- 649 St Martin I begins his reign as Catholic Pope
- 767 Duke of Nepi names his brother (leek) Pope Constantine II
- 1166 Austrian town of Bad Kleinkirchheim is first mentioned, in an ecclesiastical document
- 1294 Pietro del Murrone elected as Pope Coelestinus V
- 1295 Scotland and France form an alliance, the beginnings of the Auld Alliance, against England
- 1436 German emperor Sigismund signs peace with Hussieten
- 1450 Pope Nicolas V names Walraven van Meurs bishop of Munster
- 1596 English fleet under Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, captures Cadiz
- 1610 John Guy sets sail from Bristol with 39 other colonists for Newfoundland
- 1626 Battle at Lenz: Rebel Austrian Boers defeated
- 1628 English settlers establish town of St Michael (later Bridgetown) on Barbados
- 1643 1st recorded tornado in US (Essex County, Massachusetts)
Principia Published
1687 Isaac Newton's great work Principia is published by the Royal Society in England, outlining his laws of motion and universal gravitation
Siege of Corinth
1715 Ottoman troops storm citadel of Acrocorinth in the Peloponnese, massacring a large part of the population and selling the rest into slavery. Inspires Lord Byron's poem "The Siege of Corinth"
Olive Branch Petition
1775 Second Continental Congress drafts the Olive Branch Petition to King George III
Venezuela Declares Independence
1811 Venezuelan Declaration of Independence: Seven provinces declare themselves independent of Spain
- 1813 War of 1812: Three weeks of British raids on Fort Schlosser, Black Rock and Plattsburgh, New York begin
- 1814 Americans defeat British and Canadians at Chippewa, Ontario
- 1830 France invades Algeria, begins a 40 year conquest
- 1834 Provisional government forms in Oregon Country
- 1841 Thomas Cook opens first travel agency
- 1843 Committee of 9 appointed to establish civil government in Oregon Country
What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?
1852 Fugitive slave Frederick Douglass delivers his 'What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?' speech to the Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, condemns the celebration as hypocritical sham
- 1859 American sealing ship Captain N. C. Brooks discovers the uninhabited Midway Islands in the North Pacific Ocean and claims for the US
- 1861 Battle of Carthage, Missouri - US General Sigel attacks pro-secessionist
- 1863 Battle of Jackson, Mississippi and Battle of Birdsong Ferry, Mississippi
- 1864 Battle at Chattahoochee River, Georgia (Skirmish at Pace's Ferry) fought during the Atlanta Campaign of the American Civil War
- 1864 Battle of Smith's Expedition, Mississippi (Tupelo, Harrisburg)
- 1865 Great Britain creates world's 1st speed limit law
- 1865 US Secret Service begins operating under the Treasury Department
- 1871 Trial against Kiowa chief Satanta (White Bear) and Big Tree, begins
- 1878 The coat of arms of the Baku governorate was established
- 1884 German consul-general Gustav Nachtigal takes possession of Cameroon
- 1884 US Congress accept 2nd Chinese Exclusion Act
- 1887 Columbia University 4's crew becomes first American boat to win at London's Henley Regatta (Visitors Challenge Cup)
- 1891 Hail kills 16 horses in Rapid City, South Dakota
- 1898 Lizzie Arlington becomes first woman to play professional men's baseball when she pitches 9th inning for the Reading Coal Heavers against the Allentown Peanuts; allows 2 hits and walks a batter but preserves 5-0 win
- 1900 Compulsory education law passes Dutch 1st Chamber
- 1902 All-rounder Monty Noble takes 6 for 52 as Australia wins the one and only cricket Test played at Sheffield's Bramall Lane, England
- 1904 NY Giants 18-game winning streak ends as Phillies win 6-5 in 10 innings at Huntington Park
- 1908 Niazi Bey, a chief organizer of the revolutionary movement in Turkey, raises the standard of revolt at Resna, Macedonia
Queen meets Troelstra
1913 Dutch Queen Wilhelmina meets SDAP-leader Pieter Jelles
- 1914 Germany offers Austria war aid to fight against Russia in Serbia
- 1922 1st general election in Netherlands
- 1922 Uprising of social righteousness in Rio de Janeiro
- 1922 Women 1st vote in Dutch elections, Christian parties win
- 1924 Military revolt in Sao Paulo, Brazil
- 1929 WOWO-AM, Indiana returns to air, 1 day after transmitter burns down
Estado Novo Regime
1932 António de Oliveira Salazar becomes the premier and dictator of Portugal (1932-1968), founding the authoritarian Estado Novo (New State) regime
Gehrig's Record Grand Slam
