Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/July
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2019 day arrangement | ||||||
July 1: Seventeenth of Tammuz (Judaism, 2018); Canada Day; Republic Day in Ghana (1960); Independence Day in Rwanda (1962)
- 1770 – Lexell's Comet passed closer to the Earth than any other comet in recorded history, approaching to a distance of 0.015 AU.
- 1943 – Tokyo City was dissolved, with its territory divided into the special wards of the newly created Tokyo Metropolis (Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building pictured).
- 1999 – Legislative governance of Scotland was transferred from the Scottish Office in Westminster to the Scottish Parliament.
- 2008 – Rioting erupted in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, in response to allegations of fraud surrounding the recent legislative elections.
Ygnacio del Valle (b. 1808) · Tanya Savicheva (d. 1944) · Princess Diana (b. 1961)
- 706 – In China, the bodies of Emperor Gaozong of Tang and Empress Wu Zetian were interred in the Qianling Mausoleum, the only imperial Tang dynasty tombs that were untouched by grave robbers.
- 1881 – U.S. President James A. Garfield was fatally shot at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station in Washington, D.C.
- 1900 – Finlandia, a tone poem by Jean Sibelius which forms the basis of one of the national songs of Finland, was first performed in Helsinki.
- 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.
- 2013 – The International Astronomical Union announced that the fourth and fifth moons of Pluto would be named Kerberos and Styx respectively.
Denmark Vesey (d. 1822) · Harriet Brooks (b. 1876) · Ernest Hemingway (d. 1961)
July 3: Independence Day in Belarus
- 324 – Roman emperor Constantine the Great defeated former colleague Licinius in the Battle of Adrianople.
- 1754 – French and Indian War: George Washington surrendered Fort Necessity in Pennsylvania, the only military surrender in his entire career.
- 1938 – On the 75th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Gettysburg, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the Eternal Light Peace Memorial (pictured).
- 1970 – The Troubles: The British Army imposed the Falls Curfew on Belfast, Northern Ireland, which resulted in greater Irish republican resistance.
- 1988 – United States Navy warship USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.
William Jones (d. 1749) · Leoš Janáček (b. 1854) · Bo Xilai (b. 1949)
July 4: Republic Day in the Philippines (1946); Independence Day in the United States (1776)
- 1054 – Chinese astronomers recorded the sudden appearance of a "guest star", later identified as the supernova that created the Crab Nebula.
- 1776 – In Philadelphia, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence (signing pictured), announcing that the thirteen American colonies were no longer a part of the British Empire.
- 1918 – World War I: An Allied force led by the Australian general John Monash was victorious in the Battle of Hamel, demonstrating the effectiveness of combined arms techniques in trench warfare.
- 1943 – The aircraft carrying Władysław Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile, crashed, killing him and fifteen others, leading to several conspiracy theories.
- 1954 – In what is known as "The Miracle of Bern", West Germany defeated Hungary 3–2 to win the FIFA World Cup.
Philippe de Monte (d. 1603) · Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (b. 1715) · Geraldo Rivera (b. 1943)
- 1594 – The Portuguese governor of Ceylon Pedro Lopes de Sousa began a failed attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Kandy.
- 1775 – The Second Continental Congress of Britain's Thirteen Colonies adopted the Olive Branch Petition in the hopes of avoiding war with Great Britain.
- 1937 – The Hormel Foods Corporation introduced Spam, the canned precooked meat product that would eventually enter into pop culture, folklore, and urban legend.
- 1948 – Aneurin Bevan, the Health Minister of the United Kingdom, launched the National Health Service, one of the major social reforms following the Second World War.
- 2012 – The Shard (pictured) in London was inaugurated as the tallest building in Europe, with a height of 310 m (1,020 ft), but was surpassed by Moscow's Mercury City Tower four months later.
Sarah Siddons (b. 1755) · W. T. Stead (b. 1849) · Albrecht Kossel (d. 1927)
July 6: Independence Day in Malawi (1964); Statehood Day in Lithuania (1253); the Festival of San Fermín begins in Pamplona, Spain
- 1483 – The last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty, Richard III (pictured), was crowned King of England.
