Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/July
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2012 day arrangement |
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July 1: Canada Day(Traditional date); Independence Day in Rwanda and Burundi (1962)
- 1916 – First World War: The first day of the Battle of Albert (pictured), 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.
- 1963 – The British government revealed that former MI6 agent Kim Philby had engaged in espionage for the Soviet Union.
- 1999 – Legislative governance of Scotland was transferred from the Scottish Office in Westminster to the Scottish Parliament.
- 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 people aboard both aircraft.
- 2008 – Rioting erupted in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, in response to allegations of fraud surrounding the recent legislative elections.
More anniversaries: June 30 – July 1 – July 2
July 2: Canada Day (observed, 2012); Feast day of Martinian and Processus (Roman Catholic Church)
- 706 – In China, Emperor Zhongzong of Tang interred the final bodies in the Qianling Mausoleum, which remained unopened until the 1960s.
- 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.
- 1881 – U.S. President James A. Garfield was fatally shot at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station in Washington, D.C.
- 1937 – Aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight.
- 1950 – A mentally ill Buddhist monk set fire to the Golden Pavilion at Kinkaku-ji (restoration pictured), destroying what is now one of the most popular tourist destinations in Japan.
More anniversaries: July 1 – July 2 – July 3
July 3: Independence Day in Belarus (1944)
- 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 (flag pictured), considered to be the first European-built city in non-Spanish North America.
- 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.
- 1940 – Second World War: The British Navy attacked the French fleet, fearing that the ships would fall into German hands after the armistice between those two nations.
- 1970 – The Troubles: The British Army imposed the Falls Curfew on Belfast, Northern Ireland, which only resulted in greater Irish republican resistance.
- 2005 – Same-sex marriage became legal in Spain.
More anniversaries: July 2 – July 3 – July 4
July 4: Independence Day in the United States (1776)
- 1054 – Chinese astronomers recorded the sudden appearance of a "guest star", which was in actuality the supernova that created the Crab Nebula.
- 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.
- 1862 – In a rowing boat 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.
- 1945 – The Brazilian cruiser Bahia (pictured) was accidentally sunk by one of her own crewmen, killing more than 300 and stranding the survivors in shark-infested waters.
- 1965 – The first Annual Reminder, a series of early pickets organized by homophile organizations, one of the earliest LGBT demonstrations in the United States, took place at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
More anniversaries: July 3 – July 4 – July 5
July 5: Independence Day in Venezuela (1811), Algeria (1962) and Cape Verde (1975); Saints Cyril and Methodius Day in the Czech Republic and Slovakia
- 1687 – The Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton was first published, describing his laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation.
- 1937 – The Hormel Foods Corporation introduced Spam (pictured), 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.
- 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.
More anniversaries: July 4 – July 5 – July 6
July 6: Independence Day in Malawi (1964) and in Comoros (1975); Statehood Day in Lithuania (1253); the festival of San Fermín begins in Pamplona, Spain
- 1253 – Mindaugas, the first known Grand Duke of Lithuania, was crowned as King of Lithuania, the only person to ever hold that title.
- 1535 – Thomas More (pictured), an opponent of the Protestant Reformation, was executed for treason for refusing to accept Henry VIII as the Supreme Head of the Church of England.
- 1887 – King Kalākaua 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 – During a steelworkers' strike in Homestead, Pennsylvania, a day-long battle between strikers and Pinkerton agents resulted in ten deaths and dozens of people wounded.
- 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.
More anniversaries: July 5 – July 6 – July 7
July 7: Independence Day in the Solomon Islands (1978); Tanabata in Japan
- 1834 – In New York City, four nights of rioting against abolitionists began, fueled by rumors that they were encouraging miscegenation.
- 1911 – The United States, United Kingdom, Japan, and Russia signed the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention banning open-water seal hunting, the first international treaty to address wildlife conservation issues.
