Saturday, July 31, 2010

Historical Events on 1 Aug

Historical Events on 1 Aug

1203 - Isaac II Angelus, restored Eastern Roman Emperor, declares his son Alexius IV Angelus co-emperor after pressure from the forces of the Ciaran Fourth Crusade.
1291 - The Swiss Confederation is formed with the signature of the Federal Charter.
1461 - Edward IV is crowned king of England.
1492 - Ferdinand and Isabella drive the Jews out of Spain.
1498 - Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to visit Venezuela.
1619 - First African slaves arrive in Jamestown, Virginia.
1664 - The Ottoman Empire is defeated in the Battle of Saint Gotthard by an Austrian army led by Raimondo Montecuccoli, resulting in the Peace of Vasvár.
1774 - The element oxygen is discovered for the third (and last) time.
1798 - French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay) - Battle begins when a British fleet engages the French Revolutionary Navy fleet in an unusual night action.
1800 - The Act of Union 1800 is passed in which merges the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1820 - London's Regent's Canal opens.
1828 - Bolton and Leigh Railway opens to freight traffic.
1831 - A new London Bridge opens.
1832 - The Black Hawk War ends.
1834 - Slavery is abolished in the British Empire as the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 comes into force.
1838 - Non-labourer slaves in most of the British Empire are emancipated.
1840 - Labourer slaves in most of the British Empire are emancipated.
1842 - Lombard Street Riot erupts
1876 - Colorado is admitted as the 38th U.S. state.
1894 - The First Sino-Japanese War erupts between Japan and China over Korea.
1902 - The United States buys the rights to the Panama Canal from France.
1907 - First Scout camp opens on Brownsea Island.
1914 - Germany declares war on Russia at the opening of World War I. The Swiss Army mobilises because of World War I
1927 - The Nanchang Uprising marks the first significant battle in the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang and Communist Party of China. This day is commemorated as the anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army.
1936 - Olympic Games: Summer Olympic Games - The Games of the XI Olympiad open in Berlin.
1937 - Tito reads the resolution "Manifesto of constitutional congress of KPH" to the constitutive congress of KPH (Croatian Communist Party) in woods near Samobor.
1941 - The first Jeep is produced.
1944 - Anne Frank makes the last entry in her diary.
1944 - Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi occupation breaks out in Warsaw, Poland.
1948 - The U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations is founded.
1957 - The United States and Canada form the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).
1960 - Communist Party of Independence and Work is banned in Senegal.
1960 - Dahomey (later renamed Benin) declares independence from France.
1960 - Islamabad declared as the federal capital of the Government of Pakistan.
1964 - The Belgian Congo is renamed the Republic of the Congo.
1965 - Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands announces her engagement to Claus von Amsberg.
1966 - Charles Whitman kills 15 people at The University of Texas at Austin before being killed by the police.
1966 - Purges of intellectuals and imperialists becomes official People's Republic of China policy at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
1967 - Israel annexes East Jerusalem.
1968 - The coronation is held of Hassanal Bolkiah, the 29th Sultan of Brunei.
1975 - CSCE Final Act creates the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
1977 - Former Lockheed U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers crashes the news helicopter he was flying in Los Angeles
1980 - Buttevant Rail Disaster kills 18 and injures dozens of train passengers in Ireland.
1981 - MTV begins broadcasting in the United States and airs its first video, "Video Killed The Radio Star" by the Buggles.
1988 - Rush Limbaugh begins his national radio show.
1993 - The Great Flood of 1993 comes to a peak. The Mississippi River crested at St. Louis, hitting a record 49.58 feet above flood stage. The Missouri River would peak the next day (August 2) in St. Charles, Missouri at a record 39.6 feet above flood stage.
1996 - Michael Johnson breaks the 200m world record by 0.30 seconds with a time of 19.32 seconds at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.
2001 - An agreement is reached on the position of the minority Albanian language in the Republic of Macedonia.
2001 - Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore has a Ten Commandments monument installed in the judiciary building, leading to a lawsuit to have it removed and his own removal from office.
2001 - Bulgaria, Cyprus, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia and Slovakia join the European Environment Agency.
2004 - A supermarket fire kills 396 people and injures 500 in Asunción, Paraguay.
2007 - The I-35W Mississippi River Bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, collapses during the evening rush hour.
30 BC - Octavian (later known as Augustus) enters Alexandria, Egypt, bringing it under the control of the Roman Republic.
527 - Justinian I becomes the sole ruler of the Byzantine Empire.
607 - Ono no Imoko is dispatched as envoy to the Sui court in China (Traditional Japanese date: July 3, 607).
902 - Taormina, the last Byzantine stronghold in Sicily, is captured by the Aghlabid army.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Historical Events on 31 Jul

Historical Events on 31 Jul

1423 - Hundred Years' War: Battle of Cravant - the French army is defeated at Cravant on the banks of the river Yonne.
1451 - Jacques CÅ"ur is arrested by order of Charles VII of France.
1498 - On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to discover the island of Trinidad.
1588 - The Spanish Armada is spotted off the coast of England.
1655 - Russo-Polish War (1654-1667): the Russian army enters the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Vilnius, which it holds for six years.
1658 - Aurangzeb is proclaimed Moghul emperor of India.
1667 - Second Anglo-Dutch War: Treaty of Breda ends the conflict.
1703 - Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, but is pelted with flowers.
1741 - Charles Albert of Bavaria invades Upper Austria and Bohemia.
1777 - The U.S. Second Continental Congress passes a resolution that the services of Marquis de Lafayette "be accepted, and that, in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family and connexions, he have the rank and commission of major-general of the United Stat
1790 - First U.S. patent is issued to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.
1856 - Christchurch, New Zealand is chartered as a city.
1865 - The first narrow gauge mainline railway in the world opens at Grandchester, Australia.
1913 - The Balkan States signs an armistice at Bucharest.
1919 - German national assembly adopts the Weimar constitution (which comes into force on August 14)
1930 - The radio mystery program The Shadow is aired for the first time.
1932 - The NSDAP wins more than 38% of the vote in German elections.
1936 - The International Olympic Committee announces that the 1940 Summer Olympics will be held in Tokyo. However, the games are given back to the IOC after the Second Sino-Japanese War breaks out, and are eventually cancelled altogether because of World War II.
1938 - Archaeologists discover engraved gold and silver plates from King Darius in Persepolis.
1938 - Bulgaria signs a non-aggression pact with Greece and other states of Balkan Antanta (Turkey, Romania, Yugoslavia)
1940 - A doodlebug train in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio collides with a multi-car freight train heading in the opposite direction, killing 43 people.
1941 - Holocaust: under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS General Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the de
1945 - Pierre Laval, the fugitive former leader of Vichy France, surrenders to Allied soldiers in Austria.
1945 - John K. Giles attempts to escape from Alcatraz prison.
1948 - At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) is dedicated.
1951 - Japan Airlines is established.
1954 - First ascent of K2, by an Italian expedition led by Ardito Desio.
1956 - Jim Laker sets an extraordinary record at Old Trafford in the fourth Test, taking nineteen wickets in a first-class match (the previous best was seventeen).
1961 - At Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, the first All-Star Game tie in major league baseball history occurs when the game is stopped in the 9th inning because of rain.
1964 - Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes.
1970 - Black Tot Day: The last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy.
1971 - Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover.
1972 - Northeast Airlines flies its last flight before being integrated into Delta Air Lines the next day.
1973 - A Delta Air Lines jetliner crashes while landing in fog at Logan Airport, Boston, Massachusetts killing 89.
1975 - In Detroit, Michigan, Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa is reported missing.
1976 - Viking program: Viking 1 - NASA releases the famous Face on Mars photo.
1981 - 42-day strike of Major League Baseball ends in the United States.
1981 - General Omar Torrijos of Panama dies in a plane crash.
1987 - A rare, class F-4 tornado rips through Edmonton, Alberta, killing 27 people and causing $330 million in damage.
1988 - 32 people are killed and 1,674 injured when a bridge at the Sultan Abdul Halim ferry terminal collapses in Butterworth, Malaysia.
1991 - The Medininkai Massacre in Lithuania. Soviet OMON attacks Lithuanian customs post in Medininkai, killing 7 officers and severely wounding one other.
1992 - A Thai Airways Airbus A300-310 crashes into a mountain north of Kathmandu, Nepal killing 113.
1999 - Discovery Program: Lunar Prospector - NASA intentionally crashes the spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface.
2006 - Fidel Castro hands over power temporarily to brother Raúl Castro. This leads to a celebration in Little Havana (La Pequeña Habana in Spanish), Miami, Florida, where many Cuban Americans participated.
2007 - Operation Banner, the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland, and longest-running British Army operation ever, comes to an end.
30 BC - Battle of Alexandria: Mark Antony achieves a minor victory over Octavian's forces, but most of his army subsequently deserts, leading to his suicide.
781 - The oldest recorded eruption of Mt. Fuji (Traditional Japanese date: July 6, 781).
904 - Thessalonica falls to the Arabs, who destroy the city.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Historical Events on 30 Jul