- 1801 – French Revolutionary Wars: A Royal Navy squadron attempted to eliminate a smaller French Navy squadron at Algeciras before they could join their Spanish allies.
- 1940 – The Story Bridge in Brisbane, the longest cantilever bridge in Australia, was opened by Sir Leslie Wilson, Governor of Queensland.
- 1978 – A sleeping car train at Taunton, England, caught fire, killing 12 people and causing British Rail to install state-of-the art fire prevention measures.
- 2013 – Gunmen attacked a secondary school in Mamudo, Yobe State, Nigeria, killing at least 42 people, mostly students.
Eino Leino (b. 1878) · Nancy Reagan (b. 1921) · Jagjivan Ram (d. 1986)
- 1575 – Anglo-Scottish Wars: In the last major battle between England and Scotland, a "Truce Day" at Carter Bar near Redesdale degenerated into a fight where the English side were routed.
- 1834 – In New York City, four nights of rioting against abolitionists began, fueled by rumors that they were encouraging miscegenation.
- 1937 – The Peel Commission published a report stating the British Mandate for Palestine had become unworkable and recommended the partition of Mandatory Palestine into two states.
- 1963 – The police of Ngô Đình Nhu, brother and chief political adviser of President of South Vietnam Ngô Đình Diệm, attacked a group of American journalists who were covering a protest during the Buddhist crisis.
- 2005 – Suicide bombers killed 52 people in a series of four explosions on London's public transport system (emergency responders pictured).
Momchil (d. 1345) · Mary Surratt (d. 1865) · Marie-Louise Dubreil-Jacotin (b. 1905)
- 1663 – King Charles II of England granted John Clarke the Rhode Island Royal Charter, described by one historian as "the grandest instrument of human liberty ever constructed."
- 1879 – Led by George W. De Long, the ill-fated Jeannette Expedition departed San Francisco to reach the North Pole by pioneering a route through the Bering Strait.
- 1898 – American con artist and gangster Soapy Smith (pictured) was killed in Skagway, Alaska, when an argument with fellow gang members turned into an unexpected gunfight.
- 1962 – Following student protests at Rangoon University, Burmese General Ne Win ordered the demolition of the school's Students Union building.
- 2014 – In response to the kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenagers, Israel launched a military operation in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
Alberto Bolognetti (b. 1538) · Käthe Kollwitz (b. 1867) · Sky Ferreira (b. 1992)
July 9: Independence Day in Argentina (1816)
- 1572 – Nineteen Catholic friars and clerics were hanged in Gorkum during the 16th-century religious wars in the Low Countries.
- 1868 – The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, including the Citizenship Clause and the Equal Protection Clause, was ratified by the minimum required twenty-eight states.
- 1943 – World War II: The Allies began their invasion of Sicily (American tank pictured), a large scale amphibious and airborne operation, followed by six weeks of land combat.
- 1958 – A 525 m (1,722 ft) high megatsunami, the highest ever recorded, struck Lituya Bay, Alaska, U.S.
- 2008 – Under the belief that Israel and the United States were planning to attack its nuclear program, Iran conducted the Great Prophet III missile test and war games exercise.
Jan van Eyck (d. 1441) · Elizabeth of Austria (b. 1526) · Tom Hanks (b. 1956)
- 1553 – Four days after the death of her predecessor, Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey (pictured) was officially proclaimed Queen of England, beginning her reign as "The Nine Days' Queen".
- 1806 – Indian sepoys mutinied against the East India Company at Vellore Fort, killing at least 100 British troops.
- 1940 – The Luftwaffe began attacks on British convoys in the English Channel to start the Battle of Britain.
- 1973 – John Paul Getty III, grandson of American oil magnate J. Paul Getty, was kidnapped in Rome.
- 2011 – The Russian river cruise liner Bulgaria was caught in a storm in Tatarstan on the Volga River and sank in several minutes, resulting in 122 deaths.
Camille Pissarro (b. 1830) · Ima Hogg (b. 1882) · Calogero Vizzini (d. 1954)
- 1804 – U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton during a duel (pistols pictured) in Weehawken, New Jersey.
- 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.
- 1848 – London Waterloo station, Britain's busiest railway station by passenger usage, was opened by the London and South Western Railway.