1934 Lou Gehrig hits record 17th career grand slam in Yankees 8-3 win v Washington, passes Babe Ruth's total
- 1935 1st "Hawaii Calls" radio program is broadcast
DiMaggio Hits 1st Grand Slam
1937 NY Yankees outfielder Joe DiMaggio hits 20th HR of the season but 1st career grand slam in 8-4 win vs Boston Red Sox
- 1937 Republican offensive by Brunete in Spain
- 1937 Spam, the luncheon meat is first introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods Corporation
- 1938 Herb Caen's 1st column in San Francisco Chronicle
- 1939 Flash floods kill 79 in Northeast Kentucky
- 1940 Diplomatic relations broken between Britain and Vichy government in France
- 1941 German occupiers disband political parties
- 1942 Ian Fleming graduates from a training school for spies in Canada
- 1943 Battle of Gulf of Kula
- 1943 Battle of Kursk, USSR: Operation Citadel: Nazi German Panzer Division assault begins what becomes the largest tank in history
- 1943 Liberator bombers sink U-535 in Gulf of Biskaye
- 1943 US invasion fleet (96 ships) sails to Sicily
- 1944 Harry Crosby takes 1st rocket airplane, MX-324, for maiden flight
Labour Wins British Election
1945 Labour Party under Clement Attlee wins British parliamentary elections (results not declared until 26 July)
- 1945 World War II: Liberation of the Philippines declared
- 1946 Louis Reard's design for a bikini swimsuit debuts at the Paris fashion show
Doby First Black Player
1947 Cleveland Indians rookie Larry Doby becomes 1st black player in AL when he strikes out in 6-5 loss vs Chicago White Sox
- 1948 National Health Service established in the UK; Minister of Health Aneurin Bevan attends ceremony at Park Hospital in Davyhulme, Trafford
- 1950 Law of Return passes, guarantees all Jews right to live in Israel
- 1950 US forces enter combat in the Korean War for the first time, in the Battle of Osan
Historic Invention
1951 Dr William Shockley invents the junction transistor at Murray Hill, New Jersey
That's All Right
1954 Singer Elvis Presley's 1st professional recording session (with guitarist Scotty Moore & bass player Bill Black) takes place at Sam Phillips' Memphis Recording Service in Memphis, Tennessee. The trio record four songs including their historic cover of Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's song "That's All Right". [1]
- 1954 The BBC broadcasts its first television news bulletin
- 1955 Six week old British dock strike ends as London dockers return to work
- 1956 France raises tobacco tax 20% due to war in Algeria
- 1957 England cricket batsman Tom Graveney scores a brilliant 258 in the drawn 3rd Test v West Indies at Trent Bridge
- 1958 First ascent of Gasherbrum I (Pakistani–Chinese border), 11th highest peak on earth
- 1958 J Pengel forms government/Emanuels premier of Suriname
Event of Interest
1959 Ben-Gurion's Israeli government resigns
- 1959 Indonesia restores constitution
- 1959 Jack Gelber's "Connection" premieres in NYC
- 1960 Mongolia adopts constitution
- 1961 80 die in collisions in Algiers
- 1961 KUSD TV channel 2 in Vermillion, SD (PBS) begins broadcasting
- 1961 St Louis Cardinals first baseman Bill White smashes 3 HRs & a double in 9-1 rout of LA Dodgers
- 1962 Algeria gains independence after 132 years of French rule
- 1962 Massacre in Oran, Algeria: members of Algerian National Liberation Army kill Pied-Noir (Algerians of European descent) and European expatriates in ethnic genocide upon Algerian independence from France killing an estimated 95 to 400 people over 3 days
- 1963 1st Beatles' tune to hit US charts, Del Shannon's cover of "From Me to You" at no. 87
Music History
1965 Greek-American soprano Maria Callas makes her final opera stage appearance in the title role of Giacomo Puccini's "Tosca" at Convent Garden, London, England
- 1966 NASA launches Saturn IB rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida
- 1966 National Guard mobilizes in Omaha, Nebraska, after 3rd night of rioting
- 1966 NYC Transit Authority raises basic bus and subway fare from 15 cents to 20 cents
- 1967 Congo uprising under Belgian mercenary Jean Schramme
- 1968 "Manifest of 1000 words" published in Prague
Music History
1968 John Lennon sells his psychedelic painted Rolls-Royce
- 1969 Rolling Stones play a free concert in London's Hyde Park
- 1970 Air Canada DC-8 crashes 7 miles from Toronto's airport killing 109
- 1971 26th amendment to the US constitution certified (reduces voting age to 18)
- 1971 Simon Gray's "Butley" premieres in London
- 1972 Pierre Messmer appointed French premier
