It Happened on this date

[Bo]

10th of July

Events

48 BC – Battle of Dyrrhachium: Julius Caesar barely avoids a catastrophic defeat to Pompey in Macedonia.
138 – Emperor Hadrian dies after a heart failure at Baiae; he is buried at Rome in the Tomb of Hadrian beside his late wife, Vibia Sabina.
988 – The Norse King Glun Iarainn recognises Máel Sechnaill II, High King of Ireland, and agrees to pay taxes and accept Brehon Law; the event is considered to be the founding of the city of Dublin.
1212 – The most severe of several early fires of London burns most of the city to the ground.
1460 – Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, defeats the king's Lancastrian forces and takes King Henry VI prisoner in the Battle of Northampton.
1499 – The Portuguese explorer Nicolau Coelho returns to Lisbon, after discovering the sea route to India as a companion of Vasco da Gama.
1519 – Zhu Chenhao declares the Ming Dynasty emperor Zhengde a usurper, beginning the Prince of Ning rebellion, and leads his army north in an attempt to capture Nanjing.
1553 – Lady Jane Grey takes the throne of England.
1584 – William I of Orange is assassinated in his home in Delft, Holland, by Balthasar Gérard.
1645 – English Civil War: The Battle of Langport takes place.
1778 – American Revolution: Louis XVI of France declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain.
1789 – Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Mackenzie River delta.
1806 – The Vellore Mutiny is the first instance of a mutiny by Indian sepoys against the British East India Company.
1821 – The United States takes possession of its newly bought territory of Florida from Spain.
1832 – The U.S. President Andrew Jackson vetoes a bill that would re-charter the Second Bank of the United States.
1850 – Millard Fillmore is inaugurated as the 13th President of the United States upon the death of President Zachary Taylor, 16 months into his term.
1877 – The then-villa of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, formally receives its city charter from the Royal Crown of Spain.
1882 – War of the Pacific: Chile suffers its last military defeat in the Battle of La Concepción when a garrison of 77 men is annihilated by a 1,300-strong Peruvian force, many of them armed with spears.
1890 – Wyoming is admitted as the 44th U.S. state.
1913 – Death Valley, California, hits 134 °F (~56.7 °C), the highest temperature recorded in the United States.
1921 – Belfast's Bloody Sunday: 16 people are killed and 161 houses destroyed during rioting and gun battles in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
1925 – Meher Baba begins his silence of 44 years. His followers observe Silence Day on this date in commemoration.
1925 – Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called "Monkey Trial" begins with John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.
1938 – Howard Hughes sets a new record by completing a 91-hour airplane flight around the world.
1940 – World War II: the Vichy government is established in France.
1940 – World War II: Battle of Britain – The German Luftwaffe begins attacking British convoys in the English Channel thus starting the battle (this start date is contested, though).
1941 – Jedwabne Pogrom: the massacre of Jewish people living in and near the village of Jedwabne in Poland.
1942 – Diplomatic relations between the Netherlands and the Soviet Union are established.
1942 – World War II: An American pilot spots a downed, intact Mitsubishi A6M Zero on Akutan Island (the "Akutan Zero") that the US Navy uses to learn the aircraft's flight characteristics.
1946 – Hungarian hyperinflation sets a record with inflation of 348.46 percent per day, or prices doubling every eleven hours.
1947 – Muhammad Ali Jinnah is recommended as the first Governor-General of Pakistan by the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee.
1951 – Korean War: Armistice negotiations begin at Kaesong.
1962 – Telstar, the world's first communications satellite, is launched into orbit.
1966 – The Chicago Freedom Movement, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., holds a rally at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. As many as 60,000 people come to hear Dr. King as well as Mahalia Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and Peter Paul and Mary.
1967 – Uruguay becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
1967 – New Zealand adopts decimal currency
1971 – Hassan II of Morocco survives an attempted coup d'état, which lasts until June 11.
1973 – The Bahamas gain full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations.
1973 – National Assembly of Pakistan passes a resolution on the recognition of Bangladesh.
1973 – John Paul Getty III, a grandson of the oil magnate J. Paul Getty, is kidnapped in Rome, Italy.
1976 – The Seveso disaster occurs in Italy.
1976 – One American and three British mercenaries are executed in Angola following the Luanda Trial.
1977 – Alexandr Zagirnyak and Gennadi Sheludko hijack a Tupolev Tu-134 en route from Petrozavodsk to Leningrad and try to force the pilot to fly to Sweden. The plane lands in Helsinki instead. The hijackers surrender the next day and are returned to the Soviet Union.
1978 – World News Tonight premieres on ABC.
1978 – President Moktar Ould Daddah of Mauritania is ousted in a bloodless coup d'état.
1980 – Alexandra Palace burns down for a second time.
1985 – The Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior is bombed and sunk in Auckland harbour by French DGSE agents, killing Fernando Pereira.
1991 – The South African cricket team is readmitted into the International Cricket Council following the end of Apartheid.
1992 – In Miami, Florida, the former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega is sentenced to 40 years in prison for drug and racketeering violations.
1997 – In London scientists report the findings of the DNA analysis of a Neanderthal skeleton which supports the "out of Africa theory" of human evolution placing an "African Eve" at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
1997 – Miguel Ángel Blanco, a member of Partido Popular (Spain), is kidnapped in the Basque city of Ermua by ETA members, sparking widespread protests.
1998 – Roman Catholic sex abuse cases: The Diocese of Dallas agrees to pay $23.4 million to nine former altar boys who claimed they were sexually abused by Rudolph Kos, a former priest.
2000 – A leaking southern Nigerian petroleum pipeline explodes, killing about 250 villagers scavenging gasoline.
2000 – EADS, the world's second-largest aerospace group is formed by the merger of Aérospatiale-Matra, DASA, and CASA.
2002 – At a Sotheby's auction, Peter Paul Rubens' painting The Massacre of the Innocents is sold for £49.5million (US$76.2 million) to Lord Thomson.
2003 – A Neoplan bus, owned by Kowloon Motor Bus, collides with a truck, falls off a bridge on Tuen Mun Road, Hong Kong, and plunges into the underlying valley, killing 21 people. This is the deadliest traffic accident to date in Hong Kong.
2005 – Hurricane Dennis slams into the Florida Panhandle, causing billions of dollars in damage.
2008 – Former Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boškoski is acquitted of all charges by a United Nations Tribunal accusing him of war crimes.
Wikipedia

[Bo]

11th of July

Events

472 – After being besieged in Rome by his own generals, Western Roman Emperor Anthemius is captured in the Old St. Peter's Basilica and put to death.
911 – Signing of the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte between Charles the Simple and Rollo of Normandy.
1174 – Baldwin IV, 13, becomes King of Jerusalem, with Raymond III, Count of Tripoli as regent and William of Tyre as chancellor.
1302 – Battle of the Golden Spurs (Guldensporenslag in Dutch) – a coalition around the Flemish cities defeats the king of France's royal army.
1346 – Charles IV of Luxembourg is elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
1405 – Ming admiral Zheng He sets sail to explore the world for the first time.
1476 – Giuliano della Rovere is appointed bishop of Coutances.
1533 – Pope Clement VII excommunicates Henry VIII of England.
1576 – Martin Frobisher sights Greenland.
1616 – Samuel de Champlain returns to Quebec.
1735 – Mathematical calculations suggest that it is on this day that dwarf planet Pluto moved inside the orbit of Neptune for the last time before 1979.
1740 – Pogrom: Jews are expelled from Little Russia.
1750 – Halifax, Nova Scotia is almost completely destroyed by fire.
1776 – Captain James Cook begins his third voyage.
1789 – Jacques Necker is dismissed as France's Finance Minister sparking the Storming of the Bastille.
1796 – The United States takes possession of Detroit from Great Britain under terms of the Jay Treaty.
1798 – The United States Marine Corps is re-established; they had been disbanded after the American Revolutionary War.
1801 – French astronomer Jean-Louis Pons made his first comet discovery. In the next 27 years he discovered another 36 comets, more than any other person in history.
1804 – A duel occurs in which the Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr mortally wounds former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton.
1833 – Noongar Australian aboriginal warrior Yagan, wanted for the murder of white colonists in Western Australia, is killed.
1848 – Waterloo railway station in London opens.
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Fort Stevens; Confederate forces attempt to invade Washington, D.C.
1882 – The British Mediterranean fleet begins the Bombardment of Alexandria in Egypt as part of the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War.
1889 – Tijuana, Mexico, is founded.
1893 – The first cultured pearl is obtained by Kokichi Mikimoto.
1893 – A revolution led by the liberal general and politician, José Santos Zelaya, takes over state power in Nicaragua.
1895 – The Lumière brothers demonstrate film technology to scientists.
1897 – Salomon August Andrée leaves Spitsbergen to attempt to reach the North Pole by balloon. He later crashes and dies.
1906 – The Gillette-Brown murder inspires Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy.
1914 – Babe Ruth makes his debut in Major League Baseball.
1914 – USS Nevada (BB-36) is launched.
1919 – The eight-hour working day and free Sunday become law in the Netherlands.
1920 – In the East Prussian plebiscite the local populace decides to remain with Weimar Germany
1921 – A truce is called in the Irish War of Independence; see Irish calendar.
1921 – Former U.S. President William Howard Taft is sworn in as 10th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the only person to ever be both President and Chief Justice.
1921 – The Red Army captures Mongolia from the White Army and establishes the Mongolian People's Republic.
1922 – The Hollywood Bowl opens.
1930 – Australian cricketer Donald Bradman scores 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.
1934 – In 1934 Engelbert Zaschka from Germany completed a large human-powered aircraft, the Zaschka Human-Power Aircraft. On 11 July 1934 the Zaschka-HPA flew about 20 meters on the Berlin Tempelhof Airport; the HPA took off without assisted takeoff.
1936 – The Triborough Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic.
1940 – World War II: Vichy France regime is formally established. Philippe Pétain becomes Prime Minister of France.
1943 – Massacres of Poles in Volhynia.
1943 – World War II: Allied invasion of Sicily – German and Italian troops launch a counter-attack on Allied forces in Sicily.
1947 – The Exodus 1947 heads to Palestine from France.
1950 – Pakistan joins the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank.
1957 – Prince Karim Husseini Aga Khan IV inherits the office of Imamat as the 49th Imam of Shia Imami Ismaili worldwide, after the death of Sir Sultan Mahommed Shah Aga Khan III.
1960 – Independence of Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger.
1960 – To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is first published.
1960 – Congo Crisis: The State of Katanga breaks away from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
1962 – First transatlantic satellite television transmission.
1962 – Project Apollo: At a press conference, NASA announces Lunar Orbit Rendezvous as the means to land astronauts on the Moon, and return them to Earth.
1971 – Copper mines in Chile are nationalized.
1972 – The first game of the World Chess Championship 1972 between challenger Bobby Fischer and defending champion Boris Spassky starts.
1973 – Varig Flight 820 crashes near Paris, France on approach to Orly Airport, killing 123 of the 134 on board.
1977 – Martin Luther King, Jr. is posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
1978 – Los Alfaques Disaster: A truck carrying liquid gas crashes and explodes at a coastal campsite in Tarragona, Spain killing 216 tourists.
1979 – America's first space station, Skylab, is destroyed as it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean.
1983 – A Boeing 737 crashes into hilly terrain after a tail strike in Cuenca, Ecuador, claiming 119 lives.
1990 – Oka Crisis: First Nations land dispute in Quebec, Canada begins.
1991 – A Nationair DC-8 crashes during an emergency landing at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing 261.
1995 – A Cubana de Aviación Antonov An-24 crashes into the Caribbean off southeast Cuba killing 44 people.
1995 – The Srebrenica massacre was carried out.
2006 – 209 people are killed in a series of bomb attacks in Mumbai, India.
2012 – Astronomers announce the discovery of Styx, the fifth moon of Pluto.

