Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/July

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July 1: Eid al-Mubahalah (Shia Islam, 2024); Canada Day (1867)

Brown 10-centime Belgian epaulette

• 692 – Berhtwald was elected Archbishop of Canterbury.
• 1849 – Belgium introduced its first series of postage stamps, known as epaulettes (example pictured).
• 1862 – American Civil War: Confederate general Robert E. Lee launched a series of disjointed and ultimately unsuccessful assaults on the nearly impregnable Union position on Malvern Hill in Henrico County, Virginia.
• 1874 – The Remington No. 1, the first commercially successful typewriter, went on sale.
• 1999 – Legislative powers in Scotland were first devolved from the Scottish Office in London to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.

July 2

James A. Garfield

• 626 – Li Shimin led his forces to assassinate his rival brothers in a coup for the imperial throneofTang China.
• 1644 – First English Civil War: The combined forces of Scottish Covenanters and English Parliamentarians defeated Royalist troops at the Battle of Marston Moor.
• 1724 – On the Feast of the Visitation, Bach led the first performance of his Meine Seel erhebt den Herren, BWV 10, based on the German Magnificat.
• 1881 – U.S. president James A. Garfield (pictured) was fatally shotbyCharles J. Guiteau at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station in Washington, D.C.
• 1964 – The Civil Rights Act was signed into law, outlawing segregation in schools, at the workplace, and other facilities that served the general public in the United States.

July 3

French destroyer Mogador burning after British shellfire

• 324 – Civil wars of the Tetrarchy: Roman emperor Constantine the Great defeated his former colleague Licinius at the Battle of Adrianople.
• 1754 – French and Indian War: George Washington surrendered Fort Necessity in Pennsylvania, the only military surrender in his career.
• 1940 – Second World War: The Royal Navy attacked the French fleetatMers El Kébir (pictured), fearing that the ships would fall into Axis hands after the French–German armistice.
• 1970 – Dan-Air Flight 1903 crashed into the slopes of the Montseny MassifinCatalonia, Spain, killing all 112 people aboard.
• 1979 – U.S. president Jimmy Carter signed a presidential finding, authorizing covert operations to aid the mujahideen against the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

July 4: Independence Day in the United States (1776); Republic Day in the Philippines (1946); Liberation Day in Rwanda (1994)

Crab Nebula

• 414 – Byzantine emperor Theodosius II proclaimed his elder sister Aelia PulcheriaasAugusta.
• 1054 – Chinese astronomers recorded the sudden appearance of a "guest star", later identified as the supernova that created the Crab Nebula (pictured).
• 1863 – American Civil War: Confederate forces failed in an attempt to recapture the Union-occupied Helena, Arkansas.
• 1954 – In what is known as "The Miracle of Bern", West Germany defeated Hungary 3–2 to win the FIFA World Cup.
• 1954 – CIA officers arrived in Guatemala City to begin Operation PBHistory in an attempt to justify the overthrowing of Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz one week earlier.

July 5: Fifth of July in New York

Artefacts from the Staffordshire Hoard

• 1841 – Thomas Cook, the founder of the British travel company Thomas Cook & Son, organised his first excursion, escorting about 500 people from LeicestertoLoughborough.
• 1924 – Brazilian Army rebels launched an uprisinginSão Paulo against President Artur Bernardes, who authorized the bombing of the city in response.
• 1969 – Two days after the death of their founder Brian Jones, the Rolling Stones performed at a free festivalinHyde Park, London, in front of more than a quarter of a million fans.
• 2009 – The Staffordshire Hoard, the largest collection of Anglo-Saxon gold ever discovered, consisting of more than 1,500 items (examples pictured), was found near HammerwichinStaffordshire.

July 6:

Jadranka Kosor

• 1614 – The Ottoman Empire made a final attempt to conquer the island of Malta, but were repulsed by the Knights Hospitaller.
• 1777 – American Revolutionary War: American troops at Fort Ticonderoga in New York completed a retreat from advancing British forces, causing an uproar among the American public.
• 1809 – Napoleon's French forces defeated Archduke Charles' Austrian army at the Battle of Wagram, the decisive confrontation of the War of the Fifth Coalition.
• 1936 – A major breach of the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal in England sent millions of gallons of water cascading 300 feet (90 m) into the River Irwell.
• 2009 – Jadranka Kosor (pictured) became the first female prime minister of Croatia.

July 7

Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.

