Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/July
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| An archive of historical anniversaries that appeared on the Main Page 2008 day arrangement |
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- 1520 – La Noche Triste: Spanish Conquistadors under Hernán Cortés (pictured) barely succeeded in escaping from the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.
- 1569 – The Union of Lublin was signed, merging the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into a single state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
- 1867 – The British North America Act came into effect, uniting the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia into the Canadian Confederation.
- 1916 – World War I: The first day of the Battle of the Somme became the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army, with 57,470 casualties of which 19,240 were killed or died of wounds.
- 1991 – The Warsaw Pact was officially dissolved at a meeting in Prague.
More events: June 30 – July 1 – July 2
- 1644 – The Battle of Marston Moor, one of the decisive encounters of the English Civil War, was fought near York.
- 1839 – 53 African slaves mutinied on the slave ship La Amistad off the coast of Cuba.
- 1900 – First Zeppelin flight (pictured) occurred over Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.
- 1937 – Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight.
- 1976 – North and South Vietnam united under communist rule to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
- 1997 – The Thai baht rapidly lost half of its value, marking the beginning of the 1997 East Asian financial crisis.
More events: July 1 – July 2 – July 3
July 3: Independence Day in Belarus
- 987 – Hugh Capet was crowned King of France, becoming the first monarch of the Capetian dynasty, which ruled France continuously until overthrown during the French Revolution in 1792.
- 1608 – Quebec City, considered to be the first European-built city in non-Spanish North America, was founded by Samuel de Champlain.
- 1778 – American Revolutionary War: Loyalists and Iroquois killed or tortured over 300 Patriots at the Wyoming Valley battle and massacre.
- 1863 – Pickett's Charge, a disastrous Confederate infantry assault against Union Army positions, occurred during the final and bloodiest day of fighting in the Battle of Gettysburg, marking a turning point in the American Civil War.
- 1866 – Prussian forces defeated the Austrian army at the Battle of Königgrätz, the decisive battle in the Austro-Prussian War.
- 1938 – The LNER Mallard (pictured) broke the world speed record for a steam railway locomotive, reaching a speed of 203 km/h (126 mph).
More events: July 2 – July 3 – July 4
July 4: Aphelion (08:00 UTC, 2008); Independence Day in the United States; Filipino-American Friendship Day in the Philippines
- 993 – Pope John XV became the first pope to canonize a saint, Ulrich of Augsburg.
- 1776 – The Continental Congress of the Thirteen Colonies in British North America adopted a Declaration of Independence.
- 1862 – In a rowing boat travelling on the River Thames from Oxford to Godstow, Lewis Carroll told Alice Liddell and her sisters a story that would eventually form the basis for his children's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (illustration of Alice pictured), first published exactly three years later.
- 1939 – Baseball player Lou Gehrig, having recently been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, officially announced his retirement at a ceremony at New York City's Yankee Stadium.
- 1941 – German AB-Aktion operation in Poland: After capturing Lwów, the Nazis executed approximately 45 professors of the University of Lwów.
More events: July 3 – July 4 – July 5
July 5: Independence Day in Venezuela (1811), Algeria (1962) and Cape Verde (1975); Saints Cyril and Methodius Day in the Czech Republic and Slovakia; Tynwald Day on the Isle of Man
- 1687 – Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton (pictured) was first published, describing his laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation.
- 1937 - The Hormel Foods Corporation introduced Spam, the canned precooked meat product that would eventually enter into pop culture, folklore, and urban legend.
- 1954 – Elvis Presley began making his first commercial recordings at Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, USA.
- 1977 – General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq overthrew Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan in a military coup d'état.
- 2004 – Indonesia held its first direct presidential elections in its history; Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono would later be elected president during the second round of the elections on September 20.
More events: July 4 – July 5 – July 6
July 6: Independence Day in Malawi (1964) and in Comoros (1975); Statehood Day in Lithuania (1253); Jan Hus Day in the Czech Republic; the festival of San Fermín begins in Pamplona, Spain
- 1415 – Jan Hus (pictured), founder of the Christian Hussite reform movement, was burned at the stake for committing heresy.
- 1885 – French chemist Louis Pasteur successfully tested his vaccine against rabies on nine-year-old Joseph Meister after he was bitten by an infected dog.
- 1887 – King Kalākaua of Hawai'i was forced to sign the Bayonet Constitution, stripping the Hawaiian monarchy of much of its authority as well as disfranchising all Asians, most native Hawaiians, and the poor.