Wikipedia

[Bo]

12TH of July

Events

927 – Æthelstan, King of England, secures a pledge from Constantine II of Scotland that the latter will not ally with Viking kings, beginning the process of unifying Great Britain. This is considered the closest thing that England has to a foundation date.
1191 – Third Crusade: Saladin's garrison surrenders to Philip Augustus, ending the two-year siege of Acre.
1470 – The Ottomans capture Euboea.
1493 – Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle, one of the best-documented early printed books, is published.
1543 – King Henry VIII of England marries his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr, at Hampton Court Palace.
1561 – Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow is consecrated.
1562 – Fray Diego de Landa, acting Bishop of Yucatán, burns the sacred books of the Maya.
1580 – The Ostrog Bible, one of the early printed Bibles in a Slavic language, is published.
1690 – Battle of the Boyne (Gregorian calendar) – The armies of William III defeat those of the former James II.
1691 – Battle of Aughrim (Julian calendar) – The decisive victory of William III of England's forces in Ireland.
1776 – Captain James Cook begins his third voyage.
1789 – French revolutionary and radical journalist Camille Desmoulins gave a speech in response to the dismissal of Jacques Necker France's finance minister the day before. The speech called the citizens to arms and led to the Storming of the Bastille two days later.
1790 – The Civil Constitution of the Clergy is passed in France by the National Constituent Assembly.
1799 – Ranjit Singh conquers Lahore and becomes Maharaja of The Punjab (Sikh Empire) .
1801 – French Revolutionary Wars: British Royal Navy ships inflict heavy damage against Spanish and French ships in the Second Battle of Algeciras.
1804 – Former United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton dies a day after being shot in a duel.
1806 – Sixteen German imperial states leave the Holy Roman Empire and form the Confederation of the Rhine.
1806 – Liechtenstein was given full sovereignty after its accession to the Confederation of the Rhine.
1812 – War of 1812: the United States invade Canada at Windsor, Ontario.
1862 – The Medal of Honor is authorized by the United States Congress.
1879 – The National Guards Unit of Bulgaria is founded.
1913 – Second Balkan War: Serbian forces begin their siege of the Bulgarian city of Vidin; the siege is later called off when the war ends.
1917 – The Bisbee Deportation occurs as vigilantes kidnap and deport nearly 1,300 striking miners and others from Bisbee, Arizona.
1918 – The Imperial Japanese Navy battleship Kawachi blows up at Shunan, western Honshu, Japan, killing at least 621.
1920 – The Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty is signed. Soviet Russia recognizes independent Lithuania.
1932 – Hedley Verity takes a cricket world record 10 wickets for 10 runs in a county match for Yorkshire
1943 – World War II: Battle of Prokhorovka – German and Soviet forces engage in one of the largest tank engagement of all time.
1948 – Arab–Israeli War: Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion orders the explusion of Palestinians from the towns of Lod and Ramla.
1960 – Orlyonok, the main Young Pioneer camp of the Russian SFSR, is founded.
1961 – Pune floods due to failure of the Khadakwasla and Panshet dams. Half of Pune is submerged, more than 100,000 families need to be relocated and the death tally exceeds 2,000.
1962 – The Rolling Stones perform their first ever concert, at the Marquee Club in London, England, United Kingdom.
1963 – 16-year-old Pauline Reade disappears on her way to a dance at the British Railways Club in Gorton, England, the first victim in the Moors murders.
1967 – The Newark riots began in Newark, New Jersey.
1970 – A fire consumes the wooden home of Norwegian composer Geirr Tveitt and irretrievably destroys about 90 percent of his output.
1971 – The Australian Aboriginal Flag is flown for the first time.
1973 – A fire destroys the entire 6th floor of the National Personnel Records Center of the United States.
1975 – São Tomé and Príncipe declare independence from Portugal.
1979 – The island nation of Kiribati becomes independent from United Kingdom.
2006 – Hezbollah initiate Operation True Promise.
2007 – U.S. Army Apache helicopters perform airstrikes in Baghdad, Iraq; footage from the cockpit is later leaked to the Internet.
2012 – A tank truck explosion kills more than 100 people in Okobie, Nigeria.
2012 – The Turaymisah massacre kills 250 people during a Syrian military operation in a village within the Hama Governorate.

[Bo]

13th of July

Events

1174 – William I of Scotland, a key rebel in the Revolt of 1173–1174, is captured at Alnwick by forces loyal to Henry II of England.
1249 – Coronation of Alexander III as King of Scots.
1260 – The Livonian Order suffers its greatest defeat in the 13th century in the Battle of Durbe against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
1490 – John of Kastav finishes a cycle of frescoes in the Holy Trinity Church in Hrastovlje (now southwestern Slovenia).
1558 – Battle of Gravelines: in France, Spanish forces led by Count Lamoral of Egmont defeat the French forces of Marshal Paul de Thermes at Gravelines.
1573 – Eighty Years' War: the Siege of Haarlem ends after seven months.
1643 – English Civil War: Battle of Roundway Down – In England, Henry Wilmot, 1st Earl of Rochester, commanding the Royalist forces, heavily defeats the Parliamentarian forces led by Sir William Waller.
1787 – The Continental Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance establishing governing rules for the Northwest Territory. It also establishes procedures for the admission of new states and limits the expansion of slavery.
1793 – Journalist and French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat is assassinated in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday, a member of the opposing political faction.
1794 – The Battle of the Vosges is fought between French forces and those of Prussia and Austria.
1814 – The Carabinieri, the national gendarmerie of Italy, is established.
1830 – The General Assembly's Institution, now the Scottish Church College, one of the pioneering institutions that ushered the Bengal Renaissance, is founded by Alexander Duff and Raja Ram Mohan Roy, in Calcutta, India.
1854 – In the Battle of Guaymas, Mexico, General José María Yáñez stops the French invasion led by Count Gaston de Raousset-Boulbon.
1863 – New York City draft riots: in New York, New York, opponents of conscription begin three days of rioting which will be later regarded as the worst in United States history.
1878 – Treaty of Berlin: the European powers redraw the map of the Balkans. Serbia, Montenegro and Romania become completely independent of the Ottoman Empire.
1905 – The verdict in the six-month long Smarthavicharam trial of Kuriyedath Thathri is pronounced, leading to the excommunication of 65 men of various castes.
1919 – The British airship R34 lands in Norfolk, England, completing the first airship return journey across the Atlantic in 182 hours of flight.
1923 – The Hollywood Sign is officially dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. It originally reads "Hollywoodland " but the four last letters are dropped after renovation in 1949.
1941 – World War II: Montenegrins begin a popular uprising against the Axis powers (Trinaestojulski ustanak).
1962 – In an unprecedented action, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dismisses seven members of his Cabinet, marking the effective end of the National Liberals as a distinct force within British politics.
1973 – Alexander Butterfield reveals the existence of the "Nixon tapes" to the special Senate committee investigating the Watergate break in.
1977 – Somalia declares war on Ethiopia, starting the Ethiopian-Somali War.
1977 – New York, New York, amidst a period of financial and social turmoil experiences an electrical blackout lasting nearly 24 hours that leads to widespread fires and looting.
1985 – The Live Aid benefit concert takes place in London, England, United Kingdom and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as well as other venues such as Sydney, Australia and Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union.
1985 – Vice President George Bush becomes the Acting President for the day when President Ronald Reagan undergoes surgery to remove polyps from his colon.
1990 – An earthquake with its epicenter in Afghanistan results in the greatest number of fatalities in a mountaineering accident in High Asian mountains when an avalanche kills 43 climbers in Camp I on Pik Lenina (Lenin Peak).
2003 – French DGSE personnel abort an operation to rescue Íngrid Betancourt from FARC rebels in Colombia, causing a political scandal when details are leaked to the press.
2011 – Mumbai is rocked by three bomb blasts during the evening rush hour, killing 26 and injuring 130.