- 1991 – Shortly after takeoff from King Abdulaziz International Airport, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 caught fire and crashed, killing all 261 people on board.
- 2011 – An explosion at the Evangelos Florakis Naval Base killed 13 people, including the head of the Cyprus Navy.
Nicole Oresme (d. 1382) · Annie Armstrong (b. 1850) · Alessia Cara (b. 1996)
- 927 – Æthelstan, King of England, secured the submission of four northern rulers: Constantine II of Scotland, Hywel Dda of Deheubarth, Ealdred of Bamburgh, and Owain ap Dyfnwal of Strathclyde
- 1843 – Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, proclaimed a revelation recommending polygamy.
- 1918 – An explosion in the ammunition magazine of the Japanese battleship Kawachi (pictured) resulted in the loss of over 600 officers and crewmen.
- 1948 – Arab–Israeli War: Israel Defense Forces officer Yitzhak Rabin signed the order to expel Palestinians from the towns of Lod and Ramla.
- 1971 – The Australian Aboriginal Flag, one of the official flags of Australia, was flown for the first time.
Margaret Theresa of Spain (b. 1651) · Gertrude Bell (d. 1926) · Sanjay Manjrekar (b. 1965)
- 1863 – Four days of rioting began in New York City by opponents of new laws passed by the United States Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War.
- 1878 – At the conclusion of the Congress of Berlin, the major powers in Europe signed the Treaty of Berlin, redrawing the map of the Balkans.
- 1962 – In an unprecedented action, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (pictured) dismissed seven members of his Cabinet.
- 2008 – War in Afghanistan: Taliban guerrillas attacked NATO troops in the far eastern province of Nuristan.
Afonso, Prince of Portugal (d. 1491) · Margaret Murray (b. 1863) · Kenneth Clark (b. 1903)
July 14: Bastille Day in France (1789); Festino of Saint Rosalia begins in Palermo, Italy
- 1789 – French Revolution: Parisians stormed the Bastille (pictured), freeing its inmates and taking the prison's large quantities of arms and ammunition.
- 1791 – The Priestley Riots began, in which Joseph Priestley and other religious Dissenters were driven out of Birmingham, England.
- 1958 – Faisal II, the last king of Iraq, was overthrown by a military coup d'état led by Abd al-Karim Qasim.
- 2003 – In an effort to discredit U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, who had written an op-ed critical of the invasion of Iraq, his wife Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA operative was leaked to and published by Washington Post columnist Robert Novak.
- 2015 – The New Horizons probe became the first spacecraft to explore Pluto.
James O'Hara, 2nd Baron Tyrawley (d. 1774) · Kate M. Gordon (b. 1861) · Alphonse Mucha (d. 1939)
- 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.
- 1815 – Aboard HMS Bellerophon, Napoleon surrendered to Royal Navy Captain Frederick Lewis Maitland to finally end the Napoleonic Wars.
- 1916 – William Boeing incorporated the Pacific Aero Products Co., which was later renamed Boeing.
- 1983 – Armenian extremist organization ASALA bombed the Turkish Airlines check-in counter at Orly Airport, killing 8 and injuring 55, as part of its campaign for the recognition of and reparations for the Armenian Genocide.
- 2006 – The online social networking and news service Twitter was launched (early sketch pictured).
Jean-Antoine Houdon (d. 1828) · Betty Wagoner (b. 1930) · Donald Mackay (d. 1977)
July 16: Marine Day in Japan (2018)
- 1232 – A local mosque elected Muhammad ibn Al-Ahmar, who later established the last Muslim state in Spain, as ruler of Arjona.
- 1790 – U.S. President George Washington signed the Residence Act, selecting a new permanent site along the Potomac River for the capital of the United States, which later became Washington, D.C.
- 1994 – Fragments of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 began hitting the planet Jupiter (impact site pictured), with the first one causing a fireball which reached a peak temperature of about 24,000 K.
- 2008 – A tainted milk powder scandal broke in China which ultimately involved an estimated 300,000 victims, the vast majority infants, with 54,000 hospitalized with kidney problems and 6 deaths.
An-Nasir Ahmad of Egypt (d. 1344) · Ellen G. White (d. 1915) · Albert Kesselring (d. 1960)
July 17: Constitution Day in South Korea (1948)
- 1771 – Dene men, acting as guides to Samuel Hearne on his exploration of the Coppermine River in present-day Nunavut, Canada, massacred a group of about 20 Copper Inuit.
