- 1517 Gelderse crowd robber murders population of Asperen
Event of Interest
1536 French navigator Jacques Cartier returns to Saint-Malo from Canada
Jacques Cartier
- 1541 Estevão da Gama departs Massawa, leaving behind 400 matchlock men and 150 slaves under his brother Christovão da Gama, with orders to help the Emperor of Ethiopia defeat Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi who has invaded his Empire
- 1553 Battle at Sievershausen: Saxons-Brunwick alliance led by Elector Maurice defeat forces of Margrave Albert Alcibiades of Brandenburg-Bayreuth in a bloody battle with 4,000 killed
- 1572 19 Catholic priests hanged in Gorcum
- 1609 Emperor Rudolf II grants Bohemian protestants freedom of religion
Event of Interest
1672 William III inaugurated as viceroy of Holland and Zealand
William III
- 1686 Germany, Sweden and Spain sign anti-French League of Augsburg
Battle of Interest
1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie's warship Elisabeth battles HMS Lion
Bonnie Prince Charlie
United States Declaration of Independence
1776 Declaration of Independence is read to George Washington's troops in New York
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- 1780 Denmark declares neutrality, joining First League of Armed Neutrality to protect shipping
- 1789 French Revolution: the National Assembly renames itself the National Constituent Assembly
- 1790 Russo-Swedish War: Second Battle of Svensksund - in the Baltic Sea, the Swedish Navy captures one third of the Russian fleet
- 1795 James Swan pays off the $2,024,899 US national debt
- 1800 Mt Vernon Gardens becomes site of 1st summer theater in US
Treaty of Interest
1807 Second Treaty of Tilsit signed by France, Russia and Prussia
Napoléon Bonaparte
Event of Interest
1815 King Louis XVIII leaves Ghent for France
Louis XVIII
Event of Interest
1815 Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord takes office as the first Prime Minister of France
Talleyrand
Event of Interest
1816 Argentina declares independence from Spain at the Congress of Tucumán
Manuel Belgrano
- 1846 Captain John B. Montgomery claims Yerba Buena (San Francisco) for US
- 1846 The territory of the District of Columbia south of the Potomac River (39 mi² or about 100 km²) is returned to Virginia through an Act of Congress
- 1852 Fire destroys 1,100 construction sites in Montreal, Canada
- 1853 Commodore Matthew Perry and four US Navy vessels visit Japan to force them to open up to American trade and end their policy of isolation
- 1860 Temperature hits 115°F in Fort Scott and 112°F in Topeka, Kansas
- 1862 General John Hunt Morgan captures Tompkinsville, Kentucky
- 1863 John Hunt Morgan's cavalry aid into Indiana [->JUL 13]
- 1863 Union troops enter Port Hudson
- 1864 Battle of Monocacy, Maryland, confederate forces led by Lieutenant General Jubal Early
Historic Expedition
1867 An unsuccessful expedition led by E.D Young sets out to search for Dr David Livingstone (Scottish missionary and explorer)
David Livingstone
- 1868 1st African American cabinet member in South Carolina, Francis L Cardozo as Secretary of State
- 1868 Louisiana and South Carolina are the last states to ratify the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, guaranteeing civil rights
- 1872 Doughnut cutter patents granted to John Blondel, Thomaston, Maine
- 1878 American inventor Henry Tibbe patents an improved corncob pipe design
Event of Interest
1893 Daniel Williams repairs the torn pericardium of a knife wound patient, James Cornish, without penicillin or blood transfusion
Daniel Williams
- 1900 The Commonwealth of Australia is established by the British House of Commons
- 1908 CHU (Christian Historic Union) Dutch political party forms
- 1910 Walter Brookins, flying a Wright biplane over Atlantic City, New Jersey, becomes 1st to fly an airplane to an altitude of 1 mile (actually reaching 6,175 feet or 1.169 miles) [1]
- 1914 1st US duplicate auction bridge championship held, Lake Placid, NY
- 1915 Germany surrenders South West Africa to Union of South Africa
- 1916 1st cargo submarine to cross Atlantic arrives in US from Germany
HMS Vanguard Disaster
1917 British battleship HMS Vanguard explodes at Scapa Flow (the result of an internal explosion of faulty cordite), killing 804
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Event of Interest
1926 Chiang Kai-shek appointed to national-revolutionary supreme commander in China
Chiang Kai-shek
Event of Interest
1934 SS-Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler takes command of German Concentration Camps
Heinrich Himmler
- 1940 German Evangelist Church protests against euthanasia pogroms
- 1941 Dutch-American Physicist Abraham Pais is awarded his Ph.D. in Holland five days before a Nazi deadline banning Jews from receiving degrees
- 1943 5th day of battle at Kursk: Germans occupy Verchopenje
- 1943 British air raid sinks U-435
- 1944 In World War II, US troops secure Saipan as Japan falls
- 1944 U-740 sunk by depth charges from a British Liberator aircraft
Engagement of Interest
1947 Engagement of Britain's Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten
Prince Philip
Event of Interest
1947 Spain votes for Franco monarchy
Francisco Franco
- 1950 13.15" (33.40 cm) of rainfall, York, Nebraska (state 24-hour record)
Event of Interest
1951 US President Harry Truman asks Congress to formally end state of war with Germany
Harry Truman
Event of Interest
1955 The Russell-Einstein Manifesto is released by Bertrand Russell in London on the need to avoid nuclear war
Bertrand Russell
Albert Einstein
Event of Interest
1962 Andy Warhol's first West Coast gallery exhibition in the Ferus Gallery of Los Angeles
Andy Warhol
- 1963 Crusher Lisowski beats Verne Gagne in Minneapolis, to become NWA champ
- 1965 John Edrich completes 310* v NZ in 532 minutes, 52 fours 5 sixes
- 1965 Senators Frank Howard ties record with 7 strikeouts in DH
- 1968 15.68" (39.83 cm) of rainfall, Columbus, Mississippi (state 24-hour record)
- 1970 In Atlanta, Chief-No-ka-homa is joined by cousin Chief Round-the-Horn
Event of Interest
1971 Henry Kissinger visits the People's Republic of China to negotiate a detente between the US and China
Henry Kissinger
- 1972 USSR performs underground nuclear test
Event of Interest
1972 Kwame Nkrumah, re-buried in Nkroful, Ghana
Kwame Nkrumah
Election of Interest
1974 Pierre Trudeau's Liberal Party wins Canadian parliamentary election
Pierre Trudeau
- 1975 The National Assembly of Senegal passes a law that paves way for a (albeit highly restricted) multi-party system
- 1976 England all out for 71 v WI at Old Trafford, Holding 14 5-7-17-5
- 1976 Houston Astro Larry Dierker no-hits Montreal Expos, 6-0
- 1976 Uganda asks UN to condemn Israeli hostage rescue raid on Entebbe
- 1978 American Nazi Party holds a rally at Marquette Park, Chicago
- 1978 Nearly 100,000 demonstrators march on Washington, D.C. for ERA
- 1979 Dr Walter Massey named director of Argonne National Laboratory
- 1979 A car bomb destroys a Renault owned by famed "Nazi hunters" Serge and Beate Klarsfeld at their home in France. A note purportedly from ODESSA claims responsibility.