- 1972 Two Protestant brothers are found shot dead outside of Belfast (speculation that they were killed by Loyalists because they had Catholic girlfriends)
Coup d'état
1973 General Juvénal Habyarimana becomes president of Rwanda in a military coup d'état
- 1973 Isle of Man begins issuing its own postage stamps
- 1973 Test cricket debut of English umpire Harold "Dickie" Bird v NZ at Leeds (66 Tests, 69 ODI)
Music History
1975 At Knebworth Festival in England, Pink Floyd debut their album "Wish You Were Here" with pyrotechnics and an exploding plane which flies into the stage
- 1975 Cape Verde Islands gain independence after 500 years of Portuguese rule
- 1977 Pakistani army, led by Gen Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, seizes power
- 1978 Soyuz 30 spacecraft touches down in Soviet Kazakhstan
- 1978 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1981 Premier Begin's Likud party wins Israeli elections
- 1981 Rajan Mahadevan recites 31,811 digits of π (Pi) from memory
- 1981 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1982 Challenger flies to Kennedy Space Center via Ellington AFB, Texas
- 1983 France invades Algeria
- 1983 Woman gives birth to baby 84 days after brain death (Roanoke, Virginia)
- 1984 Supreme Court weakens 70-year-old "exclusionary rule"-evidence seized with defective court warrants can now be used in criminal trials
- 1985 Nicholas Mark Sanders (England) begins circumnavigation of globe, covering 13,035 road miles in 78 days, 3 hr, 30 min
Election of Interest
1985 Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party wins re-election in Zimbabwe for a second term
- 1986 Inaugural edition of Goodwill Games open in Moscow, USSR
Statue of Liberty
1986 Nancy Reagan cuts a red, white and blue ribbon to reopen Statue of Liberty after refurbishment
- 1988 Wist Indies cricket paceman Malcolm Marshall takes career best 7-22, beat England by an innings & 156 at Old Trafford
Seinfield
1989 "Seinfield" (originally titled The Seinfeld Chronicles" screens its pilot episode starring Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Michael Richards on NBC
Baseball Record
1989 Barry Bonds homers in Pittsburgh's 6-4 loss vs SF Giants, joining father Bobby Bonds as MLB father-son HR record holders (408)
Music History
1989 British singer Rod Stewart hits his head on a lighting fixture while on stage and knocks himself out in Pine Knob, Michigan [1]
Meeting of Interest
1989 South African President P. W. Botha visits ANC leader Nelson Mandela
Sports History
1990 Steffi Graf's record run of 13 consecutive tennis Grand Slam singles finals ends, beaten in Wimbledon semi-finals 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 by American Zina Garrison
- 1991 American jockey Ray Sibille wins his 3,000th career race, aboard Sporting Surf at Pleasanton, California
- 1991 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
- 1991 MLB owners approve Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins as new NL franchises to start play in 1993
- 1992 Sixto Durán Ballén elected president of Ecuador
Baseball Record
1993 As' outfielder Rickey Henderson leads off both games of Oakland's doubleheader vs Cleveland with homers (first time since 1913)
- 1993 Kurd guerrillas murder 32 villager in East Turkey
- 1993 Richard Chelimo run world record 10 km (27:07.91)
- 1994 "Cracked Rear View" debut album by Hootie & the Blowfish is released
Event of Interest
1994 Amazon.com is founded by Jeff Bezos in Bellevue, Washington
- 1994 The United States announces it will no longer accept unrestricted immigration from Haiti
- 1996 Angels score 3 top 1st, Oakland A's respond with 13 bottom 1st, highest-scoring 1st inning by 2 teams in MLB history, A's win 16-8
- 1998 NY Yankees beat Baltimore Orioles 1-0 to improve record to 61-20, equalling best 81-game start in MLB history
Baseball Record
1998 Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Roger Clemens collects his 3,000th career strikeout in 2-1 win vs Tampa Bay (11th to achieve milestone)
SARS Outbreak
2003 SARS is declared "contained" by the WHO after affecting 26 countries and resulting in 774 deaths
- 2004 First direct presidential election held in Indonesia, eventually won by Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
- 2006 Emergency United Nations Security Council meeting at the U.N in New York City because of North Korean missile tests that day
- 2006 North Korea tests at least two short-range Nodong-2 missiles, one SCUD missile and one long-range Taepodong-2 missile