Wikipedia

[Bo]

14th of July

Events

756 – Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty China flees the capital Chang'an as An Lushan's forces advance toward the city during the An Lushan Rebellion.
1223 – Louis VIII becomes King of France upon the death of his father, Philip II of France.
1769 – An expedition led by Gaspar de Portolà establishes a base in California and sets out to find the Port of Monterey (now Monterey, California).
1771 – Foundation of the Mission San Antonio de Padua in modern California by the Franciscan friar Junípero Serra.
1789 – French Revolution: citizens of Paris storm the Bastille.
1789 – Alexander Mackenzie finally completes his journey to the mouth of the great river he hoped would take him to the Pacific, but which turns out to flow into the Arctic Ocean. Later named after him, the Mackenzie is the second-longest river system in North America.
1790 – French Revolution: citizens of Paris celebrate the constitutional monarchy and national reconciliation in the Fête de la Fédération.
1791 – The Priestley Riots drive Joseph Priestley, a supporter of the French Revolution, out of Birmingham, England.
1798 – The Sedition Act becomes law in the United States making it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false or malicious statements about the United States government.
1853 – Opening of the first major US world's fair, the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York City.
1865 – First ascent of the Matterhorn by Edward Whymper and party, four of whom die on the descent.
1877 – The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 begins in Martinsburg, West Virginia, US, when Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers have their wages cut for the second time in a year.
1881 – Billy the Kid is shot and killed by Pat Garrett outside Fort Sumner.
1900 – Armies of the Eight-Nation Alliance capture Tientsin during the Boxer Rebellion.
1902 – The Campanile in St. Mark's Square, Venice collapses, also demolishing the loggetta.
1911 – Harry Atwood, an exhibition pilot for the Wright Brothers lands his airplane at the South Lawn of the White House. He is later awarded a Gold medal from U.S. President William Howard Taft for this feat.
1916 – Start of the Battle of Delville Wood as an action within the Battle of the Somme, which was to last until 3 September 1916.
1933 – Gleichschaltung: in Germany, all political parties are outlawed except the Nazi Party.
1933 – The Nazi eugenics begins with the proclamation of the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring that calls for the compulsory sterilization of any citizen who suffers from alleged genetic disorders.
1943 – In Diamond, Missouri, the George Washington Carver National Monument becomes the first United States National Monument in honor of an African American.
1948 – Palmiro Togliatti, leader of the Italian Communist Party, is shot and wounded near the Italian Parliament.
1950 – Korean War: North Korean troops initiate the Battle of Taejon.
1957 – Rawya Ateya takes her seat in the National Assembly of Egypt, thereby becoming the first female parliamentarian in the Arab world.
1958 – Iraqi Revolution: in Iraq the monarchy is overthrown by popular forces led by Abdul Karim Kassem, who becomes the nation's new leader.
1960 – Jane Goodall arrives at the Gombe Stream Reserve in present-day Tanzania to begin her famous study of chimpanzees in the wild.
1965 – The Mariner 4 flyby of Mars takes the first close-up photos of another planet.
1969 – Football War: after Honduras loses a soccer match against El Salvador, riots break out in Honduras against Salvadoran migrant workers.
1969 – The United States $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills are officially withdrawn from circulation.
1976 – Capital punishment is abolished in Canada.
1987 – Montreal, Canada, is hit by a series of thunderstorms causing the Montreal Flood of 1987.
1992 – 386BSD is released by Lynne Jolitz and William Jolitz beginning the Open Source Operating System Revolution. Linus Torvalds releases his Linux soon afterwards.
2000 – A powerful solar flare, later named the Bastille Day event, causes a geomagnetic storm on Earth.
2002 – French President Jacques Chirac escapes an assassination attempt unscathed during Bastille Day celebrations.
2003 – In an effort to discredit U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, who had written an article critical of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Washington Post columnist Robert Novak reveals that Wilson's wife Valerie Plame is a CIA "operative".

Wikipedia

[Bo]

16th of July

Events

622 – The beginning of the Islamic calendar.
1054 – Three Roman legates break relations between Western and Eastern Christian Churches through the act of placing an invalidly-issued Papal bull of Excommunication on the altar of Hagia Sophia during Saturday afternoon divine liturgy. Historians frequently describe the event as the start of the East–West Schism.
1212 – Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa: after Pope Innocent III calls European knights to a crusade, forces of Kings Alfonso VIII of Castile, Sancho VII of Navarre, Peter II of Aragon and Afonso II of Portugal defeat those of the Berber Muslim leader Almohad, thus marking a significant turning point in the Reconquista and in the medieval history of Spain.
1377 – Coronation of Richard II of England.
1661 – The first banknotes in Europe are issued by the Swedish bank Stockholms Banco.
1683 – Manchu Qing Dynasty naval forces under traitorous commander Shi Lang defeat the Kingdom of Tungning in the Battle of Penghu near the Pescadores Islands.
1769 – Father Junípero Serra founds California's first mission, Mission San Diego de Alcalá. Over the following decades, it evolves into the city of San Diego, California.
1779 – American Revolutionary War: light infantry of the Continental Army seize a fortified British Army position in a midnight bayonet attack at the Battle of Stony Point.
1782 – First performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
1790 – The District of Columbia is established as the capital of the United States after signature of the Residence Act.
1809 – The city of La Paz, in what is today Bolivia, declares its independence from the Spanish Crown during the La Paz revolution and forms the Junta Tuitiva, the first independent government in Spanish America, led by Pedro Domingo Murillo.
1849 – Antonio María Claret y Clará founded the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, popularly known as the Claretians in Vic, in the province of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
1861 – American Civil War: at the order of President Abraham Lincoln, Union troops begin a 25 mile march into Virginia for what will become the First Battle of Bull Run, the first major land battle of the war.
1862 – American Civil War: David Farragut is promoted to rear admiral, becoming the first officer in United States Navy to hold an admiral rank.
1909 – Persian Constitutional Revolution: Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar is forced out as Shah of Persia and is replaced by his son Ahmad Shah Qajar.
1910 – John Robertson Duigan makes the first flight of the Duigan pusher biplane, the first aircraft built in Australia.
1915 – Henry James becomes a British citizen, to highlight his commitment to England during the first World War.
1915 – First Order of the Arrow ceremony takes places and the Order of the Arrow is founded.
1927 – Augusto César Sandino leads a raid on U.S. Marines and Nicaraguan Guardia Nacional that had been sent to apprehend him in the village of Ocotal, but is repulsed by one of the first dive-bombing attacks in history.
1931 – Emperor Haile Selassie I signs the first constitution of Ethiopia.
1935 – The world's first parking meter is installed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
1941 – Joe DiMaggio hits safely for the 56th consecutive game, a streak that still stands as a MLB record.
1942 – Holocaust: Vel' d'Hiv Roundup (Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv): the government of Vichy France orders the mass arrest of 13,152 Jews who are held at the Winter Velodrome in Paris before deportation to Auschwitz.
1945 – World War II: The heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis leaves San Francisco with parts for the atomic bomb "Little Boy" bound for Tinian Island.
1945 – Manhattan Project: the Atomic Age begins when the United States successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon near Alamogordo, New Mexico.
1948 – Following token resistance, the city of Nazareth, revered by Christians as the hometown of Jesus, capitulates to Israeli troops during Operation Dekel in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
1948 – The storming of the cockpit of the Miss Macao passenger seaplane, operated by a subsidiary of the Cathay Pacific Airways, marks the first aircraft hijacking of a commercial plane.
1950 – Chaplain–Medic massacre: American POWs were massacred by North Korean Army.
1951 – King Leopold III of Belgium abdicates in favor of his son, Baudouin I of Belgium.
1951 – The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger is published for the first time by Little, Brown and Company.
1956 – Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus closes its very last "Big Tent" show in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, due to changing economics all subsequent circus shows will be held in arenas.
1960 – USS George Washington a modified Skipjack class submarine successfully test fires the first ballistic missile while submerged.
1965 – The Mont Blanc Tunnel linking France and Italy opens.
1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 11, the first manned space mission to land on the Moon, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
1973 – Watergate scandal: former White House aide Alexander Butterfield informs the United States Senate that President Richard Nixon had secretly recorded potentially incriminating conversations.
1979 – Iraqi President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr resigns and is replaced by Saddam Hussein.
1981 – Mahathir Mohamad becomes Malaysia's 4th Prime Minister; his 22 years in office, ending with retirement on 31 October 2003, made him Asia's longest-serving political leader.
1983 – Sikorsky S-61 disaster: a helicopter crashes off the Isles of Scilly, causing 20 fatalities.
1990 – The Luzon Earthquake strikes in Benguet, Pangasinan, Nueva Ecija, La Union, Aurora, Bataan, Zambales and Tarlac, Philippines, with an intensity of 7.7.
1990 – The Parliament of the Ukrainian SSR declares state sovereignty over the territory of the Ukrainian SSR.
1993 – The Slackware operating system is first released.
1994 – Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 collides with Jupiter. Impacts continue until July 22.
1999 – John F. Kennedy, Jr., piloting a Piper Saratoga aircraft, dies when his plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. His wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette are also killed.
2004 – Millennium Park, considered Chicago, Illinois's first and most ambitious early 21st century architectural project, is opened to the public by Mayor Richard M. Daley.
2007 – An earthquake of magnitude 6.8 and 6.6 aftershock occurs off the Niigata coast of Japan killing eight people, injuring at least 800 and damaging a nuclear power plant.
2008 – Sixteen infants in Gansu Province, China, who had been fed on tainted milk powder, are diagnosed with kidney stones; in total an estimated 300,000 infants are affected.