- 1942 – Anne Frank and her family went into hiding in the "Secret Annexe" above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.
- 1957 – John Lennon and Paul McCartney met for the first time at the Woolton Garden Fête held at St. Peter's Church. The former was performing with his skiffle group called The Quarrymen. Both became acquainted and Paul joined the band in October, 1957.
- 1966 – Hastings Banda became the first president of Malawi, exactly two years after the country was granted independence from the United Kingdom.
More events: July 5 – July 6 – July 7
July 7: Independence Day in the Solomon Islands (1978); Tanabata in Japan; Ivan Kupala Day in Russia and Ukraine; World YouTube Day
- 1798 – The Quasi-War, an undeclared war fought entirely at sea, began after the United States rescinded their treaties with France.
- 1807 – Tsar Alexander I of Russia and Napoleon I of France signed the first agreement of the Treaties of Tilsit, ending the War of the Fourth Coalition.
- 1846 – American forces led by Commodore John D. Sloat (pictured) occupied Monterey and Yerba Buena, beginning the annexation of California.
- 1937 – In the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, a battle marking the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Empire of Japan's Imperial Japanese Army defeated the Republic of China's National Revolutionary Army on Beijing's Marco Polo Bridge.
- 1985 – At the age of 17, tennis player Boris Becker defeated Kevin Curren to become the first German, the first unseeded player, and the youngest-ever to win the men's singles title at Wimbledon.
More events: July 6 – July 7 – July 8
- 1709 – Great Northern War: At Poltava, Ukraine, Peter I of Russia defeated Charles XII of Sweden in the Battle of Poltava, effectively ending Sweden's role as a major power in Europe.
- 1859 – Charles XV became King of Sweden and Norway following the death of his father Oscar I.
- 1889 – The first issue of The Wall Street Journal, an influential international daily newspaper, was published.
- 1947 – Various news agencies reported the capture of a "flying saucer" by United States Air Force personnel from the Roswell Army Air Field in Roswell, New Mexico.
- 2004 – After a 19-month trial, U.S. Marine Corps Major Michael Brown was convicted by a court in Naha, Okinawa for an attempted indecent assault on a Filipina bartender.
More events: July 7 – July 8 – July 9
July 9: Independence Day in Argentina (1816)
- 1357 – The foundation stone of Charles Bridge (pictured) in Prague was laid by Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV.
- 1816 – The Congress of Tucumán declared the independence of Argentina, then known as the United Provinces of the River Plate, from Spain.
- 1922 – Johnny Weissmuller swam the 100-meter freestyle in 58.6 seconds, breaking a world swimming record and the "minute barrier."
- 1955 – The Russell-Einstein Manifesto was issued in the midst of the Cold War, calling for a conference where scientists would "appraise the perils that have arisen as a result of the development of weapons of mass destruction."
- 2002 – The African Union was launched in Durban, South Africa, with President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki as its first chairman.
More events: July 8 – July 9 – July 10
July 10: Independence Day in the Bahamas (1973); Silence Day
- 1584 – William the Silent (pictured), the Prince of Orange, was assassinated at his home in Delft, Holland by Balthasar Gérard.
- 1796 – German mathematician and scientist Carl Friedrich Gauss discovered that every positive integer is representable as a sum of at most three triangular numbers, writing in his diary his famous words, "Heureka! num= Δ + Δ + Δ."
- 1925 – Indian guru Meher Baba began his silence of 44 years until his death in 1969.
- 1962 – Telstar, the world's first active, direct relay communications satellite, was launched by NASA aboard a Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral.
- 1985 – French intelligence agents bombed and sank the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior, while docked in a port of Auckland, New Zealand, to prevent her from interfering in a nuclear test in Moruroa.
More events: July 9 – July 10 – July 11
July 11: Naadam in Mongolia begins
- 1302 – Flemish infantry successfully halted a French invasion near Kortrijk in the Battle of the Golden Spurs.
- 1789 – French Revolution: Jacques Necker was dismissed as Director-General of Finances and ordered to leave France at once.
- 1804 – U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded former U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton (pictured) during a duel in Weehawken, New Jersey.
- 1957 – Prince Karīm al-Hussaynī succeeded Sultan Mahommed Shah as the Aga Khan, becoming the 49th Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims.
