- 982 King Otto II and his Frankish army defeated in pitched battle with Muslim army of al-Qasim at Cape Colonna, Southern Italy
- 1077 Bayeux Tapestry likely first goes on display to decorate the nave during the consecration of Notre-Dame of Bayeux Cathedral, Bayeux, Normandy [1]
- 1223 Louis VIII becomes King of France upon the death of his father, Philip II
- 1420 Battle at Vitkov Zizka's hill (Prague): Taboriets beat Bohemia
- 1581 English Jesuit priest Edmund Campion arrested for sedition in Anglican England (later hung, drawn and quartered)
- 1682 British composer Henry Purcell appointed organist of Chapel Royal, London
- 1698 The Darien scheme begins with five ships, bearing about 1,200 people, departing Leith for the Isthmus of Panama
- 1714 Battle of Aland, Russian fleet overpowers larger Swedish naval force
- 1769 The de Portolá Expedition establishes a base in California, and sets out to find the Port of Monterey (now Monterey, California)
- 1771 Mission San Antonio de Padua founded in California
Bastille Day
1789 Bastille Day - the French Revolution begins with the storming of the Bastille Prison in Paris (now celebrated as France's national day)
Fête de la Fédération
1790 The Fête de la Fédération, attended by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, is held across France on the first anniversary of the French Revolution
The Priestley Riots
1791 The Priestley Riots drive Joseph Priestley, a supporter of the French Revolution, out of Birmingham, England
- 1795 The French National Convention decrees "La Marseillaise" by Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle France's national anthem
- 1798 1st direct US federal tax on states enacted to finance military build-up; dwellings, land, and slaves are subject to tariff
- 1798 US Sedition Act prohibits "false, scandalous & malicious" writing against government
- 1822 Date planned for the slave revolt in Charleston, South Carolina by Denmark Vesey and Peter Poyas (plot already uncovered in June)
- 1823 Switzerland signs boundaries for fugitives
- 1845 1st postmasters' provisional stamps issued, NYC
- 1850 1st public demonstration of ice made by refrigeration by Florida physician John Gorrie
- 1853 Commodore Perry requests trade relations with Japan
- 1853 New Zealand holds its first general election
World's Fair Opens in NYC
1853 US President Franklin Pierce opens the "Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations" (a World's Fair), at the Crystal Palace in New York City (now site of Bryant Park)
- 1861 General McDowell advances toward Fairfax Courthouse, Virginia with 40,000 troops
- 1861 Naval Engagement at Wilmington North Carolina - USS Daylight establishes blockade
- 1863 Battle of Falling Waters, Maryland (Beaver Creek)
- 1863 Jews of Holstein Germany granted equality
- 1864 Gold is discovered in Helena, Montana
- 1865 English mountaineer Edward Whymper leads first expedition to climb the Matterhorn (four die on the descent)
- 1865 The Chickasaw Nation is the last of the Five Tribes to surrender to the Union following the Confederate defeat
- 1868 Alvin J. Fellows of New Haven, Connecticut patents the tape measure
Mary Todd Lincoln Granted Pension
1870 The United States Congress grants Mary Todd Lincoln a life pension in the amount of $3,000 a year
- 1876 British battleship HMS Thunderer boiler explodes during full-power sea trial near Portsmouth, England; 45 sailors killed and 40 injured
- 1877 General strike brings US railroad to a standstill
- 1886 The Temple Street Cable Railway begins cable car service in Los Angeles, California
- 1891 American John T. Smith patents corkboard
- 1902 The Campanile in St Mark's Square, Venice collapses, also demolishing the loggetta (reconstructed 1912)
- 1909 German Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow resigns and is replaced by Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg
- 1911 46" of rain begins to fall in Baguio, Philippines
- 1912 Kenneth McArthur runs Olympic record marathon (2:36:54.8)
Liquid-Fueled Rocket Patented
1914 American engineer Robert Goddard is granted the first patent for liquid-fueled rocket design
- 1914 Rolex receives the first wristwatch Class 'A' certificate from Kew Observatory
- 1916 13.2 inches (33.6 cm) rainfall at Effingham, South Carolina (state record until 1999)
- 1916 St Louis Brown Ernie Koob pitches all 17 innings for 14 hits in a 0-0 tie vs Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park
- 1921 Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti convicted of killing their shoe company's paymaster and sentenced to death, in Dedham Massachusetts
- 1927 1st commercial airplane flight in Hawaii
- 1932 Belgian Chamber rules Dutch language for education of Flanders