Historical Events on 30 Jul

1419 - First Defenestration of Prague.
1502 - Christopher Columbus lands at Guanaja in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras during his fourth voyage.
1608 - At Ticonderoga (now Crown Point, New York), Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs. This was to set the tone for French-Iroquois relations for the next one hundred years.
1619 - In Jamestown, Virginia, the first representative assembly in the Americas, the House of Burgesses, convenes for the first time.
1629 - An earthquake in Naples, Italy kills 10,000 people.
1729 - Baltimore, Maryland is founded.
1733 - First Freemasons's lodge is opened in what will become the United States.
1756 - Bartolomeo Rastrelli presents the newly-built Catherine Palace to Empress Elizabeth and her courtiers.
1811 - Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, leader of the Mexican insurgency, is executed by the Spanish in Chihuahua, Mexico.
1825 - Malden Island is discovered.
1863 - Indian Wars: Chief Pocatello of the Shoshone tribe signs the Treaty of Box Elder, promising to stop harassing the emigrant trails in southern Idaho and northern Utah.
1864 - American Civil War: Battle of the Crater - Union forces attempt to break Confederate lines at Petersburg, Virginia by exploding a large bomb under their trenches.
1866 - New Orleans's Democratic government orders police to raid an integrated Republican Party meeting, killing 40 people and injuring 150.
1871 - The Staten Island Ferry Westfield's boiler explodes, killing over 85 people.
1916 - Black Tom Island explosion in Jersey City, NJ.
1930 - In Montevideo, Uruguay wins the first Football World Cup.
1932 - Premiere of Walt Disney's Flowers and Trees, the first cartoon short to use Technicolor and the first Academy Award winning cartoon short
1945 - World War II: Japanese submarine I-58 sinks the USS Indianapolis (CA-35), killing 883 seamen.
1953 - Rikidōzan holds a ceremony announcing the establishment of the Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance.
1954 - Elvis Presley makes his debut as a public performer.
1956 - A joint resolution of the U.S. Congress is signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing "In God We Trust" as the U.S. national motto.
1965 - US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid.
1969 - Vietnam War: US President Richard M. Nixon makes an unscheduled visit to South Vietnam and meets with President Nguyen Van Thieu and with U.S. military commanders.
1971 - Apollo program: Apollo 15 Mission - David Scott and James Irwin on Apollo Lunar Module module, Falcon, land with first Lunar Rover on the moon.
1971 - An All Nippon Airways Boeing 727 and a Japanese Air Force F-86 collide over Morioka, Japan killing 162.
1974 - Watergate Scandal: US President Richard M. Nixon releases subpoenaed White House recordings after being ordered to do so by the United States Supreme Court.
1975 - Jimmy Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He is never seen or heard from again.
1980 - Vanuatu gains independence.
1990 - The first Saturn automobile rolls off the assembly line.
1997 - Eighteen lives are lost in the Thredbo Landslide in New South Wales, Australia.
2002 - The accounting law referred to as "The Sarbanes Oxley Act" is signed into law by President George W. Bush.
2003 - In Mexico, the last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line.
2006 - World's longest running music show Top of the Pops is broadcast for the last time on BBC Two. The show had aired for 42 years.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Historical Events on 29 Jul

Historical Events on 29 Jul

1014 - Byzantine-Bulgarian Wars: Battle of Kleidion: Byzantine emperor Basil II inflicts a decisive defeat on the Bulgarian army, and his subsequent savage treatment of 15,000 prisoners reportedly causes Tsar Samuil of Bulgaria to die of shock.
1030 - Ladejarl-Fairhair succession wars: Battle of Stiklestad - King Olaf II fights and dies trying to regain his Norwegian throne from the Danes.
1565 - The widowed Mary Queen of Scots marries Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, Duke of Albany at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, Scotland.
1567 - James VI is crowned King of Scotland at Stirling.
1588 - Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Gravelines - English naval forces under command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake defeat the Spanish Armada off the coast of Gravelines, France.
1693 - War of the Grand Alliance: Battle of Landen - France wins a Pyrrhic victory over Allied forces in the Netherlands.
1793 - John Graves Simcoe decides to build a fort and settlement at Toronto, having sailed into the bay there.
1830 - Abdication of Charles X of France.
1836 - Inauguration of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
1847 - Cumberland School of Law founded in Lebanon, Tennessee, USA. At the end of 1847 only 15 law schools exist in the United States.
1848 - Irish Potato Famine: Tipperary Revolt - in Tipperary, an unsuccessful nationalist revolt against British rule is put down by police.
1851 - Annibale de Gasparis discovers asteroid 15 Eunomia.
1858 - United States and Japan sign the Harris Treaty.
1864 - American Civil War: Confederate spy Belle Boyd is arrested by Union troops and detained at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, DC.
1899 - The First Hague Convention is signed.
1900 - In Italy, King Umberto I of Italy is assassinated by Italian-born anarchist Gaetano Bresci.
1907 - Sir Robert Baden-Powell sets up the Brownsea Island Scout camp in Poole Harbour on the south coast of England. The camp ran from August 1-9, 1907, and is regarded as the founding of the Scouting movement.
1920 - Construction of the Link River Dam begins as part of the Klamath Reclamation Project.
1921 - Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party.
1932 - Great Depression: in Washington, DC, U.S. troops disperse the last of the "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans.
1937 - Tongzhou Incident
1945 - The BBC Light Programme radio station was launched for mainstream light entertainment and music.
1948 - Olympic Games: The Games of the XIV Olympiad - after a hiatus of 12 years caused by World War II, the first Summer Olympics to be held since the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin opened in London.
1957 - The International Atomic Energy Agency is established.
1958 - U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
1959 - First United States Congress elections in Hawaii as a state of the Union.
1965 - Vietnam War: the first 4,000 101st Airborne Division paratroopers arrive in Vietnam, landing at Cam Ranh Bay.
1966 - Bob Dylan is injured in a motorcycle accident near Woodstock, New York.
1967 - At the fourth day of celebrating its 400th anniversary, the city of Caracas, Venezuela was shaken by an earthquake, leaving approximately 500 dead.
1967 - Vietnam War: off the coast of North Vietnam the USS Forrestal catches on fire in the worst U.S. naval disaster since World War II, killing 134.
1976 - In New York City, the "Son of Sam" kills one person and seriously wounds another in the first of a series of attacks.
1981 - Marriage of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer.
1987 - British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President of France François Mitterrand sign the agreement to build the tunnel under the English Channel (Eurotunnel).
1987 - Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President J. R. Jayawardene sign the Indo-Lankan Pact on ethnic issues.
1993 - The Israeli Supreme Court acquits alleged Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk of all charges and he is set free.
1996 - The controversial child protection portion of the Communications Decency Act (1996) is struck down as too broad by a U.S. federal court.
2005 - Astronomers announce their discovery of Eris.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Historical Events on 28 Jul

Historical Events on 28 Jul

1540 - Thomas Cromwell is executed at the order of Henry VIII of England on charges of treason. Henry marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, on the same day.
1586 - The first potato arrives in Britain.
1609 - Bermuda is first settled by survivors of the English Sea Venture en route to Virginia.
1794 - Maximilien Robespierre is executed by guillotine in Paris during the French Revolution.
1809 - Peninsular War: Battle of Talavera: Sir Arthur Wellesley's British, Portuguese and Spanish army defeats a French force under Joseph Bonaparte.
1821 - José de San Martín declares independence for Peru from Spain.
1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Ezra Church: Confederate troops make a third unsuccessful attempt to drive Union forces from Atlanta, Georgia.
1868 - The 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is passed, establishing African-American citizenship and guaranteeing due process of law.
1896 - The city of Miami, Florida is incorporated.
1914 - World War I: Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia after Serbia rejects the conditions of an ultimatum sent by Austria on July 23 following the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand.
1932 - U.S. President Herbert Hoover orders the United States Army to forcibly evict the "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans gathered in Washington, D.C.
1933 - Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Spain are established.
1942 - World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227 in response to alarming German advances into Russia. Under the order all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so will be immediately executed.
1943 - World War II: Operation Gomorrah: The British bomb Hamburg causing a firestorm that kills 42,000 German civilians.
1945 - A U.S. Army B-25 bomber crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building killing 14 and injuring 26.
1948 - The Metropolitan Police Flying Squad foils a bullion robbery in the "Battle of London Airport".
1955 - The Union Mundial pro Interlingua is founded at the first Interlingua congress in Tours, France.
1957 - Heavy rain and a mudslide in Isahaya, western Kyūshū, Japan, kill 992.
1958 - Lord Jellicoe makes his maiden speech in the House of Lords.
1965 - Vietnam War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his order to increase the number of United States troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000.
1973 - Summer Jam at Watkins Glen: 600,000 people attend a rock festival at the Watkins Glen International Raceway.
1976 - The Tangshan earthquake measuring between 7.8 and 8.2 magnitude flattens Tangshan, the People's Republic of China, killing 242,769 and injuring 164,851.
1991 - Baseball: pitcher Dennis Martínez of the Montreal Expos throws a perfect game.
1994 - Baseball: pitcher Kenny Rogers of the Texas Rangers throws a perfect game.
1996 - Kennewick Man, the remains of a prehistoric man, is discovered near Kennewick, Washington.
1997 - Guatemala becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
2002 - Nine coal miners trapped in the flooded Quecreek Mine in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, are rescued after 77 hours underground.
2005 - The Provisional Irish Republican Army call an end to their thirty year long armed campaign in Northern Ireland.
2005 - A tornado touches down in a residential area in south Birmingham, England, causing £4,000,000 worth of damages and injuring 39 people.
2008 - The historic Weston-super-Mare Grand Pier burns down for a second time in 80 years.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Historical Events on 27 Jul