- 2009 Ethnic rioting breaks out in Ürümqi, Xinjiang, People's Republic of China
Wimbledon Men's Tennis
2009 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Roger Federer beats Andy Roddick of the US 5-7, 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 16-14 for a record 15th Grand Slam singles title
- 2011 "Somebody That I Used to Know" single released by Gotye ft. Kimbra (Grammy Award Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, Record of the Year 2013)
Election of Interest
2012 Enrique Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party is elected President of Mexico after a recount following irregularities
Event of Interest
2012 Former Argentine president and dictator Jorge Rafael Videla is sentenced to 50 years imprisonment for the abduction of about 400 babies born to political prisoners
- 2012 Harness racing trainer/driver Dave Palone sets a new North American record for wins when he drives Herculotte Hanover to the winner's circle for his 15,181st career victory
- 2012 South Korea announce plans to begin "scientific' whaling of minke whales
- 2012 The Shard, the tallest building in Europe, is opened in London, at 309.6 metres (1,016 ft)
- 2013 15 people are killed by a bomb attack on a Shia mosque in Baghdad, Iraq
FIFA Women's World Cup Final
2015 FIFA Women's World Cup Final, BC Place, Vancouver, BC, Canada: Carli Lloyd scores a hat-trick as US beats Japan, 5-2
Event of Interest
2016 FBI releases report stating Hillary Clinton was "extremely careless" handling classified emails but doesn't recommend prosecution
- 2017 101 people reported shot, 15 killed in Chicago, Illinois over 4th July weekend
- 2017 Arsenal FC breaks club transfer record, paying about €53m for Lyon striker Alexandre Lacazette
- 2017 Followers of Indian spiritual leader Ashutosh Mahara win a court case, 3 years after his death, to keep his body in a freezer in case he should return to life
- 2017 Shootout between drug cartels in Las Varas, Northern Mexico kills 14
- 2017 Volvo Cars announces all new models by 2019 will be either hybrids or battery powered, 1st automaker to do so
- 2018 At least 24 killed in explosions at pyrotechnics workshops in Tultepec, Mexico
- 2018 English rapper Stormzy announces partnership with Penguin Books, an imprint called #Merky Books
- 2018 Heatwave in southern Quebec, Canada, kills 33
- 2018 Saleswomen in Kerala, India, win right to sit down and take toilet breaks in new amendment to law
- 2018 US Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt resigns amid allegations of misconduct
- 2019 Ancient Iraqi city Babylon declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site
- 2019 Former governor of Rio de Janeiro, Sérgio Cabral says he paid a $2 million bribe to secure votes for his city to be granted 2016 Olympics
- 2019 Second stronger earthquake in Southern California at 7.1 magnitude centered near Ridgecrest
- 2020 Florida reports a record 11,458 daily COVID-19 cases
- 2020 Mexico's COVID-19 death toll passes 30,000 as it becomes the world's 5th worst-affected country
- 2021 One of world's oldest pieces of art, 51,000-year-old deer bone carved by Neanderthals, announced discovered in Harz Mountains, Germany [1]
COVID-19 Pandemic
2021 Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he will scrap all COVID-19 restrictions in England from 19 July, to become most unrestricted country in Europe
- 2022 Amid Greater Sydney's fourth major flood in 18 months, the Australian government declares a natural disaster as 45,000 people threatened with evacuation orders [1]
- 2022 In possibly largest-ever Chinese security breach, hacker offers to sell Shanghai police a database with information on one billion Chinese [1]
Music History
2022 Legendary rock guitarist Carlos Santana collapses on stage from dehydration and heat exhaustion in Pine Knob, Michigan
- 2022 Mathematics Fields Medal (presented every four years to mathematicians under 40) awarded to James Maynard, June Huh, Maryna Viazovska and Hugo Duminil-Copin in Helsinki [1]
- 2022 Mike Grier becomes the first Black manager in the NHL - of the San Jose Sharks [1]
- 2023 A wave of shootings across American during Fourth of July celebrations leaves a dozen people dead and more than 60 injured [1]
- 2023 Hottest global temperature ever recorded - for third consecutive day - as average global temperature tops 17.18 degrees Celsius, tying with July 4, 2023 [1]
- 2023 Meta launches Threads - Instagram's new public conversations app - a day later it becomes the most rapidly downloaded app ever with 30 million downloads [1]