• 1456 – Joan of Arc was declared innocent of heresy in a retrial twenty-five years after her death.
• 1798 – Outraged by the XYZ Affair, the United States rescinded its treaties with France, resulting in the undeclared Quasi-War, fought entirely at sea.
• 1907 – Inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris, American impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. (pictured) staged the first of his Ziegfeld Follies.
• 1963 – The secret police of Ngô Đình Nhu, brother and chief political adviser of South Vietnamese president Ngô Đình Diệm, attacked a group of American journalists who were covering a protest during the Buddhist crisis.
• 1991 – Yugoslav Wars: The signing of the Brioni Agreement ended the Ten-Day War between SFR Yugoslavia and Slovenia.

July 8: Islamic New Year (2024, 1446 AH)

John Clarke

• 1663 – Baptist minister John Clarke (pictured) was granted the Rhode Island Royal Charter, described as the "grandest instrument of human liberty ever constructed".
• 1874 – Members of the North-West Mounted PoliceatFort Dufferin began their March West, their first journey to the Canadian Prairies.
• 1947 – Following reports of the capture of a "flying disc"byU.S. Army Air Forces personnel near Roswell, New Mexico, the military stated that the crashed object was a conventional weather balloon.
• 1966 – King Mwambutsa IV of Burundi was deposed in a coup d'état by his son, Prince Charles Ndizi.
• 2014 – German citizen Lars Mittank disappeared from Varna Airport, Bulgaria; his last known movements were widely watched on YouTube.

July 9

Donkey Kong cabinet

• 551 – An estimated 30,000 people died when a massive earthquake struck the Roman province of Phoenice.
• 1745 – War of the Austrian Succession: French victory at the Battle of Melle enabled their subsequent capture of Ghent from the Austrian Netherlands.
• 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.
• 1981 – Nintendo released the arcade game Donkey Kong (cabinet pictured), which featured the debut of Mario, one of the most famous characters in video-game history.
• 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.

July 10: Independence Dayinthe Bahamas (1973)

Lady Jane Grey

• 1553 – Lady Jane Grey (pictured) was proclaimed the successor to King Edward VI of England, beginning her disputed reign as the "Nine Days' Queen".
• 1806 – Indian sepoys mutinied against the East India CompanyatVellore Fort.
• 1913 – The air temperature in Furnace Creek, California, reached 134 °F (56.7 °C), recognized by the World Meteorological Organization as the highest recorded on Earth.
• 1973 – John Paul Getty III, a grandson of the American oil magnate J. Paul Getty, was kidnapped in Rome.
• 2018 – The last members of a junior association football team and their coach were rescued from Tham Luang Nang Non, a flooded cave in northern Thailand.

July 11: Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Genocide in Poland (1943)

Sculpture of Zheng He

• 1302 – Franco-Flemish War: Flemish infantry defeated a large French army near Kortrijk at the Battle of the Golden Spurs.
• 1405 – Marking the start of Ming China's treasure voyages, an expeditionary fleet led by Zheng He (depicted) set sail for foreign regions of the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean.
• 1792 – The Belfast Harp Festival, an early event in the Gaelic revival, began at the Assembly Rooms.
• 1960 – To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel by Harper Lee featuring themes of racial injustice and the loss of innocence in the Deep South of America, was published.
• 1991 – Shortly after taking off from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 caught fire and crashed, killing all 261 people on board.

July 12

Saint Basil's Cathedral

• 1561 – Saint Basil's Cathedral (pictured), located in Red Square, Moscow, was consecrated.
• 1918 – An explosion in the ammunition magazine of the Japanese battleship Kawachi resulted in the deaths of more than 600 officers and crewmen.
• 1963 – Sixteen-year-old Pauline Reade, the first victim of serial killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, disappeared in Gorton, England.
• 1979 – Rowdy fans at Comiskey Park in Chicago stormed the field during a Major League Baseball promotional event at which a crate of disco records was blown up.
• 2006 – Hezbollah forces crossed the Israel–Lebanon border and attacked Israeli military positions while firing rockets and mortars at Israeli towns, sparking a five-week war.

July 13

A tape recorder from Nixon's Oval Office

• 1260 – Livonian Crusade: Samogitian forces defeated Teutonic knights and the Livonian Order at the Battle of Durbe.
• 1643 – English Civil War: Royalist forces defeated the Parliamentarians at the Battle of Roundway Down near Devizes, Wiltshire.
• 1913 – While on a campaign in Bulgaria, the Romanian Army suffered a cholera outbreak that led to around 1,600 deaths.
• 1973 – Watergate scandal: Under questioning by Senate investigators, White House deputy chief of staff Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of a secret taping system (tape recorder pictured) in the Oval Office.
• 2003 – French Directorate-General for External Security personnel aborted an operation to rescue Colombian politician Íngrid Betancourt from FARC guerrillas, resulting in a political scandal.