- 1995 – Bosnian Genocide: Bosnian Serb forces under Ratko Mladić began the Srebrenica massacre in Potočari, Srebrenica, eventually killing an estimated total of 8,000 Bosniaks.
More events: July 10 – July 11 – July 12
July 12: The Twelfth, commemoration of the Battle of the Boyne (1690) in Northern Ireland
- 1543 – King Henry VIII of England married Catherine Parr (pictured), his sixth and last wife, at Hampton Court Palace.
- 1580 – Ostrog Bible, the first Bible in Old Church Slavonic, was printed in Ostroh, Ukraine by Ivan Fyodorov.
- 1806 – Sixteen German imperial states left the Holy Roman Empire and formed the Confederation of the Rhine.
- 1862 – The U.S. Army Medal of Honor was first authorized by the U.S. Congress.
- 1975 – São Tomé and Príncipe declared independence from Portugal.
- 1979 – The Gilbert Islands gained independence and became known as Kiribati.
More events: July 11 – July 12 – July 13
July 13: National Day of Commemoration in Ireland (2008); Traditional date of the Bon Festival in Japan
- 1772 – HMS Resolution set sail from Plymouth, England, under the command of Captain James Cook.
- 1793 – Jean-Paul Marat (pictured), a leader in the French Revolution, was murdered in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday. The death was later portrayed in the painting The Death of Marat.
- 1863 – Three days of rioting began in New York City by opponents of new laws passed by the United States Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War.
- 1878 – The major powers in Europe redrew the map of the Balkans in the Treaty of Berlin.
- 1985 – Live Aid benefit concerts, organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia, were held at Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia.
More events: July 12 – July 13 – July 14
July 14: Bastille Day in France
- 1789 – French Revolution: Parisians stormed the Bastille (pictured), freeing its inmates and taking the prison's large quantities of arms and ammunition.
- 1798 – The Sedition Act became United States law, making it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false or malicious statements about the U.S. government.
- 1933 – Gleichschaltung: All political parties in Germany were outlawed, except the National Socialist German Workers Party.
- 1958 – King Faisal II, the last king of Iraq, was overthrown by a military coup d'état led by Abd al-Karim Qasim.
- 1965 – The NASA spacecraft Mariner 4 flew past Mars, collecting the first close-up pictures of another planet.
More events: July 13 – July 14 – July 15
- 1410 – The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeated the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights in the Battle of Grunwald, the decisive engagement of the Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic War.
- 1685 – James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, was executed for his role in the Monmouth Rebellion, an attempt to overthrow the King James II of England.
- 1799 – French soldiers uncovered the Rosetta Stone (pictured) in the Egyptian port city of Rashid.
- 1823 – A fire destroyed the ancient Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. The church would later be restored by 1840.
- 1974 – Greek-sponsored nationalists overthrew Archbishop Makarios, President of Cyprus, in a coup d'état and replaced him with Nikos Sampson.
More events: July 14 – July 15 – July 16
- 622 – The epoch of the Islamic calendar occurred, marking the year that Muhammad began his Hijra from Mecca to Medina.
- 1769 – Spanish friar Junípero Serra founded Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the first Franciscan mission in the Alta California region of New Spain.
- 1945 – Manhattan Project: "Trinity", the first nuclear test explosion, was detonated near Alamogordo, New Mexico, United States. (pictured)
- 1979 – Saddam Hussein replaced the resigning Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as President of Iraq, after having gradually usurped power from his cousin.
- 1994 – The planet Jupiter was hit by fragments of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet, causing a fireball which reached a peak temperature of about 24,000 K.
More events: July 15 – July 16 – July 17
July 17: Birthday of Ali in Iran (2008); Yama-boko Junkō in Kyoto, Japan; Constitution Day in South Korea
- 1762 – Peter III was killed at Ropsha, a few days after he was deposed as Emperor of Russia and replaced by his wife Catherine II.
- 1815 – Napoleonic Wars: Napoléon made his formal surrender to British forces on board the HMS Bellerophon off the port of Rochefort, France, ending the Hundred Days.
- 1936 – Nationalist rebels in Spain attempted a coup d'état against the Second Spanish Republic, commencing the Spanish Civil War.
- 1945 – Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Harry S. Truman met at the Potsdam Conference to decide how to administer post-World War II Germany.
- 1955 – Walt Disney's first theme park Disneyland opened in Anaheim, California.