Wikipedia

[Bo]

17th of July

Events

180 – Twelve inhabitants of Scillium in North Africa are executed for being Christians. This is the earliest record of Christianity in that part of the world.
1203 – The Fourth Crusade captures Constantinople by assault. The Byzantine emperor Alexios III Angelos flees from his capital into exile.
1402 – Zhu Di, better known by his era name as the Yongle Emperor, assumes the throne over the Ming Dynasty of China.
1429 – Hundred Years' war – Charles VII of France is crowned the King of France in the Reims Cathedral after a successful campaign by Joan of Arc
1453 – Battle of Castillon: The last battle of Hundred Years' War, the The French under Jean Bureau defeat the English under the Earl of Shrewsbury, who is killed in the battle in Gascony.
1717 – King George I of Great Britain sails down the River Thames with a barge of 50 musicians, where George Frideric Handel's Water Music is premiered.
1762 – Catherine II becomes tsar of Russia upon the murder of Peter III of Russia.
1771 – Bloody Falls Massacre: Chipewyan chief Matonabbee, traveling as the guide to Samuel Hearne on his Arctic overland journey, massacres a group of unsuspecting Inuit.
1791 – Members of the French National Guard under the command of General Lafayette open fire on a crowd of radical Jacobins at the Champ de Mars, Paris, during the French Revolution, killing as many as 50 people.
1794 – The sixteen Carmelite Martyrs of Compiègne are executed 10 days prior to the end of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror.
1856 – The Great Train Wreck of 1856 in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, kills over 60 people.
1867 – Harvard School of Dental Medicine was established in Boston, Massachusetts. It was the first dental school in the U.S. that was affiliated with a university.
1899 – NEC Corporation is organized as the first Japanese joint venture with foreign capital.
1917 – King George V issues a Proclamation stating that the male line descendants of the British Royal Family will bear the surname Windsor.
1918 – Emperor Nicholas II of Russia and his immediate family and retainers are murdered by Bolshevik Chekists at the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, Russia.
1918 – The RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued the 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic, is sunk off Ireland by the German SM U-55; 5 lives are lost.
1932 – Altona Bloody Sunday.
1933 – After successfully crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the Lithuanian research aircraft Lituanica crashes in Europe under mysterious circumstances.
1936 – Spanish Civil War: An Armed Forces rebellion against the recently-elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain starts the civil war.
1938 – Douglas Corrigan takes off from Brooklyn to fly the "wrong way" to Ireland and becomes known as "Wrong Way" Corrigan.
1944 – Port Chicago disaster: Near the San Francisco Bay, two ships laden with ammunition for the war explode in Port Chicago, California, killing 320.
1944 – World War II: Napalm incendiary bombs are dropped for the first time by American P-38 pilots on a fuel depot at Coutances, near Saint-Lô, France.
1945 – World War II: the leaders of the three Allied nations, Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin, meet in the German city of Potsdam to decide the future of a defeated Germany.
1948 – The South Korean constitution is proclaimed.
1953 – The largest number of United States midshipman casualties in a single event results from an aircraft crash in Florida killing 44.
1955 – Disneyland is dedicated and opened by Walt Disney in Anaheim, California.
1962 – Nuclear weapons testing: The "Small Boy" test shot Little Feller I becomes the last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada National Security Site.
1968 – A revolution occurs in Iraq when Abdul Rahman Arif is overthrown and the Ba'ath Party is installed as the governing power in Iraq with Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as the new Iraqi President.
1973 – King Mohammed Zahir Shah of Afghanistan is deposed by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan while in Italy undergoing eye surgery.
1975 – Apollo–Soyuz Test Project: An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock with each other in orbit marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations.
1976 – History of East Timor: East Timor is annexed, and becomes the 27th province of Indonesia.
1976 – The opening of the Summer Olympics in Montreal is marred by 25 African teams boycotting the New Zealand team.
1979 – Nicaraguan president General Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigns and flees to Miami, Florida.
1981 – The opening of the Humber Bridge by Queen Elizabeth II in England, United Kingdom.
1981 – A structural failure leads to the collapse of a walkway at the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, Missouri killing 114 people and injuring more than 200.
1985 – Founding of the EUREKA Network by former head of states François Mitterrand (France) and Helmut Kohl (Germany).
1989 – First flight of the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.
1989 – Holy See-Poland relations are restored.
1996 – TWA Flight 800: Off the coast of Long Island, New York, a Paris-bound TWA Boeing 747 explodes, killing all 230 on board.
1996 – The Community of Portuguese Language Countries is founded.
1998 – Papua New Guinea earthquake: A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea killing an estimated 3,183, leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless.
1998 – A diplomatic conference adopts the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, establishing a permanent international court to prosecute individuals for genocide, Crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.
2007 – TAM Airlines (TAM Linhas Aéreas) Flight 3054 crashes upon landing during rain in São Paulo. This is Brazil's deadliest aviation accident to date with an estimated 199 deaths.
2009 – Jakarta double bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton Hotels killed 9 people including 4 foreigners.

Wikipedia

[Bo]

18th of July

Events

390 BC – Roman-Gaulish Wars: Battle of the Allia – a Roman army is defeated by raiding Gauls, leading to the subsequent sacking of Rome.
362 – Roman–Persian Wars: Emperor Julian arrives at Antioch with a Roman expeditionary force (60,000 men) and stays there for nine months to launch a campaign against the Persian Empire.
1290 – King Edward I of England issues the Edict of Expulsion, banishing all Jews (numbering about 16,000) from England; this was Tisha B'Av on the Hebrew calendar, a day that commemorates many Jewish calamities.
1334 – The bishop of Florence blesses the first foundation stone for the new campanile (bell tower) of the Florence Cathedral, designed by the artist Giotto di Bondone.
1342 – Mu'izz al-Din Husayn defeats the Sarbadars in the Battle of Zava.
1389 – Kingdom of France and Kingdom of England agree to the Truce of Leulinghem, inaugurating a 13-year peace; the longest period of sustained peace during the Hundred Years' War.
1391 – Tokhtamysh–Timur war: Battle of the Kondurcha River – Timur defeats Tokhtamysh of the Golden Horde in present day southeast Russia.
1555 – The College of Arms was reincorporated by Royal charter signed by Queen Mary I of England and King Philip II of Spain.
1656 – Polish-Lithuanian forces clash with Sweden and its Brandenburg allies in the start of what is to be known as The Battle of Warsaw which ends in a decisive Swedish victory.
1812 – The Treaties of Orebro end both the Anglo-Russian and Anglo-Swedish Wars.
1857 – Louis Faidherbe, French governor of Senegal, arrives to relieve French forces at Kayes, effectively ending El Hajj Umar Tall's war against the French.
1862 – First ascent of Dent Blanche, one of the highest summits in the Alps.
1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Fort Wagner/Morris Island – the first formal African American military unit, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, supported by several white regiments, attempts an unsuccessful assault on Confederate-held Battery Wagner.
1870 – The First Vatican Council decrees the dogma of papal infallibility.
1914 – The U.S. Congress forms the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, giving definite status to aircraft within the U.S. Army for the first time.
1925 – Adolf Hitler publishes his personal manifesto Mein Kampf.
1936 – Army uprising in Spanish Morocco starts Spanish Civil War.
1942 – World War II: the Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me 262 using only its jet engines for the first time.
1944 – World War II: Hideki Tōjō resigns as Prime Minister of Japan due to numerous setbacks in the war effort.
1966 – Human spaceflight: Gemini 10 is launched from Cape Kennedy on a 70-hour mission that includes docking with an orbiting Agena target vehicle.
1968 – Intel is founded in Santa Clara, California.
1969 – After a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts drives an Oldsmobile off a bridge and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, dies.
1976 – Nadia Comăneci became the first person in Olympic Games history to score a perfect 10 in gymnastics at the 1976 Summer Olympics.
1982 – 268 campesinos ("peasants" or "country people") are slain in the Plan de Sánchez massacre in Ríos Montt's Guatemala.
1984 – McDonald's massacre in San Ysidro, California: in a fast-food restaurant, James Oliver Huberty opens fire, killing 21 people and injuring 19 others before being shot dead by police.
1986 – A tornado is broadcast live on KARE television in Minnesota when the station's helicopter pilot makes a chance encounter.
1992 – The ten victims of the La Cantuta massacre disappear from their university in Lima.
1994 – The bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Argentine Jewish Community Center) in Buenos Aires kills 85 people (mostly Jewish) and injures 300.
1995 – On the Caribbean island of Montserrat, the Soufrière Hills volcano erupts. Over the course of several years, it devastates the island, destroying the capital and forcing most of the population to flee.
1996 – Storms provoke severe flooding on the Saguenay River, beginning one of Quebec's costliest natural disasters ever: the Saguenay Flood.
1996 – Battle of Mullaitivu. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam capture the Sri Lanka Army's base, killing over 1200 Army soldiers.