- 1963 – The police of Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother and chief political adviser of President of South Vietnam Ngo Dinh Diem, attacked a group of American journalists who were covering a protest during the Buddhist crisis.
- 1983 – After writing a letter to Soviet premier Yuri Andropov, American schoolgirl Samantha Smith visited the Soviet Union as Andropov's personal guest, becoming known as "America's Youngest Ambassador".
- 1994 – Troops from the former North Yemen captured Aden, ending the Yemeni civil war.
- 2005 – Suicide bombers killed 52 people in a series of four explosions on London's public transport system (victims trapped in train pictured).
More anniversaries: July 6 – July 7 – July 8
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- 1579 – Our Lady of Kazan, a holy icon of the Russian Orthodox Church, was discovered underground in Kazan, present-day Tatarstan, Russia.
- 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.
- 1808 – Joseph Bonaparte (pictured) approved the Bayonne Statute, a royal charter intended as the basis for his rule as king of Spain.
- 1889 – The first issue of The Wall Street Journal, the world's most circulated business 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.
More anniversaries: July 7 – July 8 – July 9
July 9: Independence Day in Argentina (1816)
- 1755 – French and Indian War: The defeat in the Battle of the Monongahela brought an end to Britain's attempt to capture the strategically important Ohio Country.
- 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.
- 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 Organization of African Unity, with President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki (pictured) as its first chairman.
More anniversaries: July 8 – July 9 – July 10
July 10: Silence Day; Independence Day in the Bahamas (1973); National Day of Commemoration in Ireland (2011);
- 1584 – William the Silent (pictured), the Prince of Orange, was assassinated at his home in Delft, Holland, by Balthasar Gérard.
- 1806 – Indian sepoys mutinied against the East India Company when they broke into Vellore Fort and killed or injured 200 British troops.
- 1940 – The German Luftwaffe began attacks on British convoys in the English Channel to start the Battle of Britain.
- 1966 – Martin Luther King, Jr. led a rally in support of the Chicago Freedom Movement, one of the most ambitious civil rights campaigns in the northern United States.
- 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 standardized industrial safety regulations.
More anniversaries: July 9 – July 10 – July 11
July 11: Naadam in Mongolia begins; Day of the Flemish Community of Belgium
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- 1405 – Chinese explorer Zheng He led a massive fleet of 317 ships from Suzhou on a trade mission to India.
- 1833 – Noongar 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.
- 1921 – The Irish War of Independence ended with a truce, resulting in negotiations that eventually led to the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the establishment of the Irish Free State.
- 1940 – French World War I hero Philippe Pétain (pictured) became Chief of State of Vichy France.
- 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.
- 1986 – The Parliament of New Zealand passed the Homosexual Law Reform Act, legalising consensual homosexual sex.
More anniversaries: July 10 – July 11 – July 12
July 12: Independence Day in Kiribati (1979) and São Tomé and Príncipe (1975)
- 927 – Æthelstan, King of England, secured a pledge from Constantine II of Scotland that the latter would not ally with Viking kings.
- 1543 – King Henry VIII of England married Catherine Parr, his sixth and last wife, at Hampton Court Palace.
- 1843 – Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, proclaimed a revelation recommending polygamy.
- 1971 – The Australian Aboriginal flag (pictured), one of the official flags of Australia, was flown for the first time.
- 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.
More anniversaries: July 11 – July 12 – July 13
July 13: Statehood Day in Montenegro (1878)
- 1260 – The Livonian Order suffered its greatest defeat in the 13th century in the Battle of Durbe against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
- 1793 – Charlotte Corday (pictured) assassinated Jean-Paul Marat, a leader in both the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, in his bathtub.
- 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.
- 1923 – The Hollywoodland Sign was officially dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, California. The last four letters of the sign were removed in 1949.
- 2008 – War in Afghanistan: Taliban guerrillas attacked NATO troops near the village of Wanat in the Waygal district in Afghanistan's far eastern province of Nuristan.
