Football World Cup.
  • 1945 – World War II: The USS Indianapolis, a heavy cruiser of the United States Navy, was sunk by the Japanese submarine I-58, killing over 800 seamen.
  • 1965 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social Security Act into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid to provide federal health insurance for the elderly and for low income families, respectively.
  • 1975 – American labour union leader Jimmy Hoffa mysteriously disappeared after last being seen outside a restaurant near Detroit.
  • 1978 – As per the Geneva Convention on Road Traffic, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, switched back from driving on the right-hand side of the road to the left.
  • 2003 – The last old-style Beetle, the economy car produced by the German automaker Volkswagen, rolled off the assembly line in Puebla, Mexico.
  • 2006 – Lebanon War: The Israeli Air Force attacked a three-story building near the South Lebanese village of Qana, killing at least 28 civilians, including 16 children.

July 31

  • 1667 – The Second Anglo-Dutch War between England and the United Provinces ended with the signing of the Treaty of Breda in the Dutch city of Breda.
  • 1703 – English writer Daniel Defoe was placed in a pillory for seditious libel after publishing a pamphlet politically satirising the High Church Tories.
  • 1777 – The Second Continental Congress passed a resolution allowing French nobleman Marquis de Lafayette to enter the American revolutionary forces as a Major General.
  • 1930 – The Shadow, one of the most famous pulp heroes of the 20th Century, debuted as the mysterious narrator of a radio programme.
  • 1941 – The Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring ordered SS General Reinhard Heydrich to settle "the final solution of the Jewish question".
  • 1948 – New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport was dedicated as New York International Airport.
  • 1971 – Apollo programme: The first Lunar Rover was used during the Apollo 15 mission to the moon.
  • 1999 – NASA's Lunar Prospector was deliberately crashed into the Shoemaker crater near the Moon's south pole in an unsuccessful attempt to detect the presence of water.
  • 2006 – Following intestinal surgery, Fidel Castro provisionally transferred the duties of the Cuban presidency to his brother Raúl.
  • 2007 – The Troubles: Operation Banner, the name for the British armed forces' operation in Northern Ireland, ended after 38 years with a military stalemate and ceasefire.
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