Event of Interest
1980 7 die in a stampede to see Pope John Paul II in Brazil
John Paul II
Event of Interest
1980 Dutch war criminal Pieter Menten sentenced to 10 years
Pieter Menten
- 1981 Jacksons begin a 36-city tour
- 1981 Nintendo releases arcade game Donkey Kong in Japan (July 31 in the US)
- 1982 Botham scores 208 in 225 balls, England v India at The Oval
- 1982 Pan Am Boeing 727 crashes in Kenner La, killing 153
- 1982 Michael Fagan breaks into Buckingham Palace and enters the Queen's bedroom in Buckingham Palace, London
- 1984 12th Century York Minster damaged in lightning storm
- 1985 South Africa police arrested Dutch ANC'er Klaas de Jong
- 1986 Atlanta's Dale Murphy doesn't play ending consecutive streak at 740
- 1986 Attorney General's Commission on pornography links hard-core porn to sex crimes
- 1986 The New Zealand parliament passes the Homosexual Law Reform Bill legalising consensual sex between men aged 16 and older
- 1987 1 million South Koreans demonstrate against Chun Doo Hwan regime
Event of Interest
1987 Colonel Oliver North admits to shredding Iran-Contra evidence
Oliver North
- 1988 Chris Speier hits for the cycle & Ernest Riles hits 10,000th Giant HR
- 1989 Two bombs explode in Mecca, killing one pilgrim and wounding 16 others
- 1992 Space Shuttle STS 50 (Columbia 13) lands
- 1994 Sonia O'Sullivan runs world record 2k (5:25.36)
- 1994 Russian spacecraft Soyuz TM-18 lands after successful trip to Mir spacestation
- 1995 US international postage rates rise to 60 cents per ounce
Event of Interest
1995 Former South African President F. W. de Klerk is implicated of knowing and condoning a 'dirty tricks' campaign that was waged against the ANC between 1990 and the 1994 election in a bid to destabilise the organisation
F. W. de Klerk
Event of Interest
2002 The African Union is established in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The first chairman is Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa.
Thabo Mbeki
Election of Interest
2014 Joko Widodo is elected President of Indonesia
Joko Widodo
Victory in Battle
2017 Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi proclaims victory over Islamic State forces in Mosul
Haider al-Abadi
- 2017 Hundreds of thousands protest against the Turkish government at a rally in Istanbul, Turkey
Appointment of Interest
2018 US President Donald Trump names Brett Kavanaugh as his Supreme Court nominee
Donald Trump
- 2018 Bright pink is the world's oldest biological colour according to scientists, produced by tiny cyanobacteria in 1.1bn-year-old marine shale rock from Taoudeni basin, Mauritania
Event of Interest
2018 UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson resigns after Theresa May takes a softer Brexit stance
Boris Johnson
Theresa May
- 2018 Jeremy Hunt becomes UK Foreign Secretary after Boris Johnson's resignation
Event of Interest
2018 Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki and Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed officially end the "no war, no peace" peace deal made in 2000 in Eritrea's capital, Asmara
Abiy Ahmed
- 2018 Train derailment kills 24 in the Turkish province of Tekirdag
- 2018 4 more boys are rescued from Tham Luang Nang Non cave, Thailand after being trapped there with 8 others and their coach for 17 days by monsoon flooding (4 boys and their coach remain)
- 2018 US coffee company Starbucks announces it will stop using plastic straws by 2020, reducing use of more than 1 billion straws a year
- 2019 Northern Ireland MPs vote to extend same-sex marriage and make abortion legal to bring it in line with rest of UK
- 2019 Indian restaurateur "dosa king" P. Rajagopal finally begins his life sentence for organizing a murder, 15 years after he was convicted
- 2020 McGirt v. Oklahoma, in landmark case US Supreme Court rules Congress had not disestablished Oklahoma Indian reserves
- 2021 Death Valley, California, hits temperature of 130 degrees F (54.4 C), one of the highest temperatures ever recorded on earth [1]
- 2021 June 2021 US's hottest June ever recorded in 127 years, average temperature 72.6 degrees F (4.2 degrees above average) [1]