- 1998 – Biologists reported in the scientific journal Science how they sequenced the genome of Treponema pallidum, the bacterium that causes syphilis.
More events: July 16 – July 17 – July 18
- 64 – The Great Fire of Rome started among the shops around the Circus Maximus selling flammable goods, eventually destroying four of fourteen Roman districts and severely damaging seven others.
- 1863 – American Civil War: Led by Union Army Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (pictured), the first formal African American military unit, spearheaded an assault on Fort Wagner near Charleston, South Carolina.
- 1982 – Guatemalan military forces and their paramilitary allies slaughtered over 250 Mayan campesinos in the village of Plan de Sánchez, Baja Verapaz department.
- 1995 – During the fifteenth stage of the 1995 Tour de France, Italian cyclist Fabio Casartelli suffered a fatal crash on the descent of the Col de Portet d'Aspet.
- 1996 – Paris-bound TWA Flight 800 exploded at 00:31 UTC (20:31, July 17 EDT) off the coast of Long Island, New York, killing all 230 on board.
More events: July 17 – July 18 – July 19
- 711 – Muslim conquests: Moorish Umayyad invaders led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad defeated Roderic and the Visigoths at the Battle of Guadalete.
- 1553 – Lady Jane Grey was replaced by Mary I of England (pictured) as Queen of England after holding that title for just nine days.
- 1848 – The two-day Women's Rights Convention, the first women's rights and feminist convention held in the United States, opened in Seneca Falls, New York.
- 1870 – A dispute over who would become the next Spanish monarch following Isabella II's abdication two years prior during the Glorious Revolution led France to declare war on Prussia.
- 1947 – Burmese nationalist Aung San and six members of his newly-formed cabinet were assassinated during a cabinet meeting.
More events: July 18 – July 19 – July 20
July 20: Independence Day in Colombia (1810); Friends' Day in Argentina and other Latin American countries
- 1402 – Forces under Timur defeated the Ottomans in the Battle of Ankara and captured Sultan Bayezid I.
- 1656 – Led by King Charles X Gustav, the armies of Sweden and Brandenburg defeated the forces of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth at the Battle of Warsaw.
- 1866 – Third Italian War of Independence: The Austrian Navy led by Wilhelm von Tegetthoff defeated a much larger Italian fleet in the Battle of Lissa.
- 1940 – Billboard magazine published its first "Music Popularity Chart".
- 1944 – Adolf Hitler survived an assassination attempt by German Resistance member Claus von Stauffenberg, who hid a bomb inside a briefcase during a conference at the Wolfsschanze military headquarters in East Prussia.
- 1969 – The Apollo 11 lunar module landed on the Sea of Tranquillity, where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (pictured) would become the first men to walk on the moon six-and-a-half hours later.
More events: July 19 – July 20 – July 21
July 21: Marine Day in Japan (2008); National holiday of Belgium; Racial Harmony Day in Singapore
- 356 BC – The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, was destroyed in an act of arson by a man named Herostratus.
- 1831 – In Brussels, Leopold I (pictured) was inaugurated as the first King of the Belgians.
- 1861 – In the First Battle of Bull Run, the first major battle in the American Civil War, the Confederate Army under Joseph E. Johnston and P. G. T. Beauregard routed Union Army troops under Irvin McDowell.
- 1925 – Creation-evolution controversy: High school biology teacher John T. Scopes was found guilty of violating Tennessee's Butler Act by teaching evolution in class.
- 1954 – First Indochina War: The Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone was established at the Geneva Conference, partitioning Vietnam along the 17th parallel into North Vietnam led by Ho Chi Minh and South Vietnam under Emperor Bao Dai.
More events: July 20 – July 21 – July 22
July 22: Pi Approximation Day; Feast day of Mary Magdalene
- 1099 – First Crusade: Godfrey of Bouillon was elected the first Protector of the Holy Sepulchre in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
- 1793 – Two days after becoming the first Euro-American to complete a transcontinental crossing north of Mexico, Scottish-Canadian explorer Alexander MacKenzie reached the westernmost point of his journey and inscribed his name on a rock using a reddish paint made of vermilion and rendered bear fat.
- 1812 – Peninsular War: Near Salamanca, Spain, an Anglo-Portuguese force led by Arthur Wellesley (pictured) inflicted a severe defeat on Marshal Auguste Marmont and his French troops in the Battle of Salamanca.