- 1863 – The New Zealand Wars resumed as British forces in New Zealand led by General Duncan Cameron began their Invasion of the Waikato.
- 1918 – RMS Carpathia, which had rescued the survivors of the RMS Titanic sinking in 1912, was sunk by a German U-boat with the loss of five crew.
- 1945 – Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman, and Joseph Stalin (all pictured), leaders of the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union respectively, met in Potsdam to decide what should be done with post-war Germany.
- 1998 – A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake devastated several villages in Papua New Guinea, killing more than 2,100 people, and destroying the homes of thousands more.
Dorothea Dix (d. 1887) · Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio (b. 1918) · Wong Kar-wai (b. 1958)
- 1290 – Edward I issued an edict expelling all Jews from England.
- 1806 – A gunpowder magazine explosion in Birgu, Malta, killed an estimated 200 people.
- 1949 – Francisco Javier Arana, Chief of the Armed Forces of Guatemala, was killed in a shootout with supporters of President Juan José Arévalo.
- 1966 – Angered by racism and poverty, African American residents of the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, began to riot for six days.
- 2014 – Silvio Berlusconi (pictured), the former Prime Minister of Italy, who had previously been found guilty of paying for an underage prostitute, had his conviction overturned on appeal.
Bartolomé de las Casas (d. 1566) · Clare Stevenson (b. 1903) · Priyanka Chopra (b. 1982)
- 998 – Arab–Byzantine wars: After an initial Byzantine victory in the Battle of Apamea, a lone Kurdish rider managed to kill Byzantine commander Damian Dalassenos, allowing Fatimid troops to turn the tide of the battle.
- 1843 – SS Great Britain (pictured), the first ocean-going ship that had both an iron hull and a screw propeller, was launched in Bristol, England.
- 1903 – French cyclist Maurice Garin won the first Tour de France.
- 1989 – After suffering an uncontained failure of an engine which destroyed all of its hydraulic systems, United Airlines Flight 232 broke up during an emergency landing in Sioux City, Iowa, U.S., killing 111 people.
- 2014 – Unidentified gunmen perpetrated an armed assault against an Egyptian military checkpoint in the Libyan Desert, killing at least 22 border guards.
Philippa of Lancaster (d. 1415) · Giuseppe Castiglione (b. 1688) · Khawaja Nazimuddin (b. 1894)
July 20: Independence Day in Colombia (1810)
- 792 – Byzantine–Bulgarian wars: Bulgarian forces under Kardam routed the Byzantines, forcing them to retreat to Constantinople.
- 1807 – French brothers Claude and Nicéphore Niépce received a patent for their Pyréolophore, one of the world's first internal combustion engines.
- 1922 – The German protectorate of Togoland was divided into the League of Nations mandates of French Togoland and British Togoland.
- 1968 – The first Special Olympics games (athletes at 2013 games pictured) were held at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
- 2001 – Twenty-three-year-old Italian anti-globalist Carlo Giuliani was shot dead by a police officer while protesting during the 27th G8 summit in Genoa, Italy.
Ibn Muqla (d. 940) · Miron Cristea (b. 1868) · Chris Cornell (b. 1964)
- 230 – Pope Pontian began his pontificate, succeeding Urban I.
- 905 – Louis III, Holy Roman Emperor, was captured during his attempt to restore Carolingian power over Italy by King Berengar I and blinded.
- 1925 – American high school biology teacher John T. Scopes was found guilty (trial pictured) of violating Tennessee's Butler Act by teaching evolution in class.
- 1973 – Mossad agents mistakenly killed a Moroccan waiter as a result of an assassination attempt in Lillehammer, Norway, believing he had been involved in the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.
- 2012 – Turkish adventurer Erden Eruç became the first person in history to complete a solo human-powered circumnavigation of the Earth.
