1099 – First Crusade: 15,000 starving Christian soldiers march in a religious procession around Jerusalem as its Muslim defenders look on.
1283 – War of the Sicilian Vespers: Roger of Lauria, commanding the Aragonese fleet defeats a Angvin fleet sent to put down a rebellion on Malta in the Battle of Malta.
1497 – Vasco da Gama sets sail on the first direct European voyage to India.
1579 – Our Lady of Kazan, a holy icon of the Russian Orthodox Church, is discovered underground in the city of Kazan, Tatarstan.
1663 – Charles II of England grants John Clarke a Royal Charter to Rhode Island.
1709 – Great Northern War: Battle of Poltava – Peter I of Russia defeats Charles XII of Sweden at Poltava thus effectively ending Sweden's role as a major power in Europe.
1716 – Great Northern War: the naval Battle of Dynekilen takes place.
1758 – French forces hold Fort Carillon against the British at Ticonderoga, New York.
1760 – French and Indian War: Battle of Restigouche – British forces defeat French forces in last naval battle in New France.
1775 – The Olive Branch Petition is signed by the Continental Congress of the Thirteen Colonies.
1808 – Joseph Bonaparte approves the Bayonne Statute, a royal charter intended as the basis for his rule as king of Spain.
1822 – Chippewas turn over a huge tract of land in Ontario to the United Kingdom.
1859 – King Charles XV & IV accedes to the throne of Sweden-Norway.
1864 – Ikedaya Jiken: the Choshu Han shishi's planned Shinsengumi sabotage on