- 1933 – Wiley Post became the first pilot to fly a fixed-wing aircraft solo around the world.
- 1946 – An Irgun bomb destroyed the headquarters of the British Mandate of Palestine at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing about 90 people and injuring 45 others.
- 2003 – Coalition forces attacked a compound in Mosul, Iraq, killing two of Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay, the "aces of hearts and clubs" on the U.S. list of most-wanted Iraqis after the invasion of Iraq.
More events: July 21 – July 22 – July 23
July 23: Revolution Day in Egypt
- 1881 – The International Federation of Gymnastics, the world's oldest international sport federation, was founded in Liège, Belgium.
- 1952 – Egyptian Army officers in the Free Officers Movement led by Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser staged a military coup that forced King Farouk of Egypt to abdicate.
- 1970 – Qaboos overthrew his father Said bin Taimur to become Sultan of Oman.
- 1986 – Sarah Ferguson married Prince Andrew, Duke of York at Westminster Abbey, joining the British Royal Family as the Duchess of York.
- 1995 – Hale-Bopp, one of the most widely observed comets of the twentieth century, was discovered by two independent observers, Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp, at a very large distance from the Sun.
- 2001 – Megawati Sukarnoputri (pictured), daughter of independence leader Sukarno, became the first female president of Indonesia after the People's Consultative Assembly removed Abdurrahman Wahid.
More events: July 22 – July 23 – July 24
July 24: Pioneer Day in Utah; Simón Bolívar Day in Ecuador and Venezuela
- 1411 – Forces of Donald of Islay, Lord of the Isles and chief of Clan Macdonald, fought an army commanded by Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar at the Battle of Harlaw near Inverurie in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
- 1847 – After 17 months of travel, Brigham Young led the first group of Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley of Utah, at the time a part of Mexico.
- 1911 – In the Peruvian Andes, American explorer Hiram Bingham re-discovered Machu Picchu (pictured), then thought to be the "Lost City of the Incas".
- 1943 – World War II: RAF Bomber Command started Operation Gomorrah, the strategic bombing of Hamburg, Germany that spanned over several days and eventually killed at least 50,000 and left over a million others homeless.
- 2001 – Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the last Tsar of Bulgaria when he was a child, was sworn in as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, becoming the first monarch in history to regain political power through democratic election to a different office.
More events: July 23 – July 24 – July 25
July 25: Commonwealth Constitution Day in Puerto Rico; Galicia Day in Galicia, Spain; Feast day of Saint James the Great
- 306 – Constantine I was proclaimed Roman Emperor by his troops after the death of Constantius Chlorus.
- 1536 – Spanish conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar founded Santiago de Cali in present-day western Colombia while on his search for the mythical city of El Dorado.
- 1792 – French Revolutionary Wars: Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick issued the Brunswick Manifesto to the population of Paris, promising vengeance if King Louis XVI and other members of the French Royal Family were harmed.
- 1909 – French aviator Louis Blériot (pictured) made the first crossing of the English Channel in a heavier-than-air flying machine, flying from Les Barraques near Calais in France to Dover, England.
- 1978 – Two Puerto Rican pro-independence activists were killed by police at Cerro Maravilla in Villalba, Puerto Rico, sparking a series of political controversies where the police officers were eventually found guilty of murder and several high-ranking local government officials were accused of covering-up the incident.
- 2000 – Air France Concorde Flight 4590, en route from Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, crashed in Gonesse, France, killing all 100 passengers and nine crew members, as well as four people on the ground.
More events: July 24 – July 25 – July 26
July 26: Independence Day in Liberia (1847) and Maldives (1965)
- 811 –Bulgarian forces led by Krum defeated a Byzantine invasion in the Battle of Pliska, killed Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros I and severely wounded his son and co-emperor Staurakios.
- 1139 – After a victory over the Almoravid Moors in the Battle of Ourique, Afonso the Conqueror was proclaimed the first king of an independent Portugal.
- 1822 – José de San Martín met with Simón Bolívar in Guayaquil to plan for the future of Peru and South America in general.
- 1882 – Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal (pictured) premiered at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, Germany.
- 1953 – Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl led a group of approximately 160 rebels in an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks, thus beginning the Cuban Revolution.
More events: July 25 – July 26 – July 27
July 27: Parents' Day in the United States (2008); José Celso Barbosa Day in Puerto Rico
- 1214 – Philip II of France decisively won the Battle of Bouvines and took undisputed control of the territories of Anjou, Brittany, Maine, Normandy and the Touraine.