Wikipedia

[Bo]

19th of July

Events

64 – Great Fire of Rome: a fire begins to burn in the merchant area of Rome and soon burns completely out of control. According to a popular, but untrue legend, Nero fiddled as the city burned.
484 – Leontius, Roman usurper, is crowned Eastern emperor at Tarsus (modern Turkey). He is recognized in Antioch and makes it his capital.
711 – Umayyad conquest of Hispania: Battle of Guadalete – Umayyad forces under Tariq ibn Ziyad defeat the Visigoths led by King Roderic.
1333 – Wars of Scottish Independence: Battle of Halidon Hill – The English win a decisive victory over the Scots.
1544 – Italian War of 1542–1546: the first Siege of Boulogne begins.
1545 – The Tudor warship Mary Rose sinks off Portsmouth; in 1982 the wreck is salvaged in one of the most complex and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology.
1553 – Lady Jane Grey is replaced by Mary I of England as Queen of England after only nine days of reign.
1588 – Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Gravelines – The Spanish Armada is sighted in the English Channel.
1701 – Representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy sign the Nanfan Treaty, ceding a large territory north of the Ohio River to England.
1702 – Great Northern War: A numerically superior Polish-Saxon army of Augustus II the Strong, operating from an advantageous defensive position, is defeated by a Swedish army half its size under the command of King Charles XII in the Battle of Klissow.
1832 – The British Medical Association is founded as the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association by Sir Charles Hastings at a meeting in the Board Room of the Worcester Infirmary.
1843 – Brunel's steamship the SS Great Britain is launched, becoming the first ocean-going craft with an iron hull or screw propeller and becoming the largest vessel afloat in the world.
1848 – Women's rights: a two-day Women's Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York.
1863 – American Civil War: Morgan's Raid – At Buffington Island in Ohio, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan's raid into the north is mostly thwarted when a large group of his men are captured while trying to escape across the Ohio River.
1864 – Taiping Rebellion: Third Battle of Nanking – The Qing Dynasty finally defeats the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
1870 – Franco-Prussian War: France declares war on Prussia.
1900 – The first line of the Paris Métro opens for operation.
1903 – Maurice Garin wins the first Tour de France.
1916 – World War I: Battle of Fromelles – British and Australian troops attack German trenches in a prelude to the Battle of the Somme.
1919 – Following Peace Day celebrations marking the end of World War I, ex-servicemen riot and burn down Luton Town Hall.
1940 – World War II: Battle of Cape Spada – The Royal Navy and the Regia Marina clash; the Italian light cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni sinks, with 121 casualties.
1940 – World War II: Army order 112 forms the Intelligence Corps of the British Army.
1942 – World War II: Battle of the Atlantic – German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions in response to the effective American convoy system.
1947 – The Prime Minister of the shadow Burmese government, Bogyoke Aung San and 6 of his cabinet and 2 non-cabinet members are assassinated by Galon U Saw.
1947 – Korean politician Yuh Woon-Hyung is assassinated.
1952 – The 1952 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XV Olympiad, were opened in Helsinki, Finland.
1961 – Tunisia imposes a blockade on the French naval base at Bizerte; the French would capture the entire town four days later.
1963 – Joe Walker flies a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 106,010 meters (347,800 feet) on X-15 Flight 90. Exceeding an altitude of 100 km, this flight qualifies as a human spaceflight under international convention.
1964 – Vietnam War: at a rally in Saigon, South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Khanh calls for expanding the war into North Vietnam.
1972 – Dhofar Rebellion: British SAS units help the Omani government against Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman rebels in the Battle of Mirbat.
1976 – Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal is created.
1979 – The Sandinista rebels overthrow the government of the Somoza family in Nicaragua.
1981 – In a private meeting with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, French Prime Minister François Mitterrand reveals the existence of the Farewell Dossier, a collection of documents showing that the Soviets had been stealing American technological research and development.
1983 – The first three-dimensional reconstruction of a human head in a CT is published.
1985 – The Val di Stava dam collapses killing 268 people in Val di Stava, Italy.
1992 – A car bomb placed by mafia with collaboration of Italian intelligence kills Judge Paolo Borsellino and five members of his escort
1997 – The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army resumes a ceasefire to end their 25-year campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland.
Wikipedia

[Bo]

20th of July

Events

70 – Siege of Jerusalem – Titus, son of emperor Vespasian, storms the Fortress of Antonia north of the Temple Mount. The Roman army is drawn into street fights with the Zealots.
911 – Rollo lays siege to Chartres.
1304 – Wars of Scottish Independence: Fall of Stirling Castle – King Edward I of England takes the stronghold using the War Wolf.
1402 – Ottoman-Timurid Wars: Battle of Ankara – Timur, ruler of Timurid Empire, defeats forces of the Ottoman Empire sultan Bayezid I.
1592 – The Japanese capture the Korean capital Pyongyang, causing King Seonjo to request the assistance of Ming Dynasty Chinese forces, who recapture the city a year later.
1738 – Canadian explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye reaches the western shore of Lake Michigan.
1799 – Tekle Giyorgis I begins his first of five reigns as Emperor of Ethiopia.
1807 – Nicéphore Niépce is awarded a patent by Napoleon for the Pyréolophore, the world's first internal combustion engine, after it successfully powered a boat upstream on the river Saône in France.
1810 – Citizens of Bogotá, New Granada declare independence from Spain.
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Peachtree Creek – Near Atlanta, Georgia, Confederate forces led by General John Bell Hood unsuccessfully attack Union troops under General William T. Sherman.
1866 – Austro-Prussian War: Battle of Lissa – The Austrian Navy , led by Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, defeats the Italian Navy near the island of Vis in the Adriatic Sea.
1871 – British Columbia joins the confederation of Canada.
1885 – The Football Association legalizes professionalism in association football under pressure from the British Football Association.
1903 – The Ford Motor Company ships its first car.
1917 – World War I: The Corfu Declaration, which leads to the creation of the post-war Kingdom of Yugoslavia, is signed by the Yugoslav Committee and Kingdom of Serbia.
1922 – The League of Nations awards mandates of Togoland to France and Tanganyika to the United Kingdom.
1932 – In Washington, D.C., police fire tear gas on World War I veterans, part of the Bonus Expeditionary Force, who attempt to march to the White House.
1934 – Labor unrest in the U.S.: as police in Minneapolis fire upon striking truck drivers, during the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934, killing two and wounding sixty-seven.
1934 – 1934 West Coast waterfront strike: In Seattle, Washington, police fire tear gas on and club 2,000 striking longshoremen. The governor of Oregon calls out the National Guard to break a strike on the Portland docks.
1935 – Switzerland: A Royal Dutch Airlines plane en route from Milan to Frankfurt crashes into a Swiss mountain, killing thirteen.
1936 – The Montreux Convention is signed in Switzerland, authorizing Turkey to fortify the Dardanelles and Bosphorus but guaranteeing free passage to ships of all nations in peacetime.
1938 – The United States Department of Justice files suit in New York, New York against the motion picture industry charging violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act in regards to the studio system. The case would eventually result in a break-up of the industry in 1948.
1940 – Denmark leaves the League of Nations.
1940 – California opens its first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway.
1941 – Soviet leader Joseph Stalin consolidates the Commissariats of Home Affairs and National Security to form the NKVD and names Lavrenti Beria its chief.
1944 – World War II: Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.
1949 – Israel and Syria sign a truce to end their nineteen-month war.
1950 – Cold War: In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Harry Gold pleads guilty to spying for the Soviet Union by passing secrets from atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs.
1951 – King Abdullah I of Jordan is assassinated by a Palestinian while attending Friday prayers in Jerusalem.
1954 – Germany: Otto John, head of West Germany's secret service, defects to East Germany.
1960 – Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) elects Sirimavo Bandaranaike Prime Minister, the world's first elected female head of government.
1960 – The Polaris missile is successfully launched from a submarine, the USS George Washington, for the first time.
1961 – French military forces break the Tunisian siege of Bizerte.
1964 – Vietnam War: Viet Cong forces attack the capital of Dinh Tuong Province, Cai Be, killing 11 South Vietnamese military personnel and 40 civilians (30 of which are children).
1968 – The first International Special Olympics Summer Games are held at Soldier Field in Chicago, Ill, with about 1,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities.
1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 11 successfully makes the first manned landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to walk on the Moon almost 7 hours later. (US Time)
1969 – A cease fire is announced between Honduras and El Salvador, 6 days after the beginning of the "Football War".
1974 – Turkish occupation of Cyprus: Forces from Turkey invade Cyprus after a coup d'etat, organised by the dictator of Greece, against president Makarios.
1976 – The American Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.
1977 – Johnstown, Pennsylvania is hit by a flash flood that kills eighty and causes $350 million in damage.
1977 – The Central Intelligence Agency releases documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing it had engaged in mind control experiments.
1980 – The United Nations Security Council votes 14-0 that member states should not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
1982 – Hyde Park and Regents Park bombings: The Provisional IRA detonates two bombs in Hyde Park and Regents Park in central London, killing eight soldiers, wounding forty-seven people, and leading to the deaths of seven horses.
1985 – The government of Aruba passes legislation to secede from the Netherlands Antilles.
1989 – Burma's ruling junta puts opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.
1992 – Václav Havel resigns as president of Czechoslovakia.
1997 – The fully restored USS Constitution (aka Old Ironsides) celebrates its 200th birthday by setting sail for the first time in 116 years.
1999 – Falun Gong is banned in China, and a large scale crackdown of the practice is launched.
2012 – During a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, a gunman opens fire at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 people and injuring 58.

