Events in History
Event of Interest
Jul 1 Britain's Princes William and Harry unveil statue to their mother Diana, Princess of Wales, on what would have been her 60th birthday, at Kensington Palace
COVID-19 Pandemic
Jul 1 Indonesian President Joko Widodo announces a two-week lockdown for the islands of Java and Bali amid the worst COVID-19 outbreak in South East Asia
Event of Interest
Jul 1 President Xi Jinping makes a defiant address at celebrations in Tiananmen Square, Beijing to mark the 100 year centenary of the Chinese Communist Party [1]
- Jul 1 State of New York charges The Trump Organization and its chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg with tax fraud and grand larceny [1]
- Jul 2 India's known COVID-19 death toll passes 400,000 with 30.45 million cases, amid expert speculation that over one million have died [1]
- Jul 3 Mudslides crash through town of Atami, Japan, after torrential rain, killing 19, with over 100 people initially missing
- Jul 3 Worst wildfires in Cyprus' history begin in Limassol district, spreading in next few days and killing four people
- Jul 4 Columbus Blue Jackets' 24 year old Latvian goaltender Matīss Kivlenieks is killed when accidentally struck by fireworks at the home of team goaltending coach Manny Legace in Novi, Michigan
- Jul 4 Military plane crashes near Jolo, Philippines, killing at lease 45 with dozens saved from the burning wreckage
Event of Interest
Jul 4 Pope Francis undergoes surgery to remove part of his colon in Rome
Event of Interest
Jul 4 Researchers reveal there are 14 living descendants of Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci [1]
COVID-19 Pandemic
Jul 5 Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he will scrap all COVID-19 restrictions in England from 19 July, to become most unrestricted country in Europe
Event of Interest
Jul 6 Mary Simon is named Canada's first indigenous Governor General by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
- Jul 7 Haiti president Jovenel Moïse assassinated in his home in Pétionville, Haiti, state of emergency declared across the country
- Jul 7 World's biggest sandcastle 21.16 high (69.4 feet), using nearly 5,000 tons of sand completed in Blokhus, Denmark [1]
- Jul 8 A tiny Leonardo da Vinci sketch "Head of a Bear", the size of a post-it sells for £8.9 million ($12.2 m) at auction in London [1]
- Jul 8 Global known death toll from COVID-19 passes 4 million (equal to all deaths in battle since 1982) [1]
- Jul 8 Japan says the Olympics will be held without spectators as Tokyo announces state of emergency due to a surge in COVID-19
- Jul 8 Zaila Avant-garde, American student, age 14, from Harvey, Louisiana, wins Scripps National Spelling Bee title
- Jul 9 Death Valley, California, hits temperature of 130 degrees F (54.4 C), one of the highest temperatures ever recorded on earth [1]
- Jul 9 June 2021 declared US's hottest June ever recorded in 127 years, average temperature 72.6 degrees F (4.2 degrees above average) [1]
- Jul 11 Rare mass anti-government protests across Cuba due to economic hardships and effects of COVID-19 led to widespread arrests
- Jul 12 At least 92 people die in a fire in a COVID-19 hospital ward in Iraqi city of Nasiriya
- Jul 13 "Unprecedented" early fire season in western US as 67 large fires and nearly 918,000 acres reported burnt by Interagency Fire Center [1]
Event of Interest
Jul 13 337 die in violent protests and looting in South Africa following the jailing of Jacob Zuma, with more than 200 shopping malls set alight [1]
- Jul 14 Drug overdose deaths in the US rose 30% to record 93,000 in 2020 according to CDC [1]
- Jul 15 Devastating floods linked to climate change sweep through towns in western Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, after record rainfall, killing at least 188 people
- Jul 19 Bomb attack on al-Wuhailat market in Baghdad, Iraq, ahead of Eid al-Adha festival, kills 25 people
- Jul 19 Peruvian union leader Pedro Castillo declared winner of the country's presidential election (11 April), defeating Keiko Fujimori by only 44,000 votes
- Jul 19 UK lifts most COVID-19 restrictions on so-called "Freedom Day" despite 50,000 new daily infections
Event of Interest
Jul 20 Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announces his first two 'Courage and Civility Awards' of $100M each to writer, commentator, and non-profit founder Van Jones and chef and World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés to distribute to charities of their choice