- 1865 – A group of Welsh settlers arrived at Chubut Valley in Argentina's Patagonia region.
- 1949 – The de Havilland Comet, the world's first jet airliner, made its maiden flight.
- 1953 – Korean War: A cease-fire was signed, creating a demilitarized zone approximately 4 km (2.5 miles) wide running across the Korean Peninsula between North and South Korea. (Joint Security Area pictured)
- 1996 – Centennial Olympic Park bombing: A pipe bomb exploded during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, killing two and injuring 111.
More events: July 26 – July 27 – July 28
July 28: Independence Day in Peru (1821)
- 1794 – French Revolution: Reign of Terror leader Maximilien Robespierre (pictured) was guillotined one day after the National Convention ordered his arrest.
- 1809 – Peninsular War: Sir Arthur Wellesley's Anglo-Spanish army earned a pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Talavera against French forces under Joseph Bonaparte.
- 1914 – Austria-Hungary declared war after rejecting Serbia's conditional acceptance of only part of the July Ultimatum following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, starting World War I.
- 1976 – The Tangshan earthquake, measuring between 7.5 and 8.2 on the Richter magnitude scale, flattened Tangshan, China, killing about 242,419 people and injuring 164,851 others.
- 1990 – Alberto Fujimori, the first person of Japanese descent elected as an executive head of state of a Latin American nation, took office as President of Peru.
- 1996 – The remains of the prehistoric Kennewick Man were discovered on a bank of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington, USA.
More events: July 27 – July 28 – July 29
July 29: Ólavsøka in the Faroe Islands; National Anthem Day in Romania
- 1030 – King Olaf II (pictured) fought and died in the Battle of Stiklestad, trying to regain his Norwegian throne from the Danes.
- 1588 - Anglo-Spanish War: English naval forces under command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake defeated the Spanish Armada off the coast of Gravelines, France.
- 1947 – ENIAC, the world's first general-purpose electronic digital computer, was turned on in its new home at the Ballistic Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, remaining in continuous operation until October 2, 1955.
- 1957 – The International Atomic Energy Agency was established, promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
- 1981 – A worldwide television audience of over 700 million people watched Diana Spencer marry Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales at St Paul's Cathedral in London.
More events: July 28 – July 29 – July 30
July 30: Independence Day in Vanuatu (1980)
- 1756 – Architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli presented the Catherine Palace (pictured), a Rococo palace in Tsarskoye Selo, to Empress Elizabeth of Russia.
- 1864 – American Civil War: Union forces failed to break Confederate lines in the Battle of the Crater by exploding a large bomb under their trenches.
- 1930 – Uruguay defeated Argentina, 4 to 2, in front of their home crowd at Estadio Centenario in Montevideo to win the first Football World Cup.
- 1945 – World War II: The USS Indianapolis, a heavy cruiser of the United States Navy, was sunk by the Japanese submarine I-58, killing over 800 seamen.
- 2003 – The last old-style Beetle, the economy car produced by the German automaker Volkswagen, rolled off the assembly line in Puebla, Mexico.
- 2006 – Lebanon War: The Israeli Air Force attacked a three-story building near the South Lebanese village of Qana, killing at least 28 civilians, including 16 children.
More events: July 29 – July 30 – July 31
July 31: Ka Hae Hawai‘i Day in Hawai'i; Feast day of Saint Ignatius of Loyola
- 1667 – The Second Anglo-Dutch War between England and the United Provinces ended with the signing of the Treaty of Breda in the Dutch city of Breda.
- 1703 – English writer Daniel Defoe was placed in a pillory for seditious libel after publishing a pamphlet politically satirising the High church Tories.
- 1777 – The Second Continental Congress passed a resolution allowing French nobleman Marquis de Lafayette to enter the American revolutionary forces as a Major General.
- 1917 – World War I: The Battle of Passchendaele began near the town of Ypres in West Flanders, Belgium, with the Allied Powers aiming to push through the German lines and capture their submarine bases along the Belgian coast.
- 1941 – The Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi military leader Hermann Göring ordered SS general Reinhard Heydrich to develop "a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution to the Jewish question".
- 1971 – Apollo program: The first Lunar Rover (pictured) was used during the Apollo 15 mission to the moon.
More events: July 30 – July 31 – August 1
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