Historical Events on 27 Jul

1214 - Battle of Bouvines: In France, Philip II of France defeats John of England.
1549 - Jesuit priest Francis Xavier's ship reached Japan.
1663 - The British Parliament passes the second Navigation Act requiring that all goods bound for the American colonies have to be sent in English ships from English ports.
1689 - Glorious Revolution: Battle of Killiecrankie ends.
1694 - A Royal Charter is granted to the Bank of England.
1720 - The second important victory of the Russian Navy - the Battle of Grengam.
1778 - American Revolution: First Battle of Ushant - British and French fleets fight to a standoff.
1789 - The first U.S. federal government agency, the Department of Foreign Affairs, is established (later renamed Department of State).
1794 - French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre is arrested after encouraging the execution of more than 17,000 "enemies of the Revolution." (See 9 Thermidor.)
1862 - Sailing from San Francisco to Panama, the SS Golden Gate catches fire and sinks off Manzanillo, Mexico, killing 231.
1865 - Welsh settlers arrive at Chubut in Argentina.
1866 - The Atlantic Cable is successfully completed, allowing transatlantic telegraph communication for the first time.
1880 - Second Anglo-Afghan War: Battle of Maiwand - In a pyrrhic victory, Afghan forces led by Ayub Khan defeat the British Army in battle near Maiwand, Afghanistan.
1914 - Felix Manalo registers the Iglesia ni Cristo with the Filipino government.
1917 - The Allies reach the Yser Canal at the Battle of Passchendaele.
1921 - Researchers at the University of Toronto led by biochemist Frederick Banting announce the discovery of the hormone insulin.
1928 - Tich Freeman becomes only bowler ever to take 200 first-class wickets before end of July.
1940 - The animated short A Wild Hare is released, introducing the character of Bugs Bunny.
1941 - Japanese troops occupy French Indo-China.
1949 - Initial flight of the de Havilland Comet, the first jet-powered airliner.
1953 - Korean War ends: The United States, People's Republic of China, and North Korea, sign an armistice agreement. Syngman Rhee, president of South Korea, refuses to sign but pledges to observe the armistice.
1955 - The Allied occupation of Austria stemming from World War II, ends (started on May 9, 1945).
1964 - Vietnam War: 5,000 more American military advisers are sent to South Vietnam bringing the total number of United States forces in Vietnam to 21,000.
1972 - The F-15 Eagle flies for the first time.
1974 - Watergate Scandal: The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee votes 27 to 11 to recommend the first article of impeachment against President Richard Nixon: obstruction of justice.
1976 - Former Japanese prime minister Kakuei Tanaka is arrested on suspicion of violating foreign exchange and foreign trade laws in connection with the Lockheed bribery scandals.
1981 - British television: On Coronation Street, Ken Barlow marries Deirdre Langton, which proves to be a national event, with massive viewer numbers earned for the show.
1983 - Black July: 18 Tamil political prisoners at the Welikada high security prison in Colombo were massacred by the Sinhalese prisoners, the second such massacre in two days.
1987 - First expedited salvaging of Titanic wreckage begins by RMS Titanic, Inc.
1990 - The Jamaat al Muslimeen stage a coup d'état attempt in Trinidad and Tobago, occupying Parliament and the studios of Trinidad and Tobago Television, holding Prime Minister A. N. R. Robinson and most of his Cabinet, as well as the staff at the television s
1990 - The Supreme Soviet of the Belarusian Soviet Republic declares independence of Belarus from the Soviet Union. Until 1996 the day was celebrated as the Independence Day of Belarus; after a referendum held that year the celebration of independence was transf
1995 - In Washington, DC, the Korean War Veterans Memorial is dedicated.
1996 - Centennial Olympic Park bombing: In Atlanta, Georgia, a pipe bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996 Summer Olympics. Alice Hawthorne was killed, and a cameraman suffered a heart attack fleeing the scene. 111 injured.
1997 - Si Zerrouk massacre in Algeria; about 50 people killed.
2002 - Ukraine airshow disaster: A Sukhoi Su-27 fighter crashes during an air show at Lviv, Ukraine killing 85 and injuring more than 100 others, the largest air show disaster in history.
2005 - STS-114: NASA grounds the Space shuttle, pending an investigation of the external tank's continued foam-shedding problem. During ascent, the external tank of the Space Shuttle Discovery sheds a piece of foam slightly smaller than the piece that caused the
2006 - The Federal Republic of Germany is deemed guilty in the loss of Bashkirian 2937 and DHL Flight 611, because it is illegal to outsource flight surveillance.
2007 - Phoenix News Helicopter Collision: News helicopters from Phoenix, Arizona television stations KNXV and KTVK collide over Steele Indian School Park in central Phoenix while covering a police chase; there were no survivors. This was the first known incidenc

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Historical Events on 26 Jul

Historical Events on 26 Jul

1139 - Battle of Ourique: The independence of Portugal from the Kingdom of León declared after the Almoravids, led by Ali ibn Yusuf, are defeated by Prince Afonso Henriques. He then becomes Afonso I, King of Portugal, after calling the first assembly of the est
1309 - Henry VII is recognized King of the Romans by Pope Clement V.
1469 - Wars of the Roses: Battle of Edgecote Moor - Pitting the forces of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick against those of King Edward IV.
1533 - Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire: Inca emperor Atahualpa is executed in Cajamarca by the garrote by Spanish invaders known as Conquistadores.
1581 - Plakkaat van Verlatinghe (Act of Abjuration). The declaration of independence of the northern Low Countries from the Spanish king, Philip II.
1758 - French and Indian War: Siege of Louisbourg ends with British forces defeating the French and taking control of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
1775 - The birth of what would later become the United States Post Office Department was established by the Second Continental Congress.
1788 - New York ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 11th state of the United States.
1803 - The Surrey Iron Railway, arguably the world's first public railway, opens in south London.
1822 - José de San Martín arrives in Guayaquil, Ecuador, to meet with Simón Bolívar.
1847 - Liberia declares independence.
1861 - American Civil War: George B. McClellan assumes command of the Army of the Potomac following a disastrous Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run.
1863 - American Civil War: Morgan's Raid ends - At Salineville, Ohio, Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and 360 of his volunteers are captured by Union forces.
1878 - In California, the poet and American West outlaw calling himself "Black Bart" makes his last clean getaway when he steals a safe box from a Wells Fargo stagecoach. The empty box will be found later with a taunting poem inside.
1882 - Premiere of Richard Wagner's Parsifal at Bayreuth.
1891 - France annexes Tahiti.
1908 - United States Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte issues an order to immediately staff the Office of the Chief Examiner (later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation).
1914 - Serbia and Bulgaria interrupt diplomatic relationship.
1934 - Assassination of Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss.
1936 - The Axis Powers decide to intervene in the Spanish Civil War.
1937 - End of the Battle of Brunete in the Spanish Civil War.
1941 - World War II: In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the seizure of all Japanese assets in the United States.
1944 - World War II: Soviet army enters Lviv, major city of western Ukraine, liberating it from the Nazis. Only 300 Jewish survivors left, out of 160,000 Jews in Lviv prior to Nazi occupation.
1944 - The first German V-2 rocket hits Great Britain.
1945 - The Labour Party wins the United Kingdom general election of July 5 by a landslide, removing Winston Churchill from power.
1945 - The Potsdam Declaration is signed in Potsdam, Germany.
1945 - The US Navy cruiser Indianapolis arrives at Tinian with the warhead for the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
1946 - Aloha Airlines began service from Honolulu International Airport
1947 - Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act into United States law creating the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council.
1948 - U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9981 desegregating the military of the United States.
1952 - King Farouk of Egypt abdicates in favor of his son Fuad.
1953 - Fidel Castro leads an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks, thus beginning the Cuban Revolution.
1953 - Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle orders an anti-polygamy law enforcement crackdown on residents of Short Creek, Arizona, which becomes known as the Short Creek Raid.
1956 - Following the World Bank's decline to fund building the Aswan High Dam, Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal sparking international condemnation.
1957 - Carlos Castillo Armas, dictator of Guatemala, is assassinated
1958 - Explorer program: Explorer 4 is launched.
1963 - Syncom 2, the world's first geosynchronous satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta B booster.
1963 - Earthquake in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia (formerly part of Yugoslavia) - 1100 dead
1963 - The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development votes to admit Japan.
1965 - Full independence was granted to the Maldives.
1966 - Lord Gardiner issues the Practice Statement in the House of Lords stating that the House is not bound to follow its own previous precedent.
1968 - Vietnam War: South Vietnamese opposition leader Truong Dinh Dzu is sentenced to five years hard labor for advocating the formation of a coalition government as a way to move toward an end to the war.
1971 - Apollo Program: Apollo 15 Mission - Launch of Apollo 15.
1974 - Greek Prime Minister Constantin Caramanlis forms the country's first civil government after seven years of military rule.
1975 - Formation of a military triumvirate in Portugal.
1977 - The National Assembly of Quebec imposes the use of French as the official language of the provincial government.
1989 - A federal grand jury indicts Cornell University student Robert T. Morris, Jr. for releasing the Morris worm, thus becoming the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
1990 - The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush.
1994 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin orders the removal of Russian troops from Estonia.
657 - Battle of Siffin.
811 - Battle of Pliska; Byzantine emperor Nicephorus I is slain, his heir Stauracius is seriously wounded.
920 - Rout of an alliance of Christian troops from Navarre and Léon against the Muslims at Pamplona.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Historical Events on 25 Jul