More anniversaries: July 12 – July 13 – July 14
July 14: Bastille Day in France (1789)
- 1791 – The Priestley Riots began, in which Joseph Priestley and other religious Dissenters were driven out of Birmingham, England.
- 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.
- 1957 – Rawya Ateya took her seat in the National Assembly of Egypt to become the first female parliamentarian in the Arab world.
- 1960 – English primatologist Jane Goodall (pictured) arrived in Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve, Tanganyika, to begin her groundbreaking study of the social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees.
- 1987 – Over 100 mm (3.9 in) of rain fell in a two-and-a-half-hour period in Montreal, causing severe flooding and over CA$220 million in damages.
More anniversaries: July 13 – July 14 – July 15
July 15: Festino of Saint Rosalia in Palermo, Italy; Chūgen/Bon Festival in Japan
- 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.
- 1799 – French soldiers uncovered the Rosetta Stone (pictured) in Fort Julien, near the Egyptian port city of Rashid.
- 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.
- 1910 – In his book Clinical Psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin gave a name to Alzheimer's disease, naming it after his colleague Alois Alzheimer.
- 1959 – Five hundred thousand American steelworkers went on strike, closing nearly every steel mill in the country.
- 1966 – Vietnam War: The United States and South Vietnam began Operation Hastings to push the North Vietnamese out of the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone.
More anniversaries: July 14 – July 15 – July 16
- 622 – The epoch of the Islamic calendar occurred, marking the year that Muhammad began his Hijra from Mecca to Medina.
- 1782 – Mozart's opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail made its premiere, after which Emperor Joseph II (pictured) anecdotally made the complaint that it had "too many notes".
- 1931 – Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie signed the nation's first constitution, the first time in history that an absolute ruler voluntarily shared sovereignty with his subjects.
- 1945 – Manhattan Project: "Trinity", the first nuclear test explosion, was carried out near Alamogordo, New Mexico.
- 1950 – Korean War: A Korean People's Army unit massacred twenty-one U.S. Army prisoners of war.
More anniversaries: July 15 – July 16 – July 17
July 17: Constitution Day in South Korea
- 1762 – Peter III (pictured) 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.
- 1918 – The RMS Carpathia, which had rescued the survivors of the RMS Titanic sinking, was itself sunk by a German U-boat.
- 1936 – Nationalist rebels attempted a coup d'état against the Second Spanish Republic, sparking the Spanish Civil War.
- 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.
- 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.
More anniversaries: July 16 – July 17 – July 18
July 18: Constitution Day in Uruguay (1830)
- 1290 – Edward I issued an edict expelling all Jews from England.
- 1389 – France and England agreed to the Truce of Leulinghem, establishing 13-year peace during the Hundred Years' War.
- 1870 – The First Vatican Council declared that the Pope is infallible when he solemnly declares a dogmatic teaching on faith as being contained in divine revelation.
- 1976 – At the Olympic Games in Montreal, Nadia Comăneci (pictured) became the first person to score a perfect 10 in a modern Olympics gymnastics event.
- 1995 – After a long period of dormancy, the Soufrière Hills volcano began a still-ongoing eruption, devastating the island of Montserrat.
More anniversaries: July 17 – July 18 – July 19
July 19: Seventeenth of Tammuz (Judaism, 2011); Burmese Martyrs' Day; Independence Day in Laos (1949)
- 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.
- 1545 – The English warship Mary Rose (pictured) foundered and sank just outside Portsmouth during the Battle of the Solent.
- 1553 – Lady Jane Grey was replaced by Mary I as Queen of England after holding that title for just nine days.
- 1916 – First World War: "The worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history" occurred when Australian forces suffered heavy losses in their unsuccessful assault on the Germans at the Battle of Fromelles in France.
- 1981 – French President François Mitterrand privately revealed to U.S. President Ronald Reagan documents showing that the Soviets had been stealing American technological research and development.