July 14: Bastille Day in France (1789); Festino di Santa Rosalia begins in Palermo, Italy

Attack on Joseph Priestley's home

• 1791 – The Priestley Riots (depicted), targeting religious dissenters such as Joseph Priestley, began in Birmingham, England.
• 1902 – The medieval St Mark's Campanile in Venice collapsed, also demolishing the Loggetta del Sansovino.
• 1950 – Early in the Korean War, North Korean troops began attacking the headquarters of the American 24th Infantry DivisioninTaejon, South Korea.
• 1987 – More than 100 mm (3.9 in) of rain fell in a two-and-a-half-hour period in parts of Montreal, causing severe flooding.
• 2016 – A man deliberately drove a truck into crowdsinNice, France, resulting in 86 deaths.

July 15: Marine Day in Japan (2024)

Surrender of Napoleon

• 1815 – Aboard HMS Bellerophon, French emperor Napoleon (pictured) surrendered to Royal Navy captain Frederick Lewis Maitland, concluding the Napoleonic Wars.
• 1870 – Manitoba was established as a province of Canada following the transfer of Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company.
• 1943 – The all-female Emilia Plater Independent Women's Battalion was formed in the Soviet Union's First Polish Army.
• 1983 – Sega's first home video game console, the SG-1000, was released in Japan.
• 2009 – Caspian Airlines Flight 7908 crashed in northwestern Iran, killing all 168 people aboard.

July 16

Muhammad I of Granada (red shield)

• 1232 – Muhammad ibn Yusuf (pictured), who later established the Emirate of Granada, the last Muslim state in Spain, was elected the ruler of Arjona.
• 1790 – 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.
• 1931 – Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie promulgated the nation's first modern constitution.
• 1983 – A Sikorsky S-61 helicopter operated by British Airways crashed in thick fog in the Celtic Sea, killing 20 of the 26 people on board.
• 2013 – At least 23 students died and dozens more fell ill at a primary school in the Indian state of Bihar after consuming a Midday Meal that was contaminated with pesticide.

July 17: Constitution Day in South Korea (1948); World Emoji Day

Russian imperial family, 1913

• 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 twenty Copper Inuit.
• 1863 – The New Zealand Wars resumed as British forces led by General Duncan Cameron began the invasion of the Waikato.
• 1918 – Russian Revolution: Tsar Nicholas II and his family (pictured) were murderedbyBolsheviksatYekaterinburg.
• 1968 – Led by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party overthrew Iraqi president Abdul Rahman Arifina bloodless coup.
• 2007 – TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overran the runwayatCongonhas Airport in São Paulo, Brazil, killing 199 people.

July 18

54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry storming Fort Wagner

• 1290 – King Edward I issued an edict to expel all Jews from England.
• 1723 – Johann Sebastian Bach directed the first performance of his cantata Erforsche mich, Gott, und erfahre mein HerzinLeipzig.
• 1863 – American Civil War: Led by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, one of the first African-American military units in the Union Army, spearheaded an assault (pictured)onFort Wagner, South Carolina.
• 1949 – Francisco Javier Arana, the chief of the Guatemalan armed forces, was killed in a shootout with supporters of President Juan José Arévalo.
• 2019 – An arson attack at the studio of Kyoto Animation in Japan led to the deaths of 36 people.

July 19

Launch of SS Great Britain

• 998 – Arab–Byzantine wars: After initial Byzantine gains at the Battle of Apamea, a lone Kurdish rider killed Byzantine commander Damian Dalassenos, allowing Fatimid troops to turn the tide of the battle.
• 1843 – SS Great Britain, the first ocean-going ship with both an iron hull and a screw propeller, was launched (pictured)inBristol, England.
• 1845 – A fireinManhattan, New York, destroyed 345 buildings, killed 30 people, and caused at least $5 million in damage.
• 1903 – French cyclist Maurice Garin won the first edition of the Tour de France.
• 2014 – Gunmen perpetrated an assault against an Egyptian military checkpoint in the Libyan Desert, killing 22 soldiers.

