July
31
Events
July
31
30 BC –
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 – The oldest recorded eruption of Mt. Fuji (Traditional
Japanese date: July 6, 781).
904 – Thessalonica falls to the Arabs, who destroy the city.
1009 – Pope Sergius IV becomes the 142nd pope, succeeding Pope
John XVIII.
1201 – Attempted usurpation of John Komnenos the Fat.
1423 – Hundred Years' War: Battle of Cravant – the French army
is defeated at Cravant on the banks of the river Yonne.
1451 – Jacques Cœur is arrested by order of Charles VII of France.
1492 – The Jews are expelled from Spain when the Alhambra Decree
takes effect.
1498 – On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher
Columbus becomes the first European to discover the island of
Trinidad.
1588 – The Spanish Armada is spotted off the coast of England.
1655 – 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 – Aurangzeb is proclaimed Moghul emperor of India.
1667 – Second Anglo-Dutch War: Treaty of Breda ends the conflict.
1703 – 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 – Charles Albert of Bavaria invades Upper Austria and Bohemia.
1763 – Odawa chief Pontiac's forces defeat British troops at
the Battle of Bloody Run during Pontiac's War.
1777 – 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 – The very first U.S. patent is issued: to inventor Samuel
Hopkins for a potash process.
1856 – Christchurch, New Zealand is chartered as a city.
1865 – The first narrow gauge mainline railway in the world
opens at Grandchester, Australia.
1913 – The Balkan States signs an armistice at Bucharest.
1919 – German national assembly adopts the Weimar Constitution,
which comes into force on August 14.
1930 – The radio mystery program The Shadow airs for the first
time.
1931 – New York City experimental television station W2XAO (now
known as WCBS) begins broadcasts.
1932 – The NSDAP (Nazi Party) wins more than 38% of the vote
in German elections.
1938 – Bulgaria signs a non-aggression pact with Greece and
other states of Balkan Antanti (Turkey, Romania, Yugoslavia).
1938 – Archaeologists discover engraved gold and silver plates
from King Darius the Great in Persepolis.
1940 – A doodlebug train in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio collides with
a multi-car freight train heading in the opposite direction,
killing 43 people.
1941 – Holocaust: under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi
official Hermann Göring, 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 – Pierre Laval, the fugitive former leader of Vichy France,
surrenders to Allied soldiers in Austria.
1948 – At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International
Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport)
is dedicated.
1954 – First ascent of K2, by an Italian expedition led by Ardito
Desio.
1956 – 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 – 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 – 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 – Black Tot Day: The last day of the officially sanctioned
rum ration in the Royal Navy.
1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts become the first
to ride in a lunar rover.
1972 – 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 – A Delta Air Lines jetliner, flight DL 723 crashes while
landing in fog at Logan Airport, Boston, Massachusetts killing
89.
1987 – A rare, class F4 tornado rips through Edmonton, Alberta,
killing 27 people and causing $330 million in damage.
1988 – 32 people are killed and 1,674 injured when a bridge
at the Sultan Abdul Halim ferry terminal collapses in Butterworth,
Malaysia.
1991 – 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 – The Medininkai Massacre in Lithuania. Soviet OMON attacks
Lithuanian customs post in Medininkai, killing 7 officers and
severely wounding one other.
1992 – Thai Airways International Flight 311 crashes into a
mountain north of Kathmandu, Nepal killing all 113 people on
board.
1992 – China General Aviation Flight 7552 from Nanjing to Xiamen
Airport crashed after taking off, killing 108 of the 116 people
on board.
1992 – Georgia joins the United Nations.
1999 – Discovery Program: Lunar Prospector – NASA intentionally
crashes the spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission
to detect frozen water on the moon's surface.
2002 – Hebrew University of Jerusalem is attacked when a bomb
explodes in a cafeteria, killing 9.
2006 – Fidel Castro hands over power temporarily to brother
Raúl Castro.
2007 – 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 Hawaiʻi Day, a Flag Day. (Hawaii)
For details, contact Datacentre
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