- Jul 20 Amazon founder Jeff Bezos goes into space in first unpiloted suborbital flight with all-civilian crew, aboard rocket developed by his company Blue Origin
- Jul 20 India's COVID-19 death toll likely 10 times its official toll, 3.4 million to 4.7 million (to June 2021), according to The Center for Global Development [1]
- Jul 20 New York records the worst air quality in the world due to smoke from 80 wild fires on the US west coast [1]
- Jul 20 Oregon's Bootleg fire has burnt nearly 400,000 acres, now so big it's generating its own weather patterns according to local fire chiefs
- Jul 20 Torrential rain causes severe flooding in China's Hunan province, flooding subways with people still on the trains, killing at least 12 people in Zhengzhou city [1]
- Jul 20 US, NATO members and other states accuse China's Ministry of State Security for using "contract criminal hackers" to infiltrate Microsoft email systems [1]
- Jul 21 Life expectancy in the US falls by 1.5 years (3 years for Hispanic Americans. 2.9 for Black Americans) in largest decline since WWII [1]
- Jul 21 President Xi Jinping arrives in Tibet in first official visit by a Chinese leader in 30 years
- Jul 21 World's fastest train debuts, a Chinese state-owned maglev bullet train, with speeds of 600 kilometers per hour (373 miles) in Qingdao, China [1]
- Jul 22 US at “another pivotal point in this pandemic” says CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky as the Delta variant becomes dominant
- Jul 23 At least 164 people die in floods and landslides caused by heavy rain in Indian state of Maharashtra [1]
- Jul 23 Indonesia posts a record daily number of COVID-19 deaths at 1,566 [1]
- Jul 25 Typhoon In-Fa (Yanhua) makes landfall in the city of Zhoushan on China's east coast
- Jul 26 Ship carrying migrants wrecks off coast of Al-Khums, Libya, killing at least 57, takes death toll in central Mediterranean to 987 for 2021 [1]
- Jul 26 Tunisian government in crisis after President Kais Saied sacks Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and suspends parliament with the help of the army because of its handling of COVID-19
- Jul 27 China tests a missile with a hypersonic weapon system, later called “very close” to a Sputnik moment by a US general [1]
- Jul 27 Florida records its highest one-day total of COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic at 21,683
- Jul 27 Largest-ever repatriation of 17,000 looted Iraqi antiquities returned to Baghdad, including items from Hobby Lobby's Museum of the Bible and Cornell University
- Jul 27 Swiss team of Jolanda Neff, Sina Frei and Linda Indergand make a clean sweep of the medals in the women's cross-country mountain bike event at the Tokyo Olympics
- Jul 29 Chinese team of Yang Junxuan, Tang Muhan, Zhang Yufei & Li Bingjie smash 4 x 200m freestyle relay WR 7:40.33 at Tokyo Olympics; minor medallists USA and Australia also beat previous mark
- Jul 29 Flash floods kill at least 60 people in Kamdesh, eastern Afghanistan
- Jul 30 1 out of 169 Americans employed by Amazon in new figures released by the company. Now US's second largest employer (Walmart the largest employing 1 in 100) [1]
Weddings in History
Deaths in History
- Jul 2 Naïm Kattan, Canadian novelist and essayist, dies at 92
- Jul 7 Carlos Reutemann, Argentine auto racer (World F1 Drivers C'ship 1981 runner-up; 3 x third) and politician (governor of Santa Fe 2003-21), dies from a digestive hemorrhage at 79
- Jul 7 Jovenel Moïse, Haitian politician, President of Haiti (2017-21), assassinated at 53
- Jul 9 Boris Dmitriyevich Andreyev, Russian cosmonaut, dies at 80
- Jul 9 Jehan Sadat [Safwat Raouf], Widow of Anwar Sadat and 1st Lady of Egypt (1970-81), dies at 87 [1]
- Jul 10 Gwendolyn Faison, American politician (Mayor of Camden, New Jersey, 2000-10), dies at 96
- Jul 15 Jerry Lewis, American politician (Rep-R-California, 1979-2013), dies at 86
- Jul 19 Jenny Lynn, American bodybuilder (IFBB Figure Olympia 2006, 07; Figure International 2003, 04, 05), dies from a seizure at 49
- Jul 19 Layne Flack, American poker player (6 x World Series of Poker bracelets), dies at 52
- Jul 25 Robert Parris "Bob" Moses, American civil rights activist (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)), and educator (The Algebra Project), dies at 86
- Jul 26 Mike Enzi, American accountant, and politician (US Senator for Wyoming (R), 1997-2021), dies from injuries in a bicycling accident at 77
- Jul 29 Carl Levin, American attorney and politician (U.S. Senator from Michigan, 1979-2015), dies at 87
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists