Independence
day
Liberia
Maldives
Events
of the day
657 – First Fitna: the
Battle of Siffin see the troops led by Ali
ibn Abi Talib and those led by Muawiyah
I clashing.
811 – Battle of Pliska: Byzantine Emperor
Nicephorus I is killed and his heir Stauracius
is seriously wounded.
920 – Rout of an alliance of Christian troops
from Navarre and Léon against the Muslims
at Pamplona.
1309 – Henry VII is recognized King of the
Romans by Pope Clement V.
1469 – Wars of the Roses: the Battle of
Edgecote Moor pitting the forces of Richard
Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick against those
of Edward IV of England takes place.
1509 – The Emperor Krishnadeva Raya ascends
to the throne, marking the beginning of
the regeneration of the Vijayanagara Empire.
1533 – Atahualpa, the 13th and last emperor
of the Incas, dies by strangulation at the
hands of Francisco Pizarro's Spanish conquistadors.
His death marks the end of 300 years of
Inca civilization.
1581 – Plakkaat van Verlatinghe (Act of
Abjuration): the northern Low Countries
declare their independence from the Spanish
king, Philip II.
1745 – The first recorded women's cricket
match takes place near Guildford, England.
1758 – French and Indian War: the Siege
of Louisbourg ends with British forces defeating
the French and taking control of the Gulf
of St. Lawrence.
1775 – The office that would later become
the United States Post Office Department
is 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.
1822 – First day of the three-day Battle
of Dervenakia, between the Ottoman Empire
force led by Mahmud Dramali Pasha and the
Greek Revolutionary force led by Theodoros
Kolokotronis.
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.
1882 – Premiere of Richard Wagner's opera
Parsifal at Bayreuth.
1882 – The Republic of Stellaland is founded
in Southern Africa.
1887 – Publication of the Unua Libro, founding
the Esperanto movement.
1890 – In Buenos Aires the Revolución del
Parque takes place, forcing President Juárez
Celman's resignation.
1891 – France annexes Tahiti.
1897 – Anglo-Afghan wars: The Pashtun fakir
Saidullah leads an army of more than 10,000
to begin a siege of the British garrison
in the Malakand Agency of the North West
Frontier Province of India.
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.
1936 – The Axis Powers decide to intervene
in the Spanish Civil War.
1936 – King Edward VIII, in one of his few
official duties before he abdicates the
throne, officially unveils the Canadian
National Vimy Memorial.
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: the Soviet army enters
Lviv, a major city in western Ukraine, liberating
it from the Nazis. Only 300 Jews survive
out of 160,000 living in Lviv prior to 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 USS Indianapolis
arrives at Tinian with parts of the warhead
for the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
1946 – Aloha Airlines begins service from
Honolulu International Airport
1947 – Cold War: U.S. President Harry S.
Truman signs the National Security Act of
1947 into United States law creating the
Central Intelligence Agency, United States
Department of Defense, United States Air
Force, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the United
States National Security Council.
1948 – U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs
Executive Order 9981 desegregating the military
of the United States.
1951 – Walt Disney's 13th animated film,
Alice in Wonderland, premieres in London,
United Kingdom.
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. The movement took
the name of the date: 26th of July Movement
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 refusal
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 – An earthquake in Skopje, Yugoslavia
(now in the Republic of Macedonia) leaves
1,100 dead.
1963 – The Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development votes to admit Japan.
1965 – Full independence is granted to the
Maldives.
1968 – Vietnam War: South Vietnamese opposition
leader Trương Đình Dzũ 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: launch of Apollo
15 on the first Apollo "J-Mission",
and first use of a Lunar Roving Vehicle.
1974 – Greek Prime Minister Constantinos
Karamanlis forms the country's first civil
government after seven years of military
rule.
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 is signed into law by President
George H. W. Bush.
2005 – Space Shuttle program: STS-114 Mission
– Launch of Discovery, NASA's first scheduled
flight mission after the Columbia Disaster
in 2003.
2005 – Mumbai, India receives 99.5cm of
rain (39.17 inches) within 24 hours, bringing
the city to a halt for over 2 days.
2007 – Shambo, a black cow in Wales that
had been adopted by the local Hindu community,
is slaughtered due to a bovine tuberculosis
infection, causing widespread controversy.
2008 – 56 people are killed and over 200
people are injured in 21 bomb blasts in
Ahmedabad bombing in India.
2009 – The militant Nigerian Islamist group
Boko Haram attacks a police station in Bauchi,
leading to reprisals by the Nigeria Police
Force and four days of violence across multiple
cities.
Holidays
and observances
Christian
Feast Day:
Anne (Western Christianity)
Bartolomea Capitanio
Blessed Andrew of Phu Yen
Joachim (Anglican Communion)
Paraskevi of Rome (Eastern Orthodox Church)
July 26 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Venera (Veneranda)
Day of the National Rebellion (Cuba)
Independence Day, celebrates the independence
of Liberia from the United States in 1847.
Independence Day, celebrates the independence
of Maldives from the United Kingdom in 1965.
Kargil Victory Day or Kargil Vijay Diwas
(India)
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