More anniversaries: July 18 – July 19 – July 20
July 20: Friends' Day in Argentina and other Latin American countries; Independence Day in Colombia (1810)
- 1807 – French brothers Claude and Nicéphore Niépce received a patent for their Pyréolophore, one of the world's first internal combustion engines.
- 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.
- 1976 – The Viking 1 lander (replica pictured) became the first spacecraft to successfully land on Mars and perform its mission.
- 2005 – The Civil Marriage Act received its Royal Assent, legalizing same-sex marriage in Canada.
More anniversaries: July 19 – July 20 – July 21
July 21: National Day in Belgium (1831); Centennial of the birth of Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan
- 365 – A large earthquake that occurred near Crete and its subsequent tsunami caused widespread destruction throughout the eastern Mediterranean region.
- 1865 – In one of the few recorded instances of a "quick draw" gun duel in the American Old West, Wild Bill Hickok shot and killed Davis Tutt over a poker debt.
- 1954 – First Indochina War: The Vietnamese Demilitarized 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.
- 1969 – During the Apollo 11 mission, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (Aldrin pictured) became the first humans to walk on the Moon.
- 1970 – The Aswan High Dam in Egypt was completed after 11 years of construction.
- 1972 – The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated twenty-two bombs throughout Belfast,Northern Ireland.
More anniversaries: July 20 – July 21 – July 22
July 22: Pi Approximation Day; Feast day of Mary Magdalene
- 1864 – American Civil War: Confederate forces unsuccessfully attacked Union troops at the Battle of Atlanta.
- 1894 – Despite finishing in first place in the world's first auto race, Jules-Albert de Dion did not win, as his steam-powered car was against the rules.
- 1977 – After having been removed from power by the Gang of Four the year before, Deng Xiaoping (pictured) returned to leadership positions within the Communist Party of China.
- 1992 – Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar escaped from his luxurious private prison and would spend the next 17 months on the run.
- 2005 – London metropolitan police killed Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian immigrant, after misidentifying him as being involved in the previous day's failed bombing attempts on the city.
More anniversaries: July 21 – July 22 – July 23
July 23: Revolution Day in Egypt (1952)
- 1927 – Wilfred Rhodes of England and Yorkshire became the only person to play in 1,000 first-class cricket matches.
- 1970 – Qaboos overthrew his father Said bin Taimur to become Sultan of Oman.
- 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.
- 1995 – Hale–Bopp (pictured), 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.
- 2002 – On the 50th anniversary of its founding, the European Coal and Steel Community disbanded, and its activities and resources were absorbed by the European Community.
More anniversaries: July 22 – July 23 – July 24
July 24: Parents' Day in the United States (2011); Pioneer Day in Utah (1847)
- 1411 – Forces of Donald of Islay, Lord of the Isles, and Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar, fought at the Battle of Harlaw (monument pictured) near Inverurie, Scotland.
- 1701 – French explorer Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac established Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, which later grew into the city of Detroit.
- 1847 – Brigham Young led the first group of Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley of Utah, at the time a part of Mexico.
- 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.
- 2007 – The Libyan government extradited six foreign medical workers who were charged with conspiring to deliberately infect over 400 children with HIV in 1998.
More anniversaries: July 23 – July 24 – July 25
July 25: Commonwealth Constitution Day in Puerto Rico (1952)
- 1261 – Alexios Strategopoulos led the Nicaean forces of Michael VIII Palaiologos to recapture Constantinople, re-establish the Byzantine Empire, and end the Latin Empire.
- 1722 – Samuel Shute, Governor of Massachusetts, declared war on the Abenaki people to begin Dummer's War.
- 1814 – War of 1812: In present-day Niagara Falls, Ontario, the United States and Great Britain engaged in one of the deadliest battles ever fought on Canadian soil.
- 1893 – The Corinth Canal (pictured) was formally opened, connecting the Gulf of Corinth with the Saronic Gulf through the narrow Isthmus of Corinth in the Aegean Sea.