Historical Events on 25 Jul

1139 - Battle of Ourique: the independence of Portugal from the Kingdom of León and Castile is declared after the battle against the Almoravids.
1261 - The city of Constantinople is recaptured by Nicaean forces under the command of Alexios Strategopoulos, re-establishing the Byzantine Empire.
1536 - Sebastián de Belalcázar on his search of El Dorado founds the City of Santiago de Cali.
1538 - The City of Guayaquil is founded by the Spanish Conquistador Francisco de Orellana and given the name Muy Noble y Muy Leal Ciudad de Santiago de Guayaquil.
1547 - Henry II of France is crowned.
1567 - Don Diego de Losada founds the city of Santiago de Leon de Caracas, modern-day Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela.
1593 - Henry IV of France publicly converts from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism.
1603 - James VI of Scotland is crowned the first king of Great Britain.
1693 - Ignacio de Maya founds the Real Santiago de las Sabinas, now known as Sabinas Hidalgo, Nuevo León, México.
1722 - The Three Years War begins along the Maine and Massachusetts border.
1755 - British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council order the deportation of the Acadians. Thousands of Acadians are sent to the British Colonies in America, France and England. Some later move to Louisiana, while others resettle in New Brunswic
1758 - Seven Years' War: the island battery at Fortress Louisbourg in Nova Scotia is silenced and all French warships are destroyed or taken.
1759 - French and Indian War: in Western New York, British forces capture Fort Niagara from the French, who subsequently abandon Fort Rouillé.
1792 - The Brunswick Manifesto is issued to the population of Paris promising vengeance if the French Royal Family is harmed.
1795 - The first stone of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is laid.
1797 - Horatio Nelson loses more than 300 men and his right arm during the failed conquest attempt of Tenerife (Spain).
1799 - At Aboukir in Egypt, Napoleon I of France defeats 10,000 Ottomans under Mustafa Pasha.
1814 - War of 1812: Battle of Lundy's Lane - reinforcements arrive near Niagara Falls for General Riall's British and Canadian forces and a bloody, all-night battle with Jacob Brown's Americans commences at 18.00; the Americans retreat to Fort Erie.
1824 - Costa Rica annexes Guanacaste from Nicaragua.
1837 - The first commercial use of an electric telegraph was successfully demonstrated by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone on 25 July 1837 between Euston and Camden Town in London.
1853 - Joaquin Murietta, the famous Californio bandit known as "Robin Hood of El Dorado", is killed.
1861 - American Civil War: the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution is passed by the U.S. Congress stating that the war is being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.
1866 - The U.S. Congress passes legislation authorizing the rank of General of the Army (commonly called "5-star general"). Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant becomes the first to be promoted to this rank.
1868 - Wyoming becomes a United States territory.
1869 - The Japanese daimyō begin returning their land holdings to the emperor as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms. (Traditional Japanese Date: June 17, 1869).
1894 - The First Sino-Japanese War begins when the Japanese fire upon a Chinese warship.
1897 - Writer Jack London sails to join the Klondike Gold Rush where he will write his first successful stories.
1898 - The United States invasion of Puerto Rico begins with U.S. troops landing at harbor of Guánica, Puerto Rico (The land invasion, proper, began that day: Sea-based bombardment and shelling of the capital city of San Juan had been occurring since May 1898).
1907 - Korea becomes a protectorate of Japan.
1908 - Ajinomoto is founded. Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University discovers that a key ingredient in Konbu soup stock is monosodium glutamate (MSG), and patents a process for manufacturing it.
1909 - Louis Blériot makes the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine (Calais to Dover) in 37 minutes.
1917 - Sir Thomas Whyte introduces the first income tax in Canada as a "temporary" measure (lowest bracket is 4% and highest is 25%).
1920 - Telecommunications: the first transatlantic two-way radio broadcast takes place.
1925 - Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) is established.
1934 - The Nazis assassinate Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed coup attempt.
1940 - General Guisan orders the Swiss Army to resist German invasion and makes surrender illegal.
1943 - World War II: Benito Mussolini is forced out of office by his own Italian Grand Council and is replaced by Pietro Badoglio.
1944 - World War II: Operation Spring - one of the bloodiest days for Canadians during the war: 18,444 casualties, including 5,021 killed.
1946 - At Club 500 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis stage their first show as a comedy team.
1946 - Operation Crossroads: an atomic bomb is detonated underwater in the lagoon of Bikini atoll.
1952 - The U.S. non-incorporated colonial territory of Puerto Rico adopts a "constitution" of local-limited powers, approved by the United States Congress in contravention of then-current International Law.
1956 - 45 miles south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean liner SS Andrea Doria collides with the MS Stockholm in heavy fog and sinks the next day, killing 51.
1958 - The African Regroupment Party (PRA) holds its first congress in Cotonou.
1959 - SR-N1 hovercraft crosses the English Channel from Calais to Dover in just over 2 hours.
1961 - In a speech John F. Kennedy emphasizes that any attack on Berlin is an attack on NATO.
1969 - Vietnam War: US President Richard Nixon declares the Nixon Doctrine, stating that the United States now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense. This was the start of the "Vietnamization" of the war.
1973 - Soviet Mars 5 space probe launched.
1978 - The Cerro Maravilla Incident occurs.
1978 - Louise Brown, the world's first "test tube baby" is born.
1983 - Black July: 37 Tamil political prisoners at the Welikada high security prison in Colombo are massacred by the fellow Sinhalese prisoners.
1984 - Salyut 7 Cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk.
1993 - Israel launches a massive attack against Lebanon in what the Israelis call Operation Accountability, and the Lebanese call Seven-Day War.
1993 - The St James Church massacre occurs in Kenilworth, Cape Town, South Africa.
1994 - Israel and Jordan sign the Washington Declaration, which formally ends the state of war that has existed between the nations since 1948.
1995 - A gas bottle explodes in Saint Michel station of line B of the RER (Paris regional train network). Eight are killed and 80 wounded.
1997 - K.R. Narayanan is sworn-in as India's 10th president and the first Dalitâ€" formerly called "untouchable"â€" to hold this office.
2000 - Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde supersonic passenger jet, F-BTSC, crashes just after takeoff from Paris killing all 109 aboard and 4 on the ground.
2007 - Pratibha Patil is sworn in as India's first woman president
285 - Diocletian appoints Maximian as Caesar, co-ruler.
306 - Constantine I is proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops.
864 - The Edict of Pistres of Charles the Bald orders defensive measures against the Vikings.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Historical Events on 24 Jul

Historical Events on 24 Jul

1132 - Battle of Nocera between Ranulf II of Alife and Roger II of Sicily.
1148 - Louis VII of France lays siege to Damascus during the Second Crusade.
1411 - Battle of Harlaw, one of the bloodiest battles in Scotland, takes place.
1487 - Citizens of Leeuwarden, Netherlands strike against ban on foreign beer.
1534 - French explorer Jacques Cartier plants a cross on the Gaspé Peninsula and takes possession of the territory in the name of the Francis I of France.
1567 - Mary Queen of Scots is deposed and replaced by her 1 year old son James VI.
1701 - Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founds the trading post at Fort Pontchartrain, which later becomes the city of Detroit, Michigan.
1715 - A Spanish treasure fleet of 10 ships under Admiral Ubilla leaves Havana, Cuba for Spain. Seven days later, 9 of them sink in a storm off the coast of Florida. A few centuries later, treasure is salvaged from these wrecks.
1814 - War of 1812: General Phineas Riall advances toward the Niagara River to halt Jacob Brown's American invaders.
1823 - Slavery is abolished in Chile.
1832 - Benjamin Bonneville leads the first wagon train across the Rocky Mountains by using Wyoming's South Pass.
1847 - After 17 months of travel, Brigham Young leads 148 Mormon pioneers into Salt Lake Valley, resulting in the establishment of Salt Lake City. Celebrations of this event include the Pioneer Day Utah state holiday and the Days of '47 Parade.
1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Kernstown - Confederate General Jubal Anderson Early defeats Union troops led by General George Crook in an effort to keep them out of the Shenandoah Valley.
1866 - Reconstruction: Tennessee becomes the first U.S. State to be readmitted to the Union following the American Civil War.
1901 - O. Henry is released from prison in Austin, Texas after serving three years for embezzlement from a bank.
1911 - Hiram Bingham III re-discovers Machu Picchu, "the Lost City of the Incas".
1915 - The passenger ship S.S. Eastland capsizes in central Chicago, with the loss of 845 lives.
1923 - The Treaty of Lausanne, settling the boundaries of modern Turkey, is signed in Switzerland by Greece, Bulgaria and other countries that fought in World War I.
1924 - The World Chess Federation FIDE is founded in Paris.
1927 - The Menin Gate war memorial is unveiled at Ypres.
1929 - The Kellogg-Briand Pact, renouncing war as an instrument of foreign policy, goes into effect (it is first signed in Paris on August 27, 1928 by most leading world powers).
1931 - A fire at a home for the elderly in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania kills 48 people.
1935 - The dust bowl heat wave reaches its peak, sending temperatures to 109°F (44°C) in Chicago and 104°F (40°C) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
1935 - The world's first children's railway opens in Tbilisi, USSR.
1937 - Alabama drops rape charges against the so-called "Scottsboro Boys".
1943 - World War II: Operation Gomorrah begins: British and Canadian airplanes bomb Hamburg by night, those of the Americans by day. By the end of the operation in November, 9,000 tons of explosives will have killed more than 30,000 people and destroyed 280,000
1948 - Looney Tunes character Marvin the Martian makes his first appearance in the cartoon Haredevil Hare.
1950 - Cape Canaveral Air Force Station begins operations with the launch of a Bumper rocket.
1956 - Khartoum University College is awarded university status becoming the University of Khartoum.
1956 - At New York City's Copacabana Club, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis perform their last comedy show together. They began performing together on July 25, 1946.
1959 - At the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev have a "Kitchen Debate".
1965 - Vietnam War: four F-4C Phantoms escorting a bombing raid at Kang Chi are the targets of antiaircraft missiles in the first such attack against American aircraft in the war. One is shot down and the other three sustain damage.
1966 - Michael Pelkey makes the first BASE jump from El Capitan along with Brian Schubert. Both came out with broken bones. BASE jumping has now been banned from El Cap.
1967 - During an official state visit to Canada, French President Charles de Gaulle declares to a crowd of over 100,000 in Montreal: Vive le Québec libre! ("Long live free Quebec!"). The statement, interpreted as support for Quebec independence, delighted many
1969 - Apollo program: Apollo 11 splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean.
1972 - Bugojno group is caught by Yugoslav security forces.
1974 - Watergate scandal: the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Richard Nixon did not have the authority to withhold subpoenaed White House tapes and they order him to surrender the tapes to the Watergate special prosecutor.
1974 - After the Turkish invasion of Cyprus the Greek military junta collapses and democracy is restored.
1977 - End of a four day long Libyan-Egyptian War.
1982 - Heavy rain causes a mudslide that destroys a bridge at Nagasaki, Japan, killing 299.
1983 - George Brett batting for the Kansas City Royals against the New York Yankees, has a game-winning home run nullified in the "Pine Tar Incident".
1990 - Iraqi forces start massing on the Kuwait-Iraq border.
1998 - Russell Eugene Weston Jr. bursts into the United States Capitol and opens fire killing two police officers. He is later ruled to be incompetent to stand trial.
2001 - Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the last Tsar of Bulgaria when he was a child, is sworn in as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, becoming the first monarch in history to regain political power through democratic election to a different office.
2002 - James Traficant is expelled from the United States House of Representatives on a vote of 420 to 1.
2005 - Lance Armstrong wins his seventh consecutive Tour de France.
2007 - Libya frees all six of the Medics in the HIV trial in Libya.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Historical Events on 23 Jul