July 20

Special Olympics athletes in 2013

• 1333 – Second War of Scottish Inde­pen­dence: The Scottish-held town of Berwick-upon-Tweed surrendered to English forces, ending a siege led by King Edward III.
• 1867 – The United States Congress established the Indian Peace Commission to seek peace treaties with a number of Native American tribes.
• 1917 – The prime minister of Serbia, Nikola Pašić, and the president of the Yugoslav Committee, Ante Trumbić, signed the Corfu Declaration, agreeing to seek the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.
• 1968 – The first games of the Special Olympics (athletes pictured), for athletes with intellectual disabilities, were held at Soldier Field in Chicago.
• 2001 – The animated film Spirited Away, written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, was released, becoming the highest-grossing film in Japanese history until 2020.

July 21: Belgian National Day (1831)

Yuen Long attack

• 365 – A large earthquake occurred near Crete, triggering a tsunami, and causing widespread destruction around the eastern Mediterranean region.
• 905 – Louis III, Holy Roman Emperor, was captured and blinded during his attempt to restore Carolingian power over Italy by King Berengar I.
• 1918 – World War I: An Imperial German Navy U-boat opened fire on a small convoy of barges and defending aircraft near the American town of Orleans, Massachusetts.
• 2013 – Nour Ahmad Nikbakht, an Iranian diplomat in Yemen, was kidnappedbyal-Qaeda militants and held hostage for the next two years.
• 2019 – People returning from anti-extradition bill protests were attacked (pictured) by suspected triad members in Yuen Long, Hong Kong, leaving 45 people injured.

July 22: Feast dayofSaint Mary Magdalene (Christianity)

Jules-Albert de Dion

• 1298 – First War of Scottish Independence: English forces led by Edward I defeated William Wallace's Scottish troops at the Battle of Falkirk.
• 1864 – American Civil War: Confederate forces unsuccessfully attacked Union troops at the Battle of Atlanta.
• 1894 – Jules-Albert de Dion (pictured) finished first in the world's first motor race, but did not win as his steam-powered car was against the rules.
• 1963 – The United Kingdom granted self-government to Sarawak.
• 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.

July 23: Birthday of Haile Selassie (Rastafari)

Megawati Sukarnoputri

• 1319 – A fleet led by the Knights Hospitaller sank 22 of 28 ships of the Turkish Aydinid emirate.
• 1891 – During a visit of the French Navy to Kronstadt in Russia, the two nations reached a secret agreement on a joint response to any future war in Europe.
• 1921 – The first National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party opened in a house in Shanghai.
• 1968 – A shootout between police and a Black power group began in Cleveland, Ohio, sparking three days of rioting.
• 1999 – 47 people, mostly African American, were arrested in Tulia, Texas U.S., for dealing cocaine. Years later, 35 of the 47 were pardoned by the Governor.
• 2001 – Megawati Sukarnoputri (pictured) became the first female president of Indonesia after her predecessor Abdurrahman Wahid was removed from office.

July 24: Pioneer DayinUtah, United States (1847)

Charles de Gaulle

• 1567 – Mary, Queen of Scots, was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son, James VI.
• 1920 – Franco-Syrian War: At the Battle of Maysalun forces of the Arab Kingdom of Syria were defeated by a French army moving to occupy the territory allocated to them by the San Remo conference.
• 1923 – The Treaty of Lausanne was signed to settle part of the partition of the Ottoman Empire, establishing the boundaries of Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey.
• 1967 – During a speech in Montreal, French president Charles de Gaulle (pictured) declared "Long live free Quebec!", a statement that was interpreted as support for Quebec independence from Canada.
• 1998 – A gunman entered the United States Capitol and opened fire, killing two police officers.

July 25: National Day of Galicia

Pratibha Patil

• 1547 – Henry II was crowned King of FranceatReims Cathedral.
• 1591 – Eighty Years' War: Dutch and English forces relieved the siege of Knodsenburg in the Spanish Netherlands, having defeated the Duke of Parma's army in the field.
• 1893 – The Corinth Canal was formally opened, bisecting the narrow Isthmus of Corinth in Greece to connect the Ionian Sea's Gulf of Corinth with the Aegean Sea's Saronic Gulf.
• 1950 – Korean War: After American troops withdrew, North Korean forces captured the village of Yongdong in South Korea.
• 2007 – Pratibha Patil (pictured) was sworn in as the first female president of India.