Wikipedia

[Bo]

21st of July

Events

356 BC – The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, is destroyed by arson.
230 – Pope Pontian succeeds Urban I as the eighteenth pope.
285 – Diocletian appoints Maximian as Caesar and co-ruler.
365 – A tsunami devastates the city of Alexandria, Egypt. The tsunami was caused by the Crete earthquake estimated to be 8.0 on the Richter Scale. 5,000 people perished in Alexandria, and 45,000 more died outside the city.
1242 – Battle of Taillebourg : Louis IX of France puts an end to the revolt of his vassals Henry III of England and Hugh X of Lusignan.
1403 – Battle of Shrewsbury: King Henry IV of England defeats rebels to the north of the county town of Shropshire, England.
1545 – The first landing of French troops on the coast of the Isle of Wight during the French invasion of the Isle of Wight.
1568 – Eighty Years' War: Battle of Jemmingen – Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva defeats Louis of Nassau.
1645 – Qing Dynasty regent Dorgon issues an edict ordering all Han Chinese men to shave their forehead and braid the rest of their hair into a queue identical to those of the Manchus.
1656 – The Raid on Malaga takes place during the Anglo-Spanish War.
1718 – The Treaty of Passarowitz between the Ottoman Empire, Austria and the Republic of Venice is signed.
1774 – Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774): Russia and the Ottoman Empire sign the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca ending the war.
1831 – Inauguration of Leopold I of Belgium, first king of the Belgians.
1861 – American Civil War: First Battle of Bull Run – at Manassas Junction, Virginia, the first major battle of the war begins and ends in a victory for the Confederate army.
1865 – In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots and kills Davis Tutt in what is regarded as the first western showdown.
1873 – At Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James-Younger Gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the American Old West.
1877 – After rioting by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers and the deaths of nine rail workers at the hands of the Maryland militia, workers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania stage a sympathy strike that is met with an assault by the state militia.
1903 – Battle of Ciudad Bolívar, a victory of federal army of Juan Vicente Gómez over forces of general Nicolás Rolando.
1904 – Louis Rigolly, a Frenchman, becomes the first man to break the 100 mph (161 km/h) barrier on land. He drove a 15-liter Gobron-Brille in Ostend, Belgium.
1914 – The Crown council of Romania decides for the country to remain neutral in World War I.
1918 – U-156 shells Nauset Beach, in Orleans, Massachusetts.
1919 – The dirigible Wingfoot Air Express crashes into the Illinois Trust and Savings Building in Chicago, Illinois, killing 12 people.
1925 – Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John T. Scopes is found guilty of teaching evolution in class and fined $100.
1925 – Sir Malcolm Campbell becomes the first man to break the 150 mph (241 km/h) land barrier at Pendine Sands in Wales. He drove a Sunbeam at a two-way average speed of 150.33 mph (242 km/h).
1944 – World War II: Battle of Guam – American troops land on Guam starting the battle. It would end on August 10.
1944 – World War II: Claus von Stauffenberg and fellow conspirators are executed in Berlin, Germany for the July 20 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
1949 – The United States Senate ratifies the North Atlantic Treaty.
1954 – First Indochina War: The Geneva Conference partitions Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam.
1959 – Elijah Jerry "Pumpsie" Green becomes the first African-American to play for the Boston Red Sox, the last team to integrate. He came in as a pinch runner for Vic Wertz and stayed in as shortstop in a 2-1 loss to the Chicago White Sox.
1961 – Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 4 Mission – Gus Grissom piloting Liberty Bell 7 becomes the second American to go into space (in a suborbital mission).
1969 – Space Race: Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin become the first humans to walk on the Moon, during the Apollo 11 mission (July 20 in North America).
1970 – After 11 years of construction, the Aswan High Dam in Egypt is completed.
1972 – The Troubles: Bloody Friday – the Provisional IRA detonate 22 bombs in central Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom in the space of 80 minutes, killing 9 and injuring 130.
1973 – In the Lillehammer affair in Norway, Israeli Mossad agents kill a waiter whom they mistakenly thought was involved in the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre.
1976 – Christopher Ewart-Biggs British ambassador to the Republic of Ireland is assassinated by the Provisional IRA.
1977 – The start of the four day long Libyan–Egyptian War.
1983 – The world's lowest temperature is recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica at −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F).
1995 – Third Taiwan Strait Crisis: The People's Liberation Army begins firing missiles into the waters north of Taiwan.
2001 – At the conclusion of a fireworks display on Okura Beach in Akashi, Hyōgo, Japan, 11 people are killed and more than 120 are injured when a pedestrian footbridge connecting the beach to JR Asagiri railway station becomes overcrowded and people leaving the event fall down in a domino effect.
2005 – Four terrorist bombings, occurring exactly two weeks after the similar July 7 bombings, target London's public transportation system. All four bombs fail to detonate and all four suspected suicide bombers are captured and later convicted and imprisoned for long terms.
2011 – NASA's Space Shuttle program ends with the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-135.

Wikipedia

[Bo]

22nd of July

Events

838 – Battle of Anzen: the Byzantine emperor Theophilos suffers a heavy defeat by the Abbasids.
1099 – First Crusade: Godfrey of Bouillon is elected the first Defender of the Holy Sepulchre of The Kingdom of Jerusalem.
1209 – Massacre at Béziers: the first major military action of the Albigensian Crusade.
1298 – Wars of Scottish Independence: Battle of Falkirk – King Edward I of England and his longbowmen defeat William Wallace and his Scottish schiltrons outside the town of Falkirk.
1456 – Ottoman Wars in Europe: Siege of Belgrade – John Hunyadi, Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary, defeats Mehmet II of the Ottoman Empire
1484 – Battle of Lochmaben Fair – A 500-man raiding party led by Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany and James Douglas, 9th Earl of Douglas are defeated by Scots forces loyal to Albany's brother James III of Scotland; Douglas is captured.
1499 – Battle of Dornach – The Swiss decisively defeat the Imperial army of Emperor Maximilian I.
1587 – Colony of Roanoke: a second group of English settlers arrives on Roanoke Island off North Carolina to re-establish the deserted colony.
1686 – Albany, New York is formally chartered as a municipality by Governor Thomas Dongan.
1706 – The Acts of Union 1707 are agreed upon by commissioners from the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland, which, when passed by each countries' Parliaments, lead to the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain.
1793 – Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Pacific Ocean becoming the first recorded human to complete a transcontinental crossing of Canada.
1796 – Surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company name an area in Ohio "Cleveland" after Gen. Moses Cleaveland, the superintendent of the surveying party.
1797 – Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife: Battle between Spanish and British naval forces during the French Revolutionary Wars. During the Battle, Rear-Admiral Nelson is wounded in the arm and the arm had to be partially amputated.
1805 – Napoleonic Wars: War of the Third Coalition – Battle of Cape Finisterre – an inconclusive naval action is fought between a combined French and Spanish fleet under Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve of Spain and a British fleet under Admiral Robert Calder.
1812 – Napoleonic Wars: Peninsular War – Battle of Salamanca – British forces led by Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) defeat French troops near Salamanca, Spain.
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Atlanta – outside Atlanta, Georgia, Confederate General John Bell Hood leads an unsuccessful attack on Union troops under General William T. Sherman on Bald Hill.
1894 – The first ever motor race is held in France between the cities of Paris and Rouen. The fastest finisher was the Comte Jules-Albert de Dion, but The 'official' victory was awarded to Albert Lemaître driving his 3 hp petrol engined Peugeot.
1916 – In San Francisco, California, a bomb explodes on Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade killing 10 and injuring 40.
1933 – Wiley Post becomes the first person to fly solo around the world traveling 15,596 miles (25,099 km) in 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes.
1934 – Outside Chicago's Biograph Theater, "Public Enemy No. 1" John Dillinger is mortally wounded by FBI agents.
1937 – New Deal: the United States Senate votes down President Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court of the United States.
1942 – The United States government begins compulsory civilian gasoline rationing due to the wartime demands.
1942 – Holocaust: the systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto begins.
1943 – World War II: Allied forces capture the Italian city of Palermo.
1944 – The Polish Committee of National Liberation publishes its manifesto, starting the period of Communist rule in Poland
1946 – King David Hotel bombing: a Zionist underground organisation, the Irgun, bombs the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, site of the civil administration and military headquarters for Mandate Palestine, resulting in 91 deaths.
1951 – Dezik (Дезик) and Tsygan (Цыган, "Gypsy") are the first dogs to make a sub-orbital flight.
1962 – Mariner program: Mariner 1 spacecraft flies erratically several minutes after launch and has to be destroyed.
1976 – Japan completes its last reparation to the Philippines for war crimes committed during the imperial Japan's conquest of the country in the Second World War
1977 – Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping is restored to power.
1983 – Martial law in Poland is officially revoked.
1991 – Jeffrey Dahmer is arrested in Milwaukee after police discover human remains in his apartment.
1992 – Near Medellín, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar escapes from his luxury prison fearing extradition to the United States.
1993 – Great Flood of 1993: levees near Kaskaskia, Illinois rupture, forcing the entire town to evacuate by barges operated by the Army Corps of Engineers.
1997 – The second Blue Water Bridge opens between Port Huron, Michigan and Sarnia, Ontario.
2003 – Members of 101st Airborne of the United States, aided by Special Forces, attack a compound in Iraq, killing Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay, along with Mustapha Hussein, Qusay's 14-year old son, and a bodyguard.
2005 – Jean Charles de Menezes is killed by police as the hunt begins for the London Bombers responsible for the 7 July 2005 London bombings and the 21 July 2005 London bombings.
2011 – Norway is the victim of twin terror attacks, the first being a bomb blast which targeted government buildings in central Oslo, the second being a massacre at a youth camp on the island of Utøya.