- 1933 All non-Nazi parties are banned in Germany
- 1933 Germany begins mandatory sterilization of people with hereditary illnesses
- 1933 Hedley Verity bowls out Essex twice in a day, 8-47 & 9-44 for Yorkshire at Leyton
- 1934 116°F (47°C), Orogrande, New Mexico (state record, broken on June 27, 1994)
- 1934 Philadelphia Phillies score 11 runs in an inning, beating Cincinnati 18-0
- 1936 1 million demonstrate to support French People's Front government
- 1936 116°F (47°C), Collegeville, Indiana (state record)
Mussolini's Manifesto
1938 Benito Mussolini publishes anti-Jewish African manifesto
- 1940 Due to beanball wars, Spalding advertises batting helmet with earflaps
- 1940 Lithuania becomes Lithuanian SSR
- 1941 6,000 Lithuanian Jews are exterminated at Viszalsyan Camp
- 1941 Cease fire of Joan of Arc (ends combat in Lebanon & Syria)
- 1941 Jam rationed in Holland
- 1942 1st transport of Amsterdam Jews to Westerbork
- 1942 Riots against Jews in Amsterdam
- 1944 Attempt to liberate prisoners in Amsterdam fails, John Post arrested
- 1944 US assault on Coutances Cotentin
- 1945 Battleship USS South Dakota is 1st US ship to bombard Japan
Red Sox 11 Cleveland 10
1946 Cleveland's Lou Boudreau hits 4 doubles & HR, but Red Sox win 11-10 on Ted Williams 3 HR with 8 RBIs
Common Sense Book of Baby & Child Care
1946 Dr Benjamin Spock's "Common Sense Book of Baby & Child Care" published
- 1946 Kielce pogrom: Mob of civilians, police and soldiers investigating false kidnapping allegation attack Jewish Holocaust survivors in Kielce, Poland; 42 killed, 40+ injured [1]
Attempt to Assassinate Italian Communist
1948 Palmiro Togliatti, leader of the Italian Communist Party, is shot near to the Italian Parliament in an assassination attempt
Spring Symphony
1949 Benjamin Britten's choral symphony "Spring Symphony" premieres in Concertgebouw, Amsterdam
Czech Tennis Defections
1949 Czech tennis stars Jaroslav Drobný and Vladimir Černík defect while playing in a tournament in Gstaad, Switzerland; Drobny accepts Egyptian citizenship
- 1950 RE Wayne awarded 1st Distinguished Flying Cross in Korea
- 1951 1st color telecast of a sporting event (CBS-horse race)
- 1951 In his last race, 1948 Triple Crown champion Citation wins the Hollywood Gold Cup by 4 lengths, to become American racing's first millionaire horse.
- 1952 SS United States crosses Atlantic in 84:12 (record westward)
Event of Interest
1953 First US national monument dedicated to a black American, to preserve the boyhood home of agricultural scientist and inventor George Washington Carver in Newton County, Missouri [1]
- 1954 117°F (47°C), East St Louis, Illinois (state record)
- 1954 118°F (48°C), Warsaw & Union, Missouri (state record)
- 1955 Two killed and many dazed by lightning strikes at Ascot racecourse in England
- 1956 Boston Red Sox pitcher Mel Parnell no-hits Chicago White Sox, 4-0 at Fenway Park, Boston
- 1957 Soviet steamer "Eshghbad" sinks in Caspian Sea, drowning 270
- 1958 Iraqi Army brigadier Abd al-Karim Qasim forms a military government after overthrowing the Iraqi monarchy in the 14 July Revolution
- 1959 USS Long Beach, first nuclear powered cruiser launched at Quincy, Massachusetts
- 1960 Fire rages through a Guatemala City insane asylum killing 225 and severely injuring 300
- 1961 Finland's Miettunen government forms
- 1962 Borehole for Mont Blanc tunnel finished
- 1962 US performs nuclear Test at Nevada Test Site
Tour de France
1964 51st Tour de France: Jacques Anquetil of France wins 4th consecutive Tour and is first to claim 5 titles
- 1964 MLB Baltimore Oriole Bob Johnson's 6th straight hit as a pinch hitter
- 1965 Australian Ronald Clarke runs world record 10k (27:39.4)
- 1965 Israeli Jordanian border fights
- 1965 US Mariner IV, 1st Mars probe, passes at 6,100 miles (9,800 km)
- 1966 Richard Speck rapes and kills 8 nurses in a Chicago dormitory
Baseball History
1967 Houston Astro Eddie Matthews hits his 500th HR, off SF Giant Juan Marichal
- 1967 Surveyor 4 launched to Moon; explodes just before landing
Baseball History
1968 Brave Hank Aaron hits his 500th HR off SF Giant Mike McCormick
- 1968 Houston Astro Don Wilson strikes out 18, beats Reds 6-1 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati
- 1968 WSWO TV channel 26 in Springfield, OH (ABC) begins broadcasting
Easy Rider
1969 "Easy Rider", directed by Dennis Hopper, starring himself, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson, is released
- 1969 "Futbol War" between El Salvador and Honduras begins
- 1969 A 67-year-old Catholic civilian dies after being attacked by RUC officers in Dungiven; many consider this the first death of 'the Troubles'
- 1969 The United States $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills are officially withdrawn from circulation.
