Events
of the day
30
BC β 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 β The oldest recorded eruption of Mt.
Fuji (Traditional Japanese date: July 6,
781).
904 β Thessalonica falls to the Arabs, who
destroy the city.
1009 β Pope Sergius IV becomes the 142nd
pope, succeeding Pope John XVIII.
1201 β Attempted usurpation of John Komnenos
the Fat.
1423 β Hundred Years' War: Battle of Cravant
β the French army is defeated at Cravant
on the banks of the river Yonne.
1451 β Jacques CΕur is arrested by order
of Charles VII of France.
1492 β The Jews are expelled from Spain
when the Alhambra Decree takes effect.
1498 β On his third voyage to the Western
Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes
the first European to discover the island
of Trinidad.
1588 β The Spanish Armada is spotted off
the coast of England.
1655 β 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 β Aurangzeb is proclaimed Moghul emperor
of India.
1667 β Second Anglo-Dutch War: Treaty of
Breda ends the conflict.
1703 β 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 β Charles Albert of Bavaria invades
Upper Austria and Bohemia.
1763 β Odawa chief Pontiac's forces defeat
British troops at the Battle of Bloody Run
during Pontiac's War.
1777 β 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 States."
1790 β The very first U.S. patent is issued:
to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash
process.
1856 β Christchurch, New Zealand is chartered
as a city.
1865 β The first narrow gauge mainline railway
in the world opens at Grandchester, Australia.
1913 β The Balkan States signs an armistice
at Bucharest.
1919 β German national assembly adopts the
Weimar Constitution, which comes into force
on August 14.
1930 β The radio mystery program The Shadow
airs for the first time.
1931 β New York City experimental television
station W2XAO (now known as WCBS) begins
broadcasts.
1932 β The NSDAP (Nazi Party) wins more
than 38% of the vote in German elections.
1938 β Bulgaria signs a non-aggression pact
with Greece and other states of Balkan Antanti
(Turkey, Romania, Yugoslavia).
1938 β Archaeologists discover engraved
gold and silver plates from King Darius
the Great in Persepolis.
1940 β A doodlebug train in Cuyahoga Falls,
Ohio collides with a multi-car freight train
heading in the opposite direction, killing
43 people.
1941 β Holocaust: under instructions from
Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann GΓΆring,
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
desired final solution of the Jewish question."
1945 β Pierre Laval, the fugitive former
leader of Vichy France, surrenders to Allied
soldiers in Austria.
1948 β At Idlewild Field in New York, New
York International Airport (later renamed
John F. Kennedy International Airport) is
dedicated.
1954 β First ascent of K2, by an Italian
expedition led by Ardito Desio.
1956 β Jim Laker becomes the first man to
take all 10 wickets in a Test match innings
as he returns figures of 10/53 in the Australian
2nd innings. This combined with his 9/37
in the first innings gave him match figures
of 19/90 in the 4th Test at Old Trafford.
1961 β 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 β 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 β Black Tot Day: The last day of the
officially sanctioned rum ration in the
Royal Navy.
1971 β Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts
become the first to ride in a lunar rover.
1972 β The Troubles: In Operation Motorman,
the British Army re-takes the urban no-go
areas of Northern Ireland. It is the biggest
British military operation since the Suez
Crisis of 1956, and the biggest in Ireland
since the Irish War of Independence. Later
that day, nine civilians are killed by car
bombs in the village of Claudy.
1973 β A Delta Air Lines jetliner, flight
DL 723 crashes while landing in fog at Logan
Airport, Boston, Massachusetts killing 89.
1987 β A rare, class F4 tornado rips through
Edmonton, Alberta, killing 27 people and
causing $330 million in damage.
1988 β 32 people are killed and 1,674 injured
when a bridge at the Sultan Abdul Halim
ferry terminal collapses in Butterworth,
Malaysia.
1991 β The United States and Soviet Union
both sign the START I Strategic Arms Reduction
Treaty, the first to reduce (with verification)
both countries' stockpiles.
1991 β The Medininkai Massacre in Lithuania.
Soviet OMON attacks Lithuanian customs post
in Medininkai, killing 7 officers and severely
wounding one other.
1992 β Thai Airways International Flight
311 crashes into a mountain north of Kathmandu,
Nepal killing all 113 people on board.
1992 β China General Aviation Flight 7552
from Nanjing to Xiamen Airport crashed after
taking off, killing 108 of the 116 people
on board.
1992 β Georgia joins the United Nations.
1999 β Discovery Program: Lunar Prospector
β NASA intentionally crashes the spacecraft
into the Moon, thus ending its mission to
detect frozen water on the moon's surface.
2002 β Hebrew University of Jerusalem is
attacked when a bomb explodes in a cafeteria,
killing 9.
2006 β Fidel Castro hands over power temporarily
to brother RaΓΊl Castro.
2007 β Operation Banner, the presence of
the British Army in Northern Ireland, and
the longest-running British Army operation
ever, comes to an end.
Holidays
and observances
Christian
Feast Day:
Germanus of Auxerre
Ignatius of Loyola
Neot
July 31 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
End of the Trinity term (sitting of the
High Court of Justice of England)
Heroes' Day (Malaysia)
Ka Hae HawaiΚ»i Day, a Flag Day. (Hawaii)
For details, contact Datacentre