Charles Tristan, marquis de Montholon (b. 1783) · Russell Lee (b. 1903) · Rilwanu Lukman (d. 2014)
July 22: Feast day of Mary Magdalene; Tisha B'Av (Judaism, 2018); Parents' Day in the United States (2018); Pi Approximation Day
- 838 – Arab–Byzantine wars: The forces of the Abbasid Caliphate defeated Byzantine Empire troops, led by Emperor Theophilos himself, at the Battle of Anzen near present-day Dazman, Turkey.
- 1793 – Scottish explorer Alexander Mackenzie inscribed his name on a rock near Dean Channel (pictured) after becoming the first recorded person to complete a transcontinental crossing of North America north of Mexico.
- 1975 – Stanley Forman took the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo Fire Escape Collapse, which spurred action to improve the safety of fire escapes across the United States.
- 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.
Mary Wriothesley, Countess of Southampton (b. 1552) · Emma Lazarus (b. 1849) · Indra Lal Roy (d. 1918)
July 23: Revolution Day in Egypt (1952)
- 1829 – William Austin Burt was awarded a patent for the typographer, the first practical typewriting machine.
- 1860 – The trial in the Eastbourne manslaughter began, which became an important legal precedent in the United Kingdom for discussions of corporal punishment in schools.
- 1921 – The Communist Party of China was founded at the inaugural National Congress in Shanghai.
- 1968 – In Cleveland, Ohio, U.S., a shootout between police and a Black Power group began, which sparked three days of rioting.
- 2001 – Megawati Sukarnoputri (pictured) became the first female president of Indonesia after the People's Consultative Assembly removed Abdurrahman Wahid.
John Day (d. 1584) · Vera Rubin (b. 1928) · Olivia Manning (d. 1980)
July 24: Pioneer Day in Utah (1847)
- 1701 – French explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac established Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit (pictured), which later grew into the city of Detroit.
- 1910 – Ottoman forces captured the city of Shkodër to put down the Albanian revolt of 1910.
- 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.
- 1998 – A gunman entered the United States Capitol and opened fire, killing two police officers.
- 2014 – Fifty minutes after departing Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Air Algérie Flight 5017 disappeared from radar, and its wreckage was found the next day in Mali, with no survivors of the 116 people aboard.
Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury (b. 1660) · Martin Van Buren (d. 1862) · Kini Kapahu Wilson (d. 1962)
- 306 – Constantine the Great was proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops after the death of Constantius Chlorus.
- 1861 – American Civil War: The United States Congress passed the Crittenden–Johnson Resolution, asserting that the war was solely to prevent the dissolution of the nation, although this was repealed five months later.
- 1893 – The Corinth Canal (pictured), which bisects the narrow Isthmus of Corinth, was formally opened, connecting the Gulf of Corinth with the Aegean Sea's Saronic Gulf.
- 1978 – Two Puerto Rican pro-independence activists were killed in a police ambush at Cerro Maravilla in Ponce.
- 2000 – Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde en route from Paris to New York City, crashed in Gonesse, France, killing all one hundred passengers and nine crew members, as well as four people on the ground.
Maxfield Parrish (b. 1870) · Erika Steinbach (b. 1943) · Louise Brown (b. 1978)
- 1533 – During the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, conquistador Francisco Pizarro executed the last independent emperor, Atahualpa, in Cajamarca.
- 1887 – L. L. Zamenhof published Unua Libro, the first publication to describe Esperanto, a constructed international language.
- 1918 – Emmy Noether (pictured) introduced what became known as Noether's theorem, from which conservation laws are deduced for symmetries of angular momentum, linear momentum, and energy, at Göttingen, Germany
- 1968 – In South Vietnam, after coming second to Nguyễn Văn Thiệu in a rigged presidential election in 1967, Trương Đình Dzu was jailed by a military court for illicit currency transactions.
- 2016 – In one of the most deadly crimes committed in modern Japanese history, a former employee went on a knife rampage at a care home for disabled people in Sagamihara, killing 19 people and wounding 26 others.
Justin Holland (b. 1819) · Howard Vernon (d. 1921) · Ana María Matute (b. 1925)
July 27: Tu B'Av (Judaism, 2018)
- 678 – Sclaveni attackers were forced to give up their siege of the Byzantine city of Thessalonica, being unable to penetrate the city's defenses.
- 1214 – Philip II of France decisively won the Battle of Bouvines, the conclusive battle of the 1213–1214 Anglo-French War.