Historical Events on 23 Jul

1632 - Three hundred colonists bound for New France depart from Dieppe, France.
1793 - The Prussians conquer Mayence.
1829 - In the United States, William Austin Burt patents the Typographer, a precursor to the typewriter.
1833 - Cornerstones are laid for the construction of the Kirtland Temple in Kirtland, Ohio.
1840 - The Province of Canada is created by the Act of Union.
1862 - American Civil War: Henry W. Halleck takes command of the Union Army.
1874 - Aires de Ornelas e Vasconcelos is appointed the Archbishop of the Portuguese colonial enclave of Goa.
1881 - The Federation Internationale de Gymnastique, the world's oldest international sport federation, is founded.
1903 - The Ford Motor Company sells its first car.
1914 - Austria-Hungary issues an ultimatum to Serbia demanding Serbia to allow the Austrians to determine who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Serbia rejects those demands and Austria declares war on July 28.
1926 - Fox Film buys the patents of the Movietone sound system for recording sound onto film.
1929 - The Fascist government in Italy bans the use of foreign words.
1936 - In Catalonia, Spain, the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia is founded through the merger of socialist and communist parties.
1940 - United States' Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles's declaration on the U.S. non-recognition policy of the Soviet annexation and incorporation of three Baltic States - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
1942 - The Holocaust: The Treblinka extermination camp is opened.
1942 - World War II: Operation Edelweiss begins.
1945 - The post war legal processes against Philippe Pétain begin.
1952 - Establishment of the European Coal and Steel community.
1952 - General Muhammad Naguib leads the Free Officers Movement (formed by Gamal Abdel Nasser - the real power behind the coup) in the overthrow of King Farouk of Egypt.
1956 - The Loi Cadre is passed by the French Republic in order to order French overseas territory affairs.
1961 - The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) is founded in Nicaragua.
1962 - Telstar relays the first live trans-Atlantic television signal.
1962 - The International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos is signed.
1967 - 12th Street Riot: In Detroit, Michigan, one of the worst riots in United States history begins on 12th Street in the predominantly African American inner city (43 killed, 342 injured and 1,400 buildings burned).
1968 - Glenville Shootout: In Cleveland, Ohio, a violent shootout between a Black Militant organization led by Ahmed Evans and the Cleveland Police Department occurs. During the shootout, a riot begins that lasted for five days.
1968 - The first and only successful hijacking of an El Al aircraft takes place when a 707 carrying 10 crew and 38 passengers is taken over by three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The aircraft was en route from Rome, Italy,
1970 - Qaboos ibn Sa’id becomes Sultan of Oman after overthrowing his father, Sa’id ibn Taimur.
1972 - The United States launches Landsat 1, the first Earth-resources satellite.
1982 - The International Whaling Commission decides to end commercial whaling by 1985-86.
1983 - The Sri Lankan Civil War begins with the killing of 13 Sri Lanka Army soldiers by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. In the subsequent government-organised pogrom of Black July, about 1,000 Tamils are slaughtered, some 400,000 Tamils flee to neighbouri
1983 - Gimli Glider: Air Canada Flight 143 runs out of fuel and makes a deadstick landing at Gimli, Manitoba.
1984 - Vanessa Williams becomes the first Miss America to resign when she surrenders her crown after nude photos of her appeared in Penthouse magazine.
1986 - In London, Prince Andrew, Duke of York marries Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey.
1988 - General Ne Win, effective ruler of Burma since 1962, resigns after pro-democracy protests.
1992 - A Vatican commission, led by Joseph Ratzinger, establishes that it is necessary to limit rights of homosexual people and non-married couples.
1995 - Comet Hale-Bopp is discovered and becomes visible to the naked eye nearly a year later.
1997 - Digital Equipment Company files antitrust charges against chipmaker Intel.
1999 - Crown Prince Mohammed Ben Al-Hassan is crowned King Mohammed VI of Morocco on the death of his father.
1999 - ANA Flight 61 is hijacked in Tokyo, Japan.
2005 - Three bombs explode in the Naama Bay area of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, killing 88 people.
2008 - Cape Verde joins the World Trade Organization, becoming its 153rd member.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Historical Events on 22 Jul

Historical Events on 22 Jul

1099 - First Crusade: Godfrey of Bouillon is elected the first Defender of the Holy Sepulchre of The Kingdom of Jerusalem.
1298 - Wars of Scottish Independence: Battle of Falkirk - King Edward I of England and his longbowmen defeat William Wallace and his Scottish schiltrons outside the town.
1456 - Ottoman Wars in Europe: Siege of Belgrade - John Hunyadi, Regent of Kingdom of Hungary defeats Mehmet II of Ottoman Empire
1484 - Battle of Lochmaben Fair - a 500-man raiding party led by Alexander Stewart, Duke of Albany and James Douglas, 9th Earl of Douglas are defeated by Scots forces loyal to Albany's brother James III of Scotland; Douglas is captured.
1499 - Battle of Dornach - the Swiss decisively defeat the Imperial army of Emperor Maximilian I.
1587 - Colony of Roanoke: a second group of English settlers arrive on Roanoke Island off North Carolina to re-establish the deserted colony.
1686 - Albany, New York is formally chartered as a municipality by Governor Thomas Dongan.
1793 - Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Pacific Ocean becoming the first Euro-American to complete a transcontinental crossing of Canada.
1796 - Surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company name an area in Ohio "Cleveland" after Gen. Moses Cleaveland, the superintendent of the surveying party.
1805 - Napoleonic Wars: War of the Third Coalition - Battle of Cape Finisterre - an inconclusive naval action is fought between a combined French and Spanish fleets under Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve of Spain and a British fleet under Admiral Robert Calder.
1812 - Napoleonic Wars: Peninsular War - Battle of Salamanca - British forces led by Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) defeat French troops near Salamanca, Spain.
1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Atlanta - outside Atlanta, Georgia, Confederate General John Bell Hood leads an unsuccessful attack on Union troops under General William T. Sherman on Bald Hill.
1916 - In San Francisco, California, a bomb explodes on Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade killing 10 and injuring 40.
1933 - Wiley Post becomes the first person to fly solo around the world traveling 15,596 miles in 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes.
1934 - Outside Chicago's Biograph Theatre, "Public Enemy No. 1" John Dillinger is mortally wounded by FBI agents.
1937 - New Deal: the United States Senate votes down President Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court of the United States.
1942 - The United States government begins compulsory civilian gasoline rationing due to the wartime demands.
1942 - Holocaust: the systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto begins.
1943 - Allied forces capture the Italian city of Palermo.
1944 - The Polish Committee of National Liberation publishes its manifesto, starting the period of Communist rule in Poland
1946 - King David Hotel bombing: Irgun bombs King David Hotel in Jerusalem, headquarters of the British civil and military administration, killing 90.
1962 - Mariner program: Mariner 1 spacecraft flies erratically several minutes after launch and has to be destroyed.
1968 - Sir John Newsome recommends public schools should take 50% of their intake from the state school system
1977 - Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping is restored to power.
1983 - Martial law in Poland is officially revoked.
1992 - Near Medellín, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar escapes from his luxury prison fearing extradition to the United States.
1997 - The second Blue Water Bridge opens between Port Huron, Michigan and Sarnia, Ontario.
2002 - Israel assassinates Salah Shahade, the Commander-in-Chief of Hamas's military arm, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, along with 14 civilians.
2003 - Members of 101st Airborne of the United States, aided by Special Forces, attack a compound in Iraq, killing Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay, along with Mustapha Hussein, Qusay's 14-year old son, and a bodyguard.
2005 - Jean Charles de Menezes is killed by police as the hunt begins for the London Bombers. See 7 July 2005 London bombings and 21 July 2005 London bombings

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Historical Events on 21 Jul

Historical Events on 21 Jul

1403 - Battle of Shrewsbury: King Henry IV of England defeats rebels to the north of the county town of Shropshire, England.
1545 - The first landing of French troops onto the coast of the Isle of Wight during the French invasion of the Isle of Wight occurs.
1568 - Eighty Years' War: Battle of Jemmingen - Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva defeats Louis of Nassau.
1718 - The Treaty of Passarowitz between the Ottoman Empire, Austria and the Republic of Venice is signed.
1774 - Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774: Russia and the Ottoman Empire sign the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji ending the war.
1831 - Inauguration of Léopold I of Belgium, first king of the Belgians.
1861 - American Civil War: First Battle of Bull Run - at Manassas Junction, Virginia, the first major battle of the war begins. The Confederate won.
1865 - In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots and kills Davis Tutt in what is regarded as the first true western showdown.
1873 - At Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James-Younger gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the American West.
1877 - After rioting by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers and the deaths of nine rail workers at the hands of the Maryland militia, workers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania stage a sympathy strike that is met with an assault by the state militia.
1918 - U-156 shells Nauset Beach, in Orleans, Massachusetts.
1919 - The dirigible Wingfoot Air Express crashes into the Illinois Trust and Savings Building in Chicago, killing 12 people.
1925 - Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John T. Scopes is found guilty of teaching evolution in class and fined $100.
1944 - World War II: Battle of Guam - American troops land on Guam starting the battle. It would end on August 10.
1949 - The United States Senate ratifies the North Atlantic Treaty.
1954 - First Indochina War: The Geneva Conference partitions Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam.
1960 - Sirimavo Bandaranaike is elected prime minister of Sri Lanka and becomes the first woman prime minister in the world.
1961 - Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 4 Mission - Gus Grissom piloting Liberty Bell 7 becomes the second American to go into space (in a suborbital mission).
1964 - Singapore Race Riot - every year since then, Racial Harmony Day is celebrated on this day.
1969 - Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin become the first men to walk on the Moon, during the Apollo 11 mission.
1970 - After 11 years of construction, the Aswan High Dam in Egypt is completed.
1972 - Bloody Friday bombing by the Provisional Irish Republican Army around Belfast, Northern Ireland - 22 bomb explosions, 9 people killed and 130 people seriously injured.
1973 - In the Lillehammer affair in Norway, Israeli Mossad agents kill a waiter whom they mistakenly thought was involved in 1972's Munich Olympics Massacre.
1976 - Christopher Ewart-Biggs British ambassador to the Republic of Ireland is assassinated by the Provisional IRA.
1977 - The start of a four day long Libyan-Egyptian War takes place.
1983 - The world's lowest temperature is recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica at âˆ'89.2°C (âˆ'129°F).
1994 - Tony Blair is declared the winner of the leadership election of the British Labour Party, paving the way for him to become Prime Minister in 1997.
1995 - Third Taiwan Strait Crisis: The People's Liberation Army begins firing missiles into the waters north of Taiwan.
1997 - The fully restored USS Constitution (aka "Old Ironsides") celebrates her 200th birthday by setting sail for the first time in 116 years.
2002 - Telecom giant WorldCom files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the largest such filing in United States history.
2004 - The United Kingdom government publishes Delivering Security in a Changing World, a paper detailing wide-ranging reform of the country's armed forces.
2005 - Four terrorist bombings, occurring exactly two weeks after the similar July 7 bombings, target London's public transportation system. All four bombs fail to detonate and all four suspected suicide bombers are captured and later convicted and imprisoned fo
2008 - Bosnian-Serb war criminal Radovan Karadžić is arrested in Serbia and is indicted by the UN's ICTY tribunal.
285 - Diocletian appoints Maximian as Caesar, co-ruler.
356 BC - Herostratus sets fire to the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Historical Events on 20 Jul