- 1969 WMUL (now WPBY) TV channel 33 in Huntington, WV (PBS) 1st broadcast
- 1972 Jean Westwood is 1st woman chosen to head Democratic National Committee
- 1972 Plate umpire and catcher in a game are brothers; Bill Haller is umpire and Tom Haller is Detroit Tigers catcher; Kansas City Royals win, 1-0
- 1972 USSR performs underground nuclear Test
Music History
1973 Phil Everly storms off stage at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California and declares an end to "The Everly Brothers"; the show was planned as their last, his exit improvised
Sports History
1974 Billy Martin is 1st AL manager ejected by umpire from 2 games in 1 day
- 1974 Bundy victims Janice Ott and Denise Naslund disappear, Lake Sammamish, Washington
- 1975 EPCOT Center (Florida) plans announced
Presidential Convention
1976 Democratic Convention in NYC nominates former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter for president and US Senator Walter Mondale, from Minnesota, for vice president
- 1976 USSR banishes dissident Andrei Amalrik to Netherlands
- 1977 North Korea shoots down US helicopter, killing 3
- 1977 US House establishes permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
- 1978 Allen Ginsburg completes "Plutonian Ode" - blocks trainload of fissile material headed for Rockwell's nuclear bomb trigger factory, Colorado
- 1978 Anatoly Scharansky convicted of anti-Soviet agitation
Sports History
1978 Umpire Doug Harvey ejects Don Sutton after discovering 3 scuffed balls
Pink Floyd - The Wall
1982 Musical film adaptation of "Pink Floyd - The Wall", directed by Alan Parker, starring Bob Geldof, and written by Roger Waters, premieres at the Empire, Leicester Square, in London,
- 1983 Mario Bros. is first released by Nintendo in Japan as an arcade game about an Italian-American plumber
- 1983 US politicians Dan Crane (Rep-R-Il) and Gerry Studds (Rep-D-Mas) admit to sex with pages
Election of Interest
1984 New Zealand snap election, David Lange's Labour Party defeats Robert Muldoon's National Party
- 1984 STS 41-D vehicle moves to Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center (Florida) for remanifest of payloads
- 1984 USSR performs nuclear Test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1985 Columbia returns to Kennedy Space Center via Offutt AFB, Neb
- 1985 Last USFL game-Baltimore Stars defeats Oakland Invaders, 28-24
- 1986 10 killed & 60 injured at ETA-bomb attack in Madrid
- 1986 Motley Crue's Vince Neil begins 30 day sentence for vehicular homicide
- 1986 NASA's plan to implement recommendations of Rogers commission
Press
1986 Paul McCartney releases single "Press", from the album "Press To Play"
- 1986 Richard Miller becomes the 1st FBI agent convicted of espionage
- 1986 Second Lubbers government formed in the Netherlands
- 1986 Shalamar's Howard Hewett acquitted in Miami of drug charges
Music History
1987 American rocker Steve Miller's star is unveiled on Hollywood's Walk of Fame
- 1987 Greyhound Bus buys Trailways Bus for $80 million
Event of Interest
1987 Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North concludes 6 days of Congressional testimony
Sports History
1987 Rookie of the Year Award is renamed to honor Jackie Robinson
- 1987 Taiwan ends 37 years of martial law
- 1988 200,000 demonstrate in Soviet Armenia for incorporation of Nagorno-Karabak
Sports History
1988 Mike Schmidt passes Mickey Mantle with his 537th HR into 7th place
French Revolution
1989 Jessye Norman sings French national anthem, La Marseillaise at the Place de la Concorde, Paris, to celebrate 200th anniversary of the French Revolution
When Harry Met Sally
1989 Romantic comedy film "When Harry Met Sally" starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, directed by Rob Reiner, and written by Nora Ephron, is released
Event of Interest
1992 386BSD is released by Lynne Jolitz and William Jolitz, starting the open source operating system revolution. Linus Torvalds release "Linux" soon afterwards
- 1992 Actress Nell Carter undergoes brain surgery