Wikipedia

[Bo]

23rd of July

Events

1632 – Three hundred colonists bound for New France depart from Dieppe, France.
1677 – Scanian War: Denmark–Norway captures the harbor town of Marstrand from Sweden.
1793 – Prussia re-conquers Mainz from France.
1821 – While Mora Rebellion continuing, Greeks captured Monemvasia Castle. Turkish troops and citizens transferred to Minor Asia coasts.
1829 – In the United States, William Austin Burt patents the typographer, a precursor to the typewriter.
1833 – Cornerstones are laid for the construction of the Kirtland Temple in Kirtland, Ohio.
1840 – The Province of Canada is created by the Act of Union.
1862 – American Civil War: Henry Halleck takes command of the Union Army.
1874 – Aires de Ornelas e Vasconcelos is appointed the Archbishop of the Portuguese colonial enclave of Goa.
1881 – The Boundary treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina is signed in Buenos Aires.
1903 – The Ford Motor Company sells its first car.
1908 – The Second Constitution accepted by the Ottomans.
1914 – Austria-Hungary issues an ultimatum to Serbia demanding Serbia to allow the Austrians to determine who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Serbia will reject those demands and Austria will declare war on July 28.
1926 – Fox Film buys the patents of the Movietone sound system for recording sound onto film.
1927 – The first station of the Indian Broadcasting Company goes on the air in Bombay.
1929 – The Fascist government in Italy bans the use of foreign words.
1936 – In Catalonia, Spain, the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia is founded through the merger of Socialist and Communist parties.
1940 – The United States' Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles issues a declaration on the U.S. non-recognition policy of the Soviet annexation and incorporation of three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
1942 – The Holocaust: the Treblinka extermination camp is opened.
1942 – World War II: The German offensives Operation Edelweiss and Operation Braunschweig begin.
1942 – Bulgarian poet and Communist leader Nikola Vaptsarov is executed by firing squad.
1943 – The Rayleigh bath chair murder occurred in Rayleigh, Essex, England.
1945 – The post-war legal processes against Philippe Pétain begin.
1952 – The European Coal and Steel Community is established.
1952 – General Muhammad Naguib leads the Free Officers Movement (formed by Gamal Abdel Nasser, the real power behind the coup) in overthrowing King Farouk of Egypt.
1961 – The Sandinista National Liberation Front is founded in Nicaragua.
1962 – Telstar relays the first publicly transmitted, live trans-Atlantic television program, featuring Walter Cronkite.
1962 – The International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos is signed.
1967 – 12th Street Riot: in Detroit, Michigan, one of the worst riots in United States history begins on 12th Street in the predominantly African American inner city. It will leave 43 killed, 342 injured and 1,400 buildings burned.
1968 – Glenville Shootout: in Cleveland, Ohio, a violent shootout between a Black Militant organization led by Ahmed Evans and the Cleveland Police Department occurs. During the shootout, a riot begins and lasts for five days.
1968 – The only successful hijacking of an El Al aircraft takes place when a Boeing 707 carrying 10 crew and 38 passengers is taken over by three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The aircraft was en route from Rome, Italy, to Lod, Israel.
1970 – Qaboos bin Said al Said becomes Sultan of Oman after overthrowing his father, Said bin Taimur initiating massive reforms ;modernization programs and end to a decade long civil war.
1972 – The United States launch Landsat 1, the first Earth-resources satellite.
1974 – The Greek military junta collapses, and former Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis is invited to lead the new government.
1982 – The International Whaling Commission decides to end commercial whaling by 1985-86.
1983 – 13 Sri Lanka Army soldiers are killed after a deadly ambush by the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
1983 – Gimli Glider: Air Canada Flight 143 runs out of fuel and makes a deadstick landing at Gimli, Manitoba.
1984 – Vanessa Williams becomes the first Miss America to resign when she surrenders her crown after nude photos of her appeared in Penthouse magazine.
1986 – In London, England, United Kingdom, Prince Andrew, Duke of York marries Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey.
1988 – General Ne Win, effective ruler of Burma since 1962, resigns after pro-democracy protests.
1992 – A Vatican commission, led by Joseph Ratzinger, establishes that limiting certain rights of homosexual people and non-married couples is not equivalent to discrimination on grounds of race or gender.
1992 – Abkhazia declares independence from Georgia.
1993 – Agdam was occupied by Armenian separatists.
1995 – Comet Hale–Bopp is discovered; it will become visible to the naked eye nearly a year later.
1997 – Digital Equipment Corporation files antitrust charges against chipmaker Intel.
1999 – Crown Prince Mohammed Ben Al-Hassan is crowned King Mohammed VI of Morocco on the death of his father.
1999 – ANA Flight 61 is hijacked in Tokyo, Japan by Yuji Nishizawa.
2005 – Three bombs explode in the Naama Bay area of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, killing 88 people.
2012 – At least 107 people are killed and more than 250 others wounded in a string of bombings and attacks in Iraq.

Wikipedia

[Bo]

24th of July

Events

1132 – Battle of Nocera between Ranulf II of Alife and Roger II of Sicily.
1148 – Louis VII of France lays siege to Damascus during the Second Crusade.
1411 – Battle of Harlaw, one of the bloodiest battles in Scotland, takes place.
1487 – Citizens of Leeuwarden, Netherlands strike against a ban on foreign beer.
1534 – French explorer Jacques Cartier plants a cross on the Gaspé Peninsula and takes possession of the territory in the name of Francis I of France.
1567 – Mary, Queen of Scots, is forced to abdicate and replaced by her 1-year-old son James VI.
1701 – Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founds the trading post at Fort Pontchartrain, which later becomes the city of Detroit, Michigan.
1783 – The Kingdom of Georgia and the Russian Empire sign the Treaty of Georgievsk.
1814 – War of 1812: General Phineas Riall advances toward the Niagara River to halt Jacob Brown's American invaders.
1823 – Slavery is abolished in Chile.
1823 - In Maracaibo, Venezuela takes place the naval Battle of Lake Maracaibo, where the Admiral José Prudencio Padilla, defeated the Spanish Armada, thus culminating the independence for the Gran Colombia.
1847 – After 17 months of travel, Brigham Young leads 148 Mormon pioneers into Salt Lake Valley, resulting in the establishment of Salt Lake City. Celebrations of this event include the Pioneer Day Utah state holiday and the Days of '47 Parade.
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Kernstown – Confederate General Jubal Early defeats Union troops led by General George Crook in an effort to keep them out of the Shenandoah Valley.
1866 – Reconstruction: Tennessee becomes the first U.S. state to be readmitted to the Union following the American Civil War.
1901 – O. Henry is released from prison in Austin, Texas after serving three years for embezzlement from a bank.
1910 – The Ottoman Empire captures the city of Shkodër, putting down the Albanian Revolt of 1910.
1911 – Hiram Bingham III re-discovers Machu Picchu, "the Lost City of the Incas".
1915 – The passenger ship S.S. Eastland capsizes while tied to a dock in the Chicago River. A total of 844 passengers and crew are killed in the largest loss of life disaster from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes.
1922 – The draft of the British Mandate of Palestine was formally confirmed by the Council of the League of Nations; it came into effect on 26 September 1923.
1923 – The Treaty of Lausanne, settling the boundaries of modern Turkey, is signed in Switzerland by Greece, Bulgaria and other countries that fought in World War I.
1924 – Archeologist Themistoklis Sofoulis becomes Prime Minister of Greece.
1927 – The Menin Gate war memorial is unveiled at Ypres.
1929 – The Kellogg–Briand Pact, renouncing war as an instrument of foreign policy, goes into effect (it is first signed in Paris on August 27, 1928 by most leading world powers).
1931 – A fire at a home for the elderly in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania kills 48 people.
1935 – The Dust Bowl heat wave reaches its peak, sending temperatures to 109°F (43°C) in Chicago, Illinois and 104°F (40°C) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
1937 – Alabama drops rape charges against the so-called "Scottsboro Boys".
1938 – First ascent of the Eiger north face.
1943 – World War II: Operation Gomorrah begins: British and Canadian aeroplanes bomb Hamburg by night, and American planes by day. By the end of the operation in November, 9,000 tons of explosives will have killed more than 30,000 people and destroyed 280,000 buildings.
1950 – Cape Canaveral Air Force Station begins operations with the launch of a Bumper rocket.
1959 – At the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev have a "Kitchen Debate".
1963 – The iconic Bluenose II was launched in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. The schooner is a major Canadian symbol.
1966 – Michael Pelkey makes the first BASE jump from El Capitan along with Brian Schubert. Both came out with broken bones. BASE jumping has now been banned from El Cap.
1967 – During an official state visit to Canada, French President Charles de Gaulle declares to a crowd of over 100,000 in Montreal: Vive le Québec libre! ("Long live free Quebec!"). The statement, interpreted as support for Quebec independence, delighted many Quebecers but angered the Canadian government and many English Canadians.
1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 11 splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean.
1972 – Bugojno group is caught by Yugoslav security forces.
1974 – Watergate scandal: the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Richard Nixon did not have the authority to withhold subpoenaed White House tapes and they order him to surrender the tapes to the Watergate special prosecutor.
1974 – Konstantinos Karamanlis arrives in Greece following the collapse of the Greek military junta, beginning Greece's metapolitefsi era.
1977 – End of a four day long Libyan–Egyptian War.
1980 – The Quietly Confident Quartet of Australia wins the Men's 4 x 100 metre medley relay at the Moscow Olympics, the only time the United States has not won the event at Olympic level.
1982 – Heavy rain causes a mudslide that destroys a bridge at Nagasaki, Japan, killing 299.
1983 – The Black July anti-Tamil riots begin in Sri Lanka, killing between 400 and 3,000. Black July is generally regarded as the beginning of the Sri Lankan Civil War.
1983 – George Brett batting for the Kansas City Royals against the New York Yankees, has a game-winning home run nullified in the "Pine Tar Incident".
1990 – Iraqi forces start massing on the Kuwait-Iraq border.
1991 – Manmohan Singh presents his budget speech to the Indian Parliament which led to economic liberalisation in India
1998 – Russell Eugene Weston, Jr. bursts into the United States Capitol and opens fire killing two police officers. He is later ruled to be incompetent to stand trial.
2001 – Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the last Tsar of Bulgaria when he was a child, is sworn in as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, becoming the first monarch in history to regain political power through democratic election to a different office.
2001 – Bandaranaike Airport attack is carried out by 14 Tamil Tiger commandos, all died in this attack. They destroyed 11 Aircraft (mostly military) and damaged 15, there are no civilian casualties. This incident slowed down Sri Lankan economy.
2002 – Democrat James Traficant is expelled from the United States House of Representatives on a vote of 420 to 1.
2005 – Lance Armstrong wins his seventh consecutive Tour de France.
2009 – The MV Arctic Sea, reportedly carrying a cargo of timber, is allegedly hijacked in the North Sea by pirates, but much speculation remains as to the actual cargo and events.
2011 – Digital switchover is completed in 44 of the 47 prefectures of Japan, with Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima television stations terminating analog broadcasting operations later as a result of the Tohoku earthquake.