- 1949 – The de Havilland Comet, the world's first commercial jet airliner to reach production, made its maiden flight.
- 1953 – An armistice was signed (pictured) to end hostilities in the Korean War, officially making the division of Korea indefinite by creating an approximately 4 km (2.5 mi) wide demilitarized zone across the Korean Peninsula.
- 2002 – A Ukrainian Air Force Sukhoi Su-27 aircraft crashed during an aerobatics presentation at an airshow near Lviv, Ukraine, killing 77 people and injuring over 500 others.
Conrad II of Italy (d. 1101) · Elizabeth Plankinton (b. 1853) · Alfred Duraiappah (d. 1975)
- 1794 – French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, architects of the Reign of Terror, were executed after having been arrested the previous day.
- 1821 – Peruvian War of Independence: Argentine general José de San Martín declared the independence of Peru from Spain.
- 1939 – During an excavation of a ship burial at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, England, archæologists discovered a helmet (pictured) likely belonging to King Rædwald of East Anglia.
- 1996 – The remains of the prehistoric Kennewick Man were discovered on a bank of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington, U.S.
- 2005 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army announced an end to its armed campaign to overthrow British rule in Northern Ireland and create a United Ireland.
Lucy Burns (b. 1879) · Baruch Samuel Blumberg (b. 1925) · Ahmed Sofa (d. 2001)
- 1148 – The Siege of Damascus ended in a decisive victory for the Muslims, leading to the disintegration of the Second Crusade.
- 1818 – French physicist Augustin Fresnel (pictured) submitted his "Memoir on the Diffraction of Light", providing strong support for the wave theory of light.
- 1914 – The first shots of World War I were fired by the Austro-Hungarian river monitor SMS Bodrog upon Serbian defences near Belgrade.
- 1958 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act into law, establishing a new federal non-military space agency known as NASA.
- 1981 – An estimated worldwide television audience of 750 million people watched the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul's Cathedral in London.
Ivan Aivazovsky (b. 1817) · Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil (b. 1846) · Edward Gierek (d. 2001)
- 1656 – Led by King Charles X Gustav, the armies of Sweden and Brandenburg defeated the forces of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth near Warsaw.
- 1865 – Off the coast of Crescent City, California, U.S., the steamship Brother Jonathan (pictured) struck an uncharted rock and sank, killing 225 people; its cargo of a large number of gold coins was not retrieved until 1996.
- 1930 – Uruguay defeated Argentina at Estadio Centenario in Montevideo to win the first Football World Cup.
- 1981 – Amid widespread economic crisis and food shortages in Poland, up to 50,000 people, mostly women and children, took part in the largest of the hunger demonstrations in Łódź.
- 2014 – At least 151 people were killed when heavy rains triggered a landslide in Pune district, Maharashtra, India.
Emily Brontë (b. 1818) · Harold Davidson (d. 1937) · Katherine Reutter (b. 1988)
July 31: Feast day of Saint Ignatius of Loyola; Ka Hae Hawaiʻi Day (Flag Day) and Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea (Sovereignty Restoration Day) in Hawaii
- 1200 or 1201 – John Komnenos the Fat briefly seized the throne of the Byzantine Empire from Alexios III Angelos, but he was caught that night and executed.
- 1777 – The Second Continental Congress passed a resolution allowing French nobleman the Marquis de Lafayette to enter the American revolutionary forces as a major general.
- 1954 – A team of Italian climbers became the first to reach the summit of K2 (pictured), the world's second-highest mountain.
- 1975 – The Troubles: In a botched paramilitary attack, three members of the popular Miami Showband and two Ulster Volunteer Force gunmen were killed in County Down, Northern Ireland.
- 1991 – Soviet Special Purpose Police Unit troops killed seven Lithuanian customs officials in Medininkai in the most serious attack of their campaign against Lithuanian border posts.
Roger Wilbraham (d. 1616) · Jean-Gaspard Deburau (b. 1796) · Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd (d. 1948)
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive – All
January – February – March – April – May – June – July – August – September – October – November – December
Recent changes to Selected anniversaries – Selected anniversaries editing guidelines
It is now 12:57 on Thursday, January 24, 2019 (UTC) – Purge cache for this page