- 2000 – Air France Concorde Flight 4590, en route from Paris to New York City, crashed in Gonesse, France, killing all 100 passengers and nine crew members, as well as four people on the ground.
More anniversaries: July 24 – July 25 – July 26
July 26: Independence Day in Liberia and the Maldives
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- 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.
- 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.
- 1936 – The Canadian National Vimy Memorial (pictured), a memorial site near Vimy, Pas-de-Calais, France, dedicated to the memory of Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during the First World War, was unveiled.
More anniversaries: July 25 – July 26 – July 27
July 27: José Celso Barbosa Day in Puerto Rico
- 1054 – Siward, Earl of Northumbria, led an invasion of Scotland and defeated Macbeth, King of Scotland, in a battle north of the Firth of Forth.
- 1302 – Byzantine–Ottoman Wars: The Ottoman sultanate scored its first major victory against the Byzantine Empire in the Battle of Bapheus in Bithynia.
- 1663 – The Parliament of England passed the second of the Navigation Acts, which required that all goods bound for the American colonies had to be sent in English ships from English ports.
- 1921 – University of Toronto researchers led by Frederick Banting (pictured) proved that the hormone insulin regulates blood sugar.
- 1942 – World War II: Allied forces halted the Axis invasion of Egypt.
More anniversaries: July 26 – July 27 – July 28
July 28: World Hepatitis Day; Independence Day in Peru (1821)
- 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.
- 1995 – Two followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh were convicted for the attempted assassination of the United States Attorney for the District of Oregon.
- 2001 – At the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, Australian Ian Thorpe (pictured) 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.
- 2010 – In the deadliest air accident in Pakistan's history, Airblue Flight 202 crashed into the Margalla Hills north of Islamabad, killing all 152 aboard.
More anniversaries: July 27 – July 28 – July 29
July 29: Ólavsøka in the Faroe Islands
- 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.
- 1836 – The Arc de Triomphe (pictured) in Paris, commemorating those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars, was formally inaugurated.
- 1858 – Japan reluctantly signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, an unequal treaty giving the United States various commercial and diplomatic privileges.
- 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 a t St Paul's Cathedral in London.
More anniversaries: July 28 – July 29 – July 30
July 30: Independence Day in Vanuatu (1980)
- 762 – Al-Mansur, the Caliph of Islam, founded the city of Baghdad to be the capital of the Islamic empire under the Abbasids.
- 1811 – Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (pictured), an early leader of the Mexican War of Independence, was executed by Spanish authorities.
- 1865 – Off the coast of Crescent City, California, the steamship Brother Jonathan, carrying a large shipment of gold coins that would not be retrieved until 1996, struck an uncharted rock and sank, killing 225 people.
- 1916 – German agents caused a major explosion when they sabotaged American ammunition supplies to prevent the materiel from being used by the Allies of World War I.
- 1930 – Uruguay defeated Argentina, 4–2, in front of their home crowd at Estadio Centenario in Montevideo to win the first Football World Cup.
- 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.
More anniversaries: July 29 – July 30 – July 31
July 31: Ka Hae Hawai'i Day (Flag Day) in Hawaii; Feast day of Saint Ignatius of Loyola
- 1201 – John Komnenos the Fat briefly seized the throne of the Byzantine Empire from Alexios III Angelos, but he was soon caught and executed.
- 1917 – First World War: The Battle of Passchendaele began near Ypres in West Flanders, Belgium, with the Allied Powers aiming to force German troops to withdraw from the Channel Ports.
- 1941 – The Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring ordered SS General Reinhard Heydrich to settle "the final solution of the Jewish question".
- 1991 – The Soviet Union and the United States signed the bilateral START I treaty, the largest and most complex arms control treaty in history, which eventually removed 80% of all strategic nuclear weapons then in existence.
- 2006 – Following intestinal surgery, Fidel Castro provisionally transferred the duties of the Cuban presidency to his brother Raúl (pictured).
More anniversaries: July 30 – July 31 – August 1
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive
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