Historical Events on 20 Jul

1304 - Wars of Scottish Independence: Fall of Stirling Castle - King Edward I of England takes the last rebel stronghold of the war.
1402 - Ottoman-Timurid Wars: Battle of Ankara - Timur, ruler of Timurid Empire, defeated forces of the Ottoman Empire sultan Bayezid I.
1656 - Swedish forces under the command of King Charles X Gustav defeats the forces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the Battle of Warsaw.
1712 - The Riot Act takes effect in Great Britain.
1738 - North America: French explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de la Vérendrye reaches the western shore of Lake Michigan.
1810 - Citizens of Bogotá, New Granada declare independence from Spain.
1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Peachtree Creek - Near Atlanta, Georgia, Confederate forces led by General John Bell Hood unsuccessfully attack Union troops under General William T. Sherman.
1866 - Austro-Prussian War: Battle of Lissa - The Austrian Navy , led by Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, defeats the Italian Navy near the island of Vis in the Adriatic Sea.
1871 - British Columbia joins the confederation of Canada.
1877 - Rioting in Baltimore, Maryland by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers is put down by the state militia, resulting in nine deaths.
1881 - Indian Wars:Sioux Chief Sitting Bull leads the last of his fugitive people in surrender to US troops at Fort Buford, North Dakota
1885 - The Football Association legalises professionalism in football under pressure from the British Football Association.
1894 - The troops sent by Grover Cleveland to Chicago to end the Pullman Strike are recalled.
1898 - Spanish-American War: A boiler exploded on the USS Iowa (BB-4) off the coast of Santiago de Cuba.
1903 - Ford Motor Company shipped its first car.
1907 - A train wreck on the Pere Marquette Railroad near Salem, Michigan kills thirty and injures seventy more.
1916 - World War I: In Armenia, Russian troops capture Gumiskhanek.
1917 - World War I: The Corfu Declaration, which leads to the creation of the post-war Kingdom of Yugoslavia, is signed by the Yugoslav Committee and Kingdom of Serbia.
1918 - World War I: German troops cross the Marne.
1921 - Congresswoman Alice Mary Robertson became the first woman to preside over the US House of Representatives.
1921 - Air mail service begins between New York City and San Francisco.
1922 - The League of Nations awards mandates of Togoland to France and Tanganyika to the United Kingdom.
1924 - Teheran, Persia comes under martial law after the American vice consul, Robert Imbrie, is killed by a religious mob enraged by rumors he had poisoned a fountain and killed several people.
1926 - A convention of the Methodist Church votes to allow women to become priests.
1928 - The government of Hungary issues a decree ordering Gypsies to end their nomadic ways, settle permanently in one place, and subject themselves to the same laws and taxes as other Hungarians.
1929 - Soviet troops attempt to cross the Amur River into Manchuria near Blagoveschensk as tensions mount between the Soviet Union and the Republic of China.
1932 - In Washington, D.C., police fire tear gas on World War I veterans part of the Bonus Expeditionary Force who attempt to march to the White House.
1932 - Crowds in the capitals of Bolivia and Paraguay demand their governments declare war on the other after fighting on their border.
1933 - Vice-Chancellor of Germany Franz von Papen and Vatican Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli sign a concordat on behalf of their respective nations.
1933 - In London, 500,000 march against anti-Semitism.
1933 - Germany: Two-hundred Jewish merchants are arrested in Nuremberg and paraded through the streets.
1934 - Labor unrest in the US, as police in Minneapolis fire upon striking truck drivers, wounding fifty; Seattle police led by the mayor police fire tear gas on and club 2,000 striking longshoremen, and the governor of Oregon calls out the National Guard to bre
1935 - Switzerland: A Royal Dutch Airlines plane en route from Milan to Frankfurt crashes into a Swiss mountain, killing thirteen.
1936 - The Montreux Convention is signed in Switzerland, authorizing Turkey to fortify the Dardanelles and Bosphorus but guaranteeing free passage to ships of all nations in peacetime.
1938 - The Justice Department files suit in New York City against the motion picture industry charging violations of anti-trust law. The case would eventually result in a break-up of the industry in 1948.
1940 - Denmark leaves the League of Nations.
1940 - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Hatch Act of 1939, limiting political activity by Federal government employees.
1941 - Soviet leader Joseph Stalin consolidates the Commissariats of Home Affairs and National Security to form the NKVD and names Lavrenti Beria its chief.
1942 - World War II: The first unit of the Women's Army Corps begins training in Des Moines, Iowa.
1943 - World War II: American and Canadian troops conquer Enna on Sicily.
1944 - World War II: Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt (known as the July 20 Plot) led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.
1944 - World War II: American troops land on Guam near Port Apra.
1944 - President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wins the Democratic nomination for the fourth and final time at the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.
1944 - Fifty are hurt in rioting in front of the presidential palace in Mexico City.
1945 - The US Congress approves the Bretton Woods Agreement.
1946 - World War II: The US Congress's Pearl Harbor Committee says Franklin D. Roosevelt was completely blameless for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and calls for a unified command structure in the armed forces.
1947 - Police in Burma arrest former Prime Minister U Saw and 19 others on charges of assassinating Prime Minister U Aung San and seven members of his cabinet.
1947 - The Viceroy of India says the people of the Northwest Frontier Province overwhelmingly voted the previous day to join Pakistan rather than India.
1948 - US President Harry S. Truman issues a peacetime military draft in the US amid increasing tensions with the Soviet Union.
1948 - In New York City, twelve leaders of the Communist Party USA are indicted under the Smith Act including William Z. Foster and Gus Hall.
1949 - Israel and Syria sign a truce to end their nineteen-month war.
1950 - Cold War: In Philadelphia, Harry Gold pleads guilty to spying for the Soviet Union by passing secrets from atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs.
1951 - King Abdullah I of Jordan is assassinated by a Palestinian while attending Friday prayers in Jerusalem.
1953 - The United Nations Economic and Social Council votes to make UNICEF a permanent agency.
1954 - Germany: Otto John, head of West Germany's secret service, defects to East Germany.
1954 - At Geneva, Switzerland, an armistice is signed that ends fighting in Vietnam and divides the country along the 17th parallel.
1959 - The Organization for European Economic Cooperation admits Spain.
1960 - The head of the Physics Department at the Israel Institute of Technology, Kurt Sitte, is arrested for espionage.
1960 - Belgium defends its intervention in the Congo to the United Nations Security Council while the government of the Congo appeals to the Soviet Union to send troops to push back the Belgians. The governments of the US and France and the North Atlantic Treaty
1960 - The Polaris missile is successfully launched from a submarine, the USS George Washington, for the first time.
1960 - Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) elects Sirimavo Bandaranaike Prime Minister, the world's first elected female head of government.
1961 - French military forces break the Tunisian siege of Bizerte.
1964 - Vietnam War: Viet Cong forces attack the capital of Dinh Tuong Province, Cai Be, killing 11 South Vietnamese military personnel and 40 civilians (30 of which are children).
1965 - Turkish prime minister Suat Hayri Urguplu returns from a visit to Moscow and announces the Soviet Union will provide aid to his country.
1969 - Cease fire announced between Honduras and El Salvador, 6 days after the beginning of the "Football War"
1969 - Apollo Program: Apollo 11 successfully lands the first man on the Moon.
1971 - The Soviet Union says it will support the People's Republic of China's admission to the United Nations
1973 - The US Senate passes the War Powers Act.
1973 - Vietnam War: In testimony by Assistant Secretary of Defense Jerry Friedheim to the US Senate Committee on Armed Services, the US Defense Department admits it lied to US Congress about bombing Cambodia .
1973 - Palestianian terrorists hijack a Japan Airlines jet en route from Amsterdam to Japan and force it down in Dubai.
1973 - First coast-to-coast black-owned and operated radio network: The National Black Network (NBN) begins operations.
1974 - Turkish occupation of Cyprus: Forces from Turkey invade Cyprus after a "coup d' etat", organised by the dictator of Greece, against president Makarios. NATO's Council praises the US and the United Kingdom for attempts to settle the dispute. Syria and Egyp
1975 - India expels three reporters from The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and Newsweek because they refused to sign a pledge to abide by government censorship.
1976 - The Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.
1976 - Vietnam War: The US military completes its troop withdrawal from Thailand.
1976 - Hank Aaron hits his 755th home run, breaking Babe Ruth's 41-year-old record.
1977 - The Central Intelligence Agency releases documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing it had engaged in mind control experiments.
1977 - Johnstown is hit by a flash flood that kills eighty and causes $350 million in damage.
1980 - The United Nations Security Council votes 14-0 that member states should not recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
1982 - Hyde Park and Regents Park bombings: The Provisional IRA detonates two bombs in Hyde Park and Regents Park in central London, killing eight soldiers, wounding forty-seven people, and leading to the deaths of seven horses.
1983 - The Israeli cabinet votes to withdraw troops from Beirut but to remain in southern Lebanon.
1984 - Officials of the Miss America pageant ask Vanessa Lynn Williams to quit after Penthouse published nude photos of her.
1985 - The government of Aruba passes legislation to secede from the Netherlands Antilles.
1986 - In South Africa, police fire tear gas into a church service for families of those held under the government's emergency decrees.
1987 - UN Security Council Resolution 598, condemning the Iran-Iraq War and demanding cease-fire, is unanimously adopted.
1989 - Photographer Robert Mapplethorpe's show opens at Washington, D.C.'s Project for the Arts after the Smithsonian Institution's Corcoran Gallery cancels it.
1989 - Burma's ruling junta puts opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.
1992 - Václav Havel resigns as president of Czechoslovakia.
1994 - Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9's Fragment Q1 hits Jupiter.
1994 - Israel's Shimon Peres visits Jordan, the highest ranking Israeli official to do so
1995 - The Regents of the University of California vote to end all affirmative action in the UC system by 1997.
1996 - In Spain, an ETA bomb at an airport kills 35
1998 - Two hundred aid workers from CARE International, Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups leave Afghanistan on orders of the Taliban.
1999 - Falun Gong is banned in the People's Republic of China, and a large scale crackdown of the practice is launched.
2000 - Terrorist Carlos the Jackal sues France in the European Court of Human Rights for allegedly torturing him.
2000 - In Zimbabwe, Parliament opens its new session and seats opposition members for the first time in a decade.
2000 - The leaders of Salt Lake City's bid to win the 2002 Winter Olympics are indicted by a federal grand jury for bribery, fraud, and racketeering.
2001 - The London Stock Exchange goes public.
2001 - Italy: The 27th Annual G8 summit opens in Genoa. An Italian protester in Genoa, Carlo Giuliani, is shot by police.
2002 - South America: A fire in a discotheque in Lima, Peru kills over twenty-five.
2003 - France: Sixteen people are injured after two bombs explode outside a tax office in Nice.
2005 - Canada becomes the fourth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage, after the bill C-38 receives its Royal Assent.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Historical Events on 19 Jul

Historical Events on 19 Jul

1333 - Wars of Scottish Independence: Battle of Halidon Hill - The final battle of the war.
1544 - Italian War of 1542: The Siege of Boulogne began.
1545 - The Tudor warship Mary Rose sinks off Portsmouth.
1553 - Lady Jane Grey is replaced by Mary I of England as Queen of England after having that title for just nine days.
1588 - Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Gravelines - The Spanish Armada sighted in the English Channel.
1692 - Salem Witch Trials: Five women are hanged for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts.
1760 - The formal request to found the later city of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico is filed by its founders.
1799 - A group of Napoleon Bonaparte's soldiers discover what is now known as The Rosetta Stone, enabling the translation of hieroglyphics for the first time.
1843 - Brunel's steamship the SS Great Britain is launched, becoming the first ocean-going craft with an iron hull or screw propeller and also becoming the largest vessel afloat in the world.
1848 - Women's rights: The two day Women's Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York and the "Bloomers" are introduced at the feminist convention.
1863 - American Civil War: Morgan's Raid - At Buffington Island in Ohio, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan's raid into the north is mostly thwarted when a large group of his men are captured while trying to escape across the Ohio River.
1870 - Franco-Prussian War: France declares war on Prussia.
1879 - Doc Holliday kills for the first time after a man shoots up his New Mexico saloon.
1908 - Dutch football club Feyenoord Rotterdam is founded.
1912 - A meteorite with an estimated mass of 190 kg explodes over the town of Holbrook in Navajo County, Arizona causing approximately 16,000 pieces of debris to rain down on the town.
1919 - Following Peace Day celebrations marking the end of World War I, ex-servicemen rioted and burnt down Luton Town Hall.
1940 - World War II: Army order 112 forms the Intelligence Corps of the British Army.
1940 - World War II: Twelve men were promoted Generalfeldmarschall by Adolf Hitler, see List of German Field Marshals.
1940 - World War II: Battle of Cape Spada - The Royal Navy and the Regia Marina clash; the Italian light cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni sinks, with 121 casualties.
1942 - World War II: Battle of the Atlantic - German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions in response to the effective American convoy system.
1947 - Prime minister of shadow Burma government ,Bogyoke Aung San and 6 of his cabinet and 2 non-cabinet members were assassinated by British , which resulted in the political chaos in the country lasting until now.
1963 - Joe Walker flies a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 106,010 metres (347,800 feet) on X-15 Flight 90. Exceeding an altitude of 100 km, this flight qualifies as a human spaceflight under international convention.
1964 - Vietnam War: At a rally in Saigon, South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Khanh calls for expanding the war into North Vietnam.
1976 - Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal is created.
1979 - The Sandinista rebels overthrow the U.S.-backed government of the Somoza family in Nicaragua.
1983 - The first three-dimensional reconstruction of a human head in a CT is published.
1985 - The Val di Stava Dam collapse killing 268 people in Val di Stava, Italy.
1989 - United Airlines flight 232 crashes in Sioux City, Iowa killing 112 of the 296 passengers.
711 - Muslim forces under Tariq ibn Ziyad defeat the Visigoths led by their king Roderic.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Historical Events on 18 Jul

Historical Events on 18 Jul

1334 - The bishop of Florence blesses the first foundation stone for the new campanile (bell tower) of the Florence Cathedral, designed by the artist Giotto di Bondone.
1656 - Polish-Lithuanian forces clash with Sweden and its Brandenburg allies in the start of what is to be known as The Battle of Warsaw which ends in a decisive Swedish victory.
1857 - Louis Faidherbe, French governor of Senegal, arrives to relieve French forces at Kayes, effectively ending El Hajj Umar Tall's war against the French.
1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Fort Wagner/Morris Island - the first formal African American military unit, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, unsuccessfully assaults Confederate-held Battery Wagner but their valiant fighting still proves the worth
1870 - The First Vatican Council decrees the dogma of papal infallibility.
1914 - The U.S. Congress forms the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, giving definite status to aircraft within the U.S. Army for the first time.
1925 - Adolf Hitler publishes his personal manifesto Mein Kampf.
1936 - In Morocco, Franco starts a coup d'état against the legitimacy of the Spanish government. This will lead to the Spanish Civil War.
1942 - World War II: the Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me-262 using only its jet engines for the first time.
1944 - World War II: Hideki Tojo resigns as Prime Minister of Japan due to numerous setbacks in the war effort.
1965 - Russian satellite Zond 3 launched.
1966 - Gemini 10 launched.
1968 - The Intel Corporation is founded in Santa Clara, California
1969 - After a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts drives an Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge into a tide-swept pond and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, dies.
1972 - Staines air disaster - 118 are killed as plane crashes 2 minutes after take off from London Heathrow Airport.
1976 - Nadia Comăneci became the first person in Olympic Games history to score a perfect 10 in gymnastics at the 1976 Summer Olympics.
1982 - 268 campesinos ("peasants" or "country people") are slain in the Plan de Sánchez massacre in Ríos Montt's Guatemala.
1984 - Beverly Lynn Burns becomes first woman Boeing 747 airline captain.
1984 - McDonald's massacre in San Ysidro, California: in a fast-food restaurant, James Oliver Huberty opens fire, killing 21 people and injuring 19 others before being shot dead by police.
1986 - A tornado is broadcast live on KARE television in Minnesota when the station's helicopter pilot makes a chance encounter.
1992 - The ten victims of the La Cantuta massacre disappear from their university in Lima.
1994 - The Amia bombings occurred in Buenos Aires killing 85 people and injuring 300.
1995 - On the Caribbean island of Montserrat, the Soufriere Hills volcano erupts. Over the course of several years, it devastates the island, destroying the capital and forcing most of the population to flee.
1996 - Storms provoke severe flooding on the Saguenay River, beginning one of Québec's costliest natural disasters ever.
390 BC - Roman-Gaulish Wars: Battle of the Allia - a Roman army is defeated by raiding Gauls, leading to the subsequent sacking of Rome.
64 - Great fire of Rome: a fire begins to burn in the merchant area of Rome and soon burns completely out of control. The Emperor Nero reportedly plays his lyre and sings while watching the blaze from a safe distance.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Historical Events on 17 Jul

Historical Events on 17 Jul

1203 - The Fourth Crusade captures Constantinople by assault. The Byzantine emperor Alexius III Angelus flees from his capital into exile.
1453 - Hundred Years' War: Battle of Castillon: The French under Jean Bureau defeat the English under the Earl of Shrewsbury, who is killed in the battle in Gascony.
1686 - A meeting takes place at Lüneburg between several Protestant powers in order to discuss the formation of an 'evangelical' league of defence, called the 'Confederatio Militiae Evangelicae', against the Catholic League.
1762 - Catherine II becomes tsar of Russia upon the murder of Peter III of Russia.
1771 - Bloody Falls Massacre: Chipewyan chief Matonabbee, traveling as the guide to Samuel Hearne on his Arctic overland journey, massacres a group of unsuspecting Inuit.
1791 - Members of the French National Guard under the command of General Lafayette open fire on a crowd of radical Jacobins at the Champ de Mars, Paris, during the French Revolution, killing as many as 50 people.
1794 - The sixteen Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne are executed 10 days prior to the end of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror.
180 - Twelve inhabitants of Scillium in North Africa are executed for being Christians. This is the earliest record of Christianity in that part of the world.
1815 - Napoleonic Wars: In France, Napoleon surrenders at Rochefort, Charente-Maritime to British forces.
1856 - The Great Train Wreck of 1856 occurs in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania killing over 60 people.
1899 - NEC Corporation is organized as the first Japanese joint venture with foreign capital.
1917 - King George V of the United Kingdom issues a Proclamation stating that the male line descendants of the British royal family will bear the surname Windsor.
1918 - On the orders of the Bolshevik Party carried out by Cheka, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, his immediate family and retainers are murdered at the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, Russia.
1918 - The RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued the 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic, is sunk off Ireland by the German submatine U-55; only 5 lives are lost.
1933 - After successfully crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the Lithuanian research aircraft Lituanica crashes in Europe under mysterious circumstances.
1936 - Spanish Civil War: An Armed Forces rebellion against the recently-elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain starts the civil war.
1938 - Douglas Corrigan takes off to fly the "wrong way" to Ireland and becomes known as "Wrong Way" Corrigan.
1944 - World War II: Napalm incendiary bombs were dropped for the first time by American P-38 pilots on a fuel depot at Coutances, near St. Lô, France.
1944 - Port Chicago disaster: Near the San Francisco Bay, two ships laden with ammunition for the war explode in Port Chicago, California, killing 320.
1945 - World War II: Potsdam Conference - at Potsdam, U.S. President Harry Truman, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the three main Allied leaders, begin their final summit of the war. The meeting would end on August 2.
1951 - Western New England College in Springfield, Massachusetts is chartered.
1955 - Disneyland televises its grand opening in Anaheim, California.
1962 - Nuclear testing: The "Small Boy" test shot Little Feller I becomes the last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada Test Site.
1968 - A revolution occurs in Iraq when Abdul Rahman Arif is overthrown and the Ba'ath Party is installed as the governing power in Iraq with Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as the new Iraqi President.
1973 - King Mohammed Zahir Shah of Afghanistan is deposed by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan while in Italy undergoing eye surgery.
1975 - Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: An American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft dock with each other in orbit marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the two nations.
1976 - The opening of the Summer Olympics is marred by 25 African teams boycotting the New Zealand team.
1976 - History of East Timor: East Timor is annexed, and becomes the 27th province of Indonesia.
1979 - Nicaraguan president General Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigns and flees to Miami, Florida.
1981 - A walkway at the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, Missouri collapses killing 114 people and injuring more than 200 caused by structural failure.
1989 - First flight of the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.
1996 - TWA Flight 800: Off the coast of Long Island, New York, a Paris-bound TWA Boeing 747 explodes, killing all 230 on board.
1997 - The F.W. Woolworth Company closes after 117 years in business.
1998 - Papua New Guinea earthquake: A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea killing an estimated 3,183, leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless.
1998 - A diplomatic conference adopts the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, establishing a permanent international court to prosecute individuals for genocide, crime against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.
2007 - TAM Airlines (TAM Linhas Aéreas) Flight 3054 crashes upon landing during rain in São Paulo. This is Brazil's deadliest aviation accident to date with an estimated 199 deaths.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Historical Events on 16 Jul