- 1993 Aeroflot starts non-stop flights between Moscow and NY
- 1994 Gas explosion at old age home in Milan, 27 killed
- 1995 LA Dodger Ramon Martinez no-hits the Florida Marlins 7-0
- 1996 New York Yankees closer John Wetteland sets MLB record 24 consecutive saves
- 1996 NY Yanks sweep complete season series in Baltimore for 1st time
- 1997 Bomb in Algiers kills 21 & wounds 40
- 1998 Violence erupts in Richmond, South Africa, reflecting underlying political tensions between supporters of the ANC and Inkatha Freedom Party
Assassination Attempt
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
The Dark Knight
2008 "The Dark Knight" directed by Christopher Nolan, starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger, premieres in New York
- 2009 Singapore experiences a seasonally adjusted and annualised growth of 20.4% in the second quarter as a result of increased pharmaceuticals production and construction, bringing the country out of the recession
ESPY Awards
2010 18th ESPY Awards: Drew Brees, Lindsey Vonn win
- 2012 Floods on the Japanese island of Kyushu kill 20 and displace 250,000
- 2012 Suicide bomber attacks a wedding reception and kills 22 people and inures 22 in northern Afghanistan
- 2014 After 7 days, Israel has struck Gaza 1320 times, while Gaza has fired 940 rockets at Israel
- 2014 The Church of England votes in favor of allowing women to become bishops
- 2014 The death toll from the West African Ebola outbreak passes 500
- 2014 The Egyptian government propose a cease fire in the Israel–Gaza conflict
- 2015 Arms deal agreed between 6 world powers and Iran limiting Iranian nuclear arms but ending sanctions
Event of Interest
2015 Harper Lee's 2nd novel "Go Set A Watchman", an early 1957 version of "To Kill A Mocking Bird" goes on sale in 70 countries
- 2015 Scientists from the Large Hadron Collider announce the discovery of a new particle called the pentaquark
- 2018 Civilians killed in Afghan war reaches record high with 1,692 killed in first six months of 2018 says UN
- 2018 Haitian Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant resigns after violent protests against fuel price rises
- 2018 Huge iceberg looming over Innaarsuit village, western Greenland prompts evacations in case it calves
Event of Interest
2018 More than 300 people now reported killed in protests against government of President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua
- 2018 Russian covert agent Maria Butina arrested by the FBI in Washington, D.C. and charged with being an unregistered foreign agent
Event of Interest
2018 US President Donald Trump calls the EU a "trade foe" in interview with CBS ahead of meeting with Russian President Putin
Sports History
2019 English Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton wins a record 6th British Formula 1 Grand Prix at Silverstone; moves him 1 win clear of Jim Clark and Alain Prost (5)
- 2019 First Ebola case on Goma, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, city of 1 million, as toll of outbreak reaches 1600 victims
- 2019 ICC Men's Cricket ODI World Cup, Lord's, London, England: after first Super Over in an ODI, England wins first title on boundary countback rule, SO also level; Player of Match: Ben Stokes (ENG) 84 no (98)
- 2019 US President Donald Trump ignites racial controversy by tweeting four Democrat women of color "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came"
- 2020 New study shows Andean condor, world's heaviest bird, can fly for 5 hours without flapping its wings (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
- 2021 Drug overdose deaths in the US rose 30% to record 93,000 in 2020 according to CDC [1]
Music History
2022 Canadian singer-songwriter The Weeknd kicks off "After Hours 'Til Dawn", his 1st stadium tour, at Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- 2023 US architect Rex Heuermann charged with 3 out of 11 possible murders in the Gilgo Beach murders dating back to 2007 on Long Island, New York [1]