July 26: Independence DayinLiberia (1847) and the Maldives (1965)

Flag of Stellaland

• 1778 – On the orders of Catherine the Great the first of tens of thousands of Greek and Armenian Christians were removed from Crimea and resettled in Pryazovia.
• 1882 – Boer mercenaries established the Republic of Stellaland (later flag pictured) in land claimed by the United Kingdom as part of British Bechuanaland.
• 1953 – In Short Creek, Arizona, police conducted a mass arrest of approximately 400 Mormon fundamentalists for polygamy.
• 1993 – Asiana Airlines Flight 733 crashed into a mountain during a failed attempt to land at Mokpo Airport, South Korea, leading to the deaths of 68 of the people on board.
• 2012 – The New Irish Republican Army was formed from a merger of a number of dissident republican militant groups.

July 27

Signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement in Panmunjom

• 678 – Unable to penetrate the city's defences, the Sclaveni gave up their siege of the Byzantine city of Thessalonica.
• 1225 – Saint Mary's Church on Gotland, later to become Visby Cathedral, was consecrated.
• 1943 – As the Surprise Hurricane struck Texas, a United States Army Air Forces pilot made the first reconnaissance flight into a hurricane.
• 1953 – An armistice was signed (pictured) to end hostilities in the Korean War, officially making the division of Korea indefinite by creating a 4 km wide (2.5 mi) demilitarized zone across the Korean Peninsula.
• 2010 – Police in Tokyo found the mummified remainsofSogen Kato, thought to have died in 1978, leading to widespread inquiries into the status of isolated elderly people in Japan.

July 28: Statehood Day in Ukraine (2022)

• 1148 – Crusades: The siege of Damascus ended in a decisive victory for the Muslims, leading to the disintegration of the Second Crusade.
• 1821 – Peruvian War of Independence: Argentine general José de San Martín declared the independence of Peru from the Spanish Empire.
• 1917 – In New York City, the NAACP and church and community leaders organized a silent march (newsreel footage featured) of at least 8,000 people to protest violence directed towards African Americans.
• 1976 – An earthquake registering 7.6 M_w, one of the deadliest in history, devastated Tangshan, China, and killed at least 240,000 people.
• 2001 – At the World Aquatics ChampionshipsinFukuoka, Japan, Australian Ian Thorpe became the first swimmer to win six gold medals at a single FINA world championship.

July 29: Torch Festival in China (2024)

Battle of Kleidion, depicted in the Madrid Skylitzes

• 1014 – Byzantine–Bulgarian wars: Byzantine forces defeated troops of the Bulgarian Empire at the Battle of Kleidion (pictured) in the mountains of Belasica near present-day Klyuch.
• 1900 – Italian-American anarchist Gaetano Bresci assassinated King Umberto I of ItalyinMonza.
• 1914 – The Cape Cod Canal, connecting Cape Cod Bay and Buzzards Bay in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, opened on a limited basis.
• 1954 – The Fellowship of the Ring, the first part of J. R. R. Tolkien's high-fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings, was published by Allen & Unwin.
• 1981 – An estimated worldwide television audience of 750 million watched the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana SpenceratSt Paul's Cathedral in London.

July 30

Brother Jonathan

• 1811 – Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, leader of the Mexican War of Independence, was executed by Spanish forces in Chihuahua City, Mexico.
• 1865 – Off the coast of Crescent City, California, the steamer Brother Jonathan (depicted) struck an uncharted rock and sank, killing 225 people; its cargo of gold coins was not retrieved until 1996.
• 1930 – In Montevideo, the Uruguay national football team won the first FIFA World Cup.
• 1950 – At the height of a political crisis known as the royal question, four workers were shot dead by the Belgian Gendarmerie at a strike in Grâce-Berleur.
• 2006 – Lebanon War: The Israeli Air Force attacked a three-story building near the Lebanese village of Qana, killing at least 28 civilians, including 16 children.

July 31: Lā Hae Hawaiʻi (Flag Day) and Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea (Sovereignty Restoration Day) in Hawaii (1843)

Free Derry Corner

• 1966 – The pleasure cruiser MV Darlwyne disappeared off the coast of Cornwall with the loss of all 31 people aboard.
• 1972 – The Troubles: Hours after the British Army's Operation Motorman brought an end to the self-declared autonomous area of Free Derry (Free Derry Corner pictured) in Northern Ireland, three car bombs exploded in the village of Claudy.
• 2000 – Three years after being hit by a mudslide, the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery in Hong Kong fully reopened.
• 2006 – Following intestinal surgery, Fidel Castro provisionally transferred the duties of the Cuban presidency to his brother Raúl.
• 2014 – Gas explosionsinKaohsiung, Taiwan, killed 32 people and injured 321 others.

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