Historical Events on 16 Jul

1054 - Three Roman legates fractured relations between the Western and Eastern Christian churches by placing an invalid Papal Bull of Excommunication on the altar in the Hagia Sophia during Saturday afternoon divine liturgy. This is often dated as the start of t
1661 - The first banknotes in Europe are issued by the Swedish bank Stockholms Banco.
1683 - Manchu/Chinese Qing Dynasty naval forces under commander Shi Lang defeat the Kingdom of Tungning in the Battle of Penghu near the Pescadores Islands.
1769 - Father Junipero Serra founds Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the first mission in California. The mission later evolves into the city of San Diego.
1782 - First performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera The Abduction from the Seraglio.
1790 - The signing of the Residence Bill establishes a site along the Potomac River as the District of Columbia (seat of government).
1809 - The city of La Paz, in what is today Bolivia, declared its independence from Spanish Crown and formed the Junta Tuitiva, the first independent government in Spanish America, lead by Pedro Domingo Murillo.
1862 - American Civil War: David Farragut becomes the first United States Navy rear admiral.
1880 - Dr. Emily Stowe becomes the first woman licenced to practice medicine in Canada.
1931 - Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia signs the first constitution of Ethiopia.
1935 - The world's first parking meter was installed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
1942 - Holocaust: Rafle du Vel'd'Hiv: the Vichy France government orders French police officers to round up 13,000-20,000 Jews and imprison them in the Winter Velodrome.
1945 - Manhattan Project: The Atomic Age begins when the United States successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon at the Trinity site near Alamogordo, New Mexico.
1948 - The city of Nazareth, hometown of Jesus, capitulates to Israeli troops during Operation Dekel led by Ben Dunkelman, after little more than token resistance, during 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
1951 - King Léopold III of Belgium abdicates in favor of his son, Baudouin I of Belgium.
1957 - United States Marine Major John Glenn flies a F8U Crusader supersonic jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds setting a new transcontinental speed record.
1965 - The Mont Blanc Tunnel linking France and Italy opens.
1969 - Apollo program: Apollo 11, the first manned space mission to land on the moon, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
1973 - Watergate Scandal: Former White House aide Alexander P. Butterfield informs the United States Senate that President Richard Nixon had secretly recorded potentially incriminating conversations.
1979 - Iraqi President Hasan al-Bakr resigns and is replaced by Saddam Hussein.
1981 - Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad becomes Malaysia's 4th Prime Minister until he retired on October 31, 2003, making him Asia's longest-serving political leaders (22 years as Prime Minister of Malaysia).
1983 - Sikorsky S-61 disaster: A helicopter crashes off the Isles of Scilly, causing 20 fatalities.
1994 - Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collides with Jupiter. Impacts continue until July 22nd.
1999 - John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette are killed in a plane crash off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. The Piper Saratoga aircraft was piloted by Kennedy.
2004 - Millennium Park, considered the first and most ambitious architectural project in the early 21st century for Chicago, is opened to the public by Mayor Richard M. Daley.
2007 - An earthquake of magnitude 6.8 and aftershock of 6.6 occurs off the Niigata coast, Japan, killing 8 people with at least 800 injured and damaging a nuclear power plant. See 2007 Chūetsu offshore earthquake.
622 - The beginning of the Islamic calendar.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Historical Events on 15 Jul

Historical Events on 15 Jul

1099 - First Crusade: Christian soldiers take the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after the final assault of a difficult siege.
1207 - John of England expels Canterbury monks for supporting Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton.
1240 - A Novgorodian army led by Alexander Nevsky defeats the Swedes in the Battle of the Neva.
1381 - John Ball, a leader in the Peasants' Revolt, is hanged, drawn and quartered in the presence of Richard II of England.
1410 - Battle of Grunwald: allied forces of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeat the army of the Teutonic Order.
1685 - James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth is executed at Tower Hill, England after his defeat at the Battle of Sedgemore on 6 July 1685.
1741 - Alexei Chirikov sights land in Southeast Alaska. He sends men ashore in a longboat, making them the first Europeans to visit Alaska.
1789 - Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette, is named by acclamation colonel-general of the new National Guard of Paris.
1799 - The Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign.
1806 - Pike expedition: near St. Louis, Missouri, United States Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike begins an expedition from Fort Belle Fountaine to explore the west.
1815 - Napoléon Bonaparte surrenders aboard HMS Bellerophon.
1823 - A fire destroys the ancient Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome.
1870 - Reconstruction era of the United States: Georgia becomes the last of the former Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union.
1870 - Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory are transferred to Canada from the Hudson's Bay Company, and the province of Manitoba and the North-West Territories are established from these vast territories.
1870 - The Kingdom of Prussia and the Second French Empire commence the Franco-Prussian War.
1888 - The stratovolcano Mount Bandai erupts killing approximately 500 people.
1916 - In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing and George Conrad Westervelt incorporate Pacific Aero Products (later renamed Boeing).
1918 - World War I: the Second Battle of the Marne begins near the River Marne with a German attack.
1927 - Massacre of July 15, 1927: 89 protesters are killed by the Austrian police in Vienna.
1929 - First weekly radio broadcast of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir radio show, Music and the Spoken Word.
1934 - Continental Airlines commences operations.
1954 - First flight of the Boeing 367-80, prototype for both the Boeing 707 and C-135 series.
1955 - Eighteen Nobel laureates sign the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons, later co-signed by thirty-four others.
1959 - The steel strike of 1959 begins, leading to significant importation of foreign steel for the first time in United States history.
1974 - In Nicosia, Cyprus, Greek-sponsored nationalists launch a coup d'état, deposing President Makarios and installing Nikos Sampson as Cypriot president.
1979 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter gives his famous "malaise" speech, where he characterizes the greatest threat to the country as "this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation."
1996 - A Belgian Air Force C-130 Hercules carrying the Royal Netherlands Army marching band crashes on landing at Eindhoven Airport.
1997 - In Miami, Florida, serial killer Andrew Phillip Cunanan guns down Gianni Versace outside his home.
1999 - The inaugural game at the Seattle Mariners' Safeco Field was held in Seattle, Washington.
2002 - "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh pleads guilty to supplying aid to the enemy and to possession of explosives during the commission of a felony.
2002 - Anti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan hands down the death sentence to British born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and life terms to three others suspected of murdering Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
2003 - AOL Time Warner disbands Netscape Communications Corporation. The Mozilla Foundation is established on the same day.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Historical Events on 14 Jul

Historical Events on 14 Jul

1223 - Louis VIII becomes King of France upon the death of his father, Philip II of France.
1698 - The Darien scheme begins with five ships, bearing about 1,200 people, departing Leith for the Isthmus of Panama.
1769 - The de Portolá Expedition establishes a base in California, and sets out to find the Port of Monterey (now Monterey, California).
1771 - Foundation of the Mission San Antonio de Padua in modern California by the Franciscan friar Junípero Serra.
1789 - French Revolution: Citizens of Paris storm the Bastille and free seven prisoners.
1790 - French Revolution: Citizens of Paris celebrate the constitutional monarchy and national reconciliation in the Fête de la Fédération.
1791 - The Priestley Riots drive Joseph Priestley, a supporter of the French Revolution, out of Birmingham, England.
1798 - The Sedition Act becomes United States law making it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false or malicious statements about the United States government.
1865 - First ascent of the Matterhorn by Edward Whymper and party, four of whom died on the descent.
1902 - The Campanile in St Mark's Square, Venice collapses, also demolishing the loggetta.
1933 - Gleichschaltung: In Germany, all political parties are outlawed except the Nazi Party.
1943 - In Joplin, Missouri, George Washington Carver National Monument becomes the first United States National Monument in honor of a African American.
1948 - Palmiro Togliatti, leader of the Italian Communist Party, is shot near to the Italian Parliament.
1958 - Iraqi Revolution: in Iraq the monarchy is overthrown by popular forces lead by Abdul Karim Kassem, who becomes the nation's new leader.
1965 - The Mariner 4 flyby of Mars takes the first close-up photos of another planet.
1969 - Football War: after Honduras loses a soccer game against El Salvador, rioting breaks out in Honduras against Salvadoran migrant workers.
1969 - The United States $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills are officially withdrawn from circulation.
1992 - 386BSD is released by Lynne Jolitz and William Jolitz beginning the Open Source Operating System Revolution. Linus Torvalds release his Linux soon afterwards.
2002 - French President Jacques Chirac escapes an assassination attempt unscathed during Bastille Day celebrations.
2007 - Russia withdraws from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Historical Events on 13 Jul

Historical Events on 13 Jul

1174 - William I of Scotland, a key rebel in the Revolt of 1173-1174, is captured at Alnwick by forces loyal to Henry II of England.
1558 - Battle of Gravelines: In France, Spanish forces led by Count Lamoral of Egmont defeat the French forces of Marshal Paul des Thermes at Gravelines.
1573 - Eighty Years' War: The Siege of Haarlem ends after seven months.
1643 - English Civil War: Battle of Roundway Down - In England, Henry Wilmot, 1st Earl of Rochester, commanding the Royalist forces, wins a crushing victory over the Parliamentarian Sir William Waller.
1787 - The Continental Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance establishing governing rules for the Northwest Territory. It also establishes procedures for the admission of new states and limits the expansion of slavery.
1794 - Battle of the Vosges between French forces and those of Prussia and Austria
1854 - In the Battle of Guaymas, Mexico, General Jose Maria Yanez stops the French invasion led by Count Gaston de Raousset Boulbon.
1863 - New York Draft Riots: In New York City, opponents of conscription begin three days of rioting which will be later regarded as the worst in United States history.
1878 - Treaty of Berlin: The European powers redraw the map of the Balkans. Serbia, Montenegro and Romania become completely independent of the Ottoman empire.
1919 - The British airship R34 lands in Norfolk, England, completing the first airship return journey across the Atlantic in 182 hours of flight.
1923 - The Hollywood Sign is officially dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, Los Angeles. It originally reads "Hollywoodland " but the four last letters are dropped after renovation in 1949.
1941 - World War II: Montenegrins start popular uprising against the Axis Powers (Trinaestojulski ustanak).
1973 - Alexander Butterfield reveals the existence of the Nixon tapes to the special Senate committee investigating the Watergate break in.
1985 - The Live Aid benefit concert takes place in London and Philadelphia, as well as other venues such as Sydney and Moscow.
1985 - United States Vice President George H.W. Bush became the Acting President for the day when President Ronald Reagan underwent surgery to remove polyps from his colon.