Wikipedia

[Bo]

25th of July

Events

285 – Diocletian appoints Maximian as Caesar, co-ruler.
306 – Constantine I is proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops.
315 – The Arch of Constantine is completed near the Colosseum at Rome to commemorate Constantine I's victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge.
864 – The Edict of Pistres of Charles the Bald orders defensive measures against the Viking.
1139 – Battle of Ourique: The Almoravids, led by Ali ibn Yusuf, are defeated by Prince Afonso Henriques.
1261 – The city of Constantinople is recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos, re-establishing the Byzantine Empire.
1278 – The naval Battle of Algeciras takes place in the context of the Spanish Reconquista resulting in a victory for the Emirate of Granada and the Maranid Dynasty over the Kingdom of Castile.
1456 – The Battle of Molinella represents the first battle in Italy in which firearms are used intensively.
1536 – Sebastián de Belalcázar on his search of El Dorado founds the city of Santiago de Cali.
1538 – The city of Guayaquil is founded by the Spanish Conquistador Francisco de Orellana and given the name Muy Noble y Muy Leal Ciudad de Santiago de Guayaquil.
1547 – Henry II of France is crowned.
1554 – Mary I marries Philip II of Spain at Winchester Cathedral
1567 – Don Diego de Losada founds the city of Santiago de Leon de Caracas, modern-day Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela.
1593 – Henry IV of France publicly converts from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism.
1603 – James VI of Scotland is crowned as king of England (James I of England), bringing the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland into personal union. Political union would occur in 1707.
1609 – The English ship Sea Venture, en route to Virginia, is deliberately driven ashore during a storm at Bermuda to prevent its sinking; the survivors go on to found a new colony there.
1693 – Ignacio de Maya founds the Real Santiago de las Sabinas, now known as Sabinas Hidalgo, Nuevo León, Mexico.
1722 – Dummer's War begins along the Maine-Massachusetts border.
1755 – British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council order the deportation of the Acadians. Thousands of Acadians are sent to the British Colonies in America, France and England. Some later move to Louisiana, while others resettle in New Brunswick.
1759 – French and Indian War: in Western New York, British forces capture Fort Niagara from the French, who subsequently abandon Fort Rouillé.
1783 – American Revolutionary War: The war's last action, the Siege of Cuddalore, is ended by preliminary peace agreement.
1788 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completes his Symphony No. 40 in G minor (K550).
1792 – The Brunswick Manifesto is issued to the population of Paris, France promising vengeance if the French Royal Family is harmed.
1795 – The first stone of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is laid.
1797 – Horatio Nelson loses more than 300 men and his right arm during the failed conquest attempt of Tenerife (Spain).
1799 – At Abu Qir in Egypt, Napoleon I of France defeats 10,000 Ottomans under Mustafa Pasha.
1814 – War of 1812: Battle of Lundy's Lane – reinforcements arrive near Niagara Falls for General Riall's British and Canadian forces and a bloody, all-night battle with Jacob Brown's Americans commences at 18.00; the Americans retreat to Fort Erie.
1824 – Costa Rica annexes Guanacaste from Nicaragua.
1837 – The first commercial use of an electrical telegraph is successfully demonstrated by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone on July 25, 1837 between Euston and Camden Town in London.
1853 – Joaquin Murrieta, the famous Californio bandit known as "Robin Hood of El Dorado", is killed.
1861 – American Civil War: The United States Congress passes the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution, stating that the war is being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.
1866 – The United States Congress passes legislation authorizing the rank of General of the Army. Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant becomes the first to be promoted to this rank.
1868 – Wyoming becomes a United States territory.
1869 – The Japanese daimyo begin returning their land holdings to the emperor as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms. (Traditional Japanese Date: June 17, 1869).
1893 – The Corinth Canal in the Gulf of Corinth, Greece is used for the first time.
1894 – The First Sino-Japanese War begins when the Japanese fire upon a Chinese warship.
1898 – After over two months of sea-based bombardment, the United States invasion of Puerto Rico begins with U.S. troops led by General Nelson Miles landing at harbor of Guánica, Puerto Rico.
1908 – Ajinomoto is founded. Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University discovers that a key ingredient in kombu soup stock is monosodium glutamate (MSG), and patents a process for manufacturing it.
1909 – Louis Blériot makes the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine from (Calais to Dover, England, United Kingdom) in 37 minutes.
1915 – RFC Captain Lanoe Hawker becomes the first British military aviator to earn the Victoria Cross, for defeating three German two-seat observation aircraft in one day, over the Western Front.
1917 – Sir Robert Borden introduces the first income tax in Canada as a "temporary" measure (lowest bracket is 4% and highest is 25%).
1920 – Telecommunications: the first transatlantic two-way radio broadcast takes place.
1920 – France captures Damascus.
1925 – Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) is established.
1934 – The Nazis assassinate Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed coup attempt.
1940 – General Henri Guisan orders the Swiss Army to resist German invasion and makes surrender illegal.
1942 – Norwegian Manifesto calls for nonviolent resistance to the Nazis.
1943 – World War II: Benito Mussolini is forced out of office by his own Italian Grand Council and is replaced by Pietro Badoglio.
1944 – World War II: Operation Spring – one of the bloodiest days for the First Canadian Army during the war: 1,500 casualties, including 500 killed.
1946 – Operation Crossroads: an atomic bomb is detonated underwater in the lagoon of Bikini Atoll.
1946 – At Club 500 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis stage their first show as a comedy team.
1952 – The U.S. non-incorporated territory of Puerto Rico adopts a constitution.
1956 – 45 miles south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria collides with the MS Stockholm in heavy fog and sinks the next day, killing 51.
1957 – The Republic of Tunisia is proclaimed.
1958 – The African Regroupment Party (PRA) holds its first congress in Cotonou.
1959 – SR.N1 hovercraft crosses the English Channel from Calais, France to Dover, England in just over 2 hours.
1961 – In a speech John F. Kennedy emphasizes that any attack on Berlin is an attack on NATO.
1965 – Bob Dylan goes electric as he plugs in at the Newport Folk Festival, signaling a major change in folk and rock music.
1969 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon declares the Nixon Doctrine, stating that the United States now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense. This is the start of the "Vietnamization" of the war.
1973 – Soviet Mars 5 space probe launched.
1976 – Viking program: Viking 1 takes the famous Face on Mars photo.
1978 – Puerto Rico police assassinate two nationalists in the Cerro Maravilla murders.
1978 – Louise Brown, the world's first "test tube baby" is born.
1979 – Another section of the Sinai Peninsula is peacefully returned by Israel to Egypt.
1983 – Black July: 37 Tamil political prisoners at the Welikada high security prison in Colombo are massacred by the fellow Sinhalese prisoners.
1984 – Salyut 7 cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk.
1993 – Israel launches a massive attack against Lebanon in what the Israelis call Operation Accountability, and the Lebanese call Seven-Day War.
1993 – The Saint James Church massacre occurs in Kenilworth, Cape Town, South Africa.
1994 – Israel and Jordan sign the Washington Declaration, which formally ends the state of war that had existed between the nations since 1948.
1995 – A gas bottle explodes in Saint Michel station of line B of the RER (Paris regional train network). Eight are killed and 80 wounded.
1996 – In a military coup in Burundi, Pierre Buyoya deposes Sylvestre Ntibantunganya.
2000 – Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde supersonic passenger jet, F-BTSC, crashes just after takeoff from Paris killing all 109 aboard and 4 on the ground.
2007 – Pratibha Patil was sworn in as India's first female president.
2010 – WikiLeaks publishes classified documents about the War in Afghanistan, one of the largest leaks in U.S. military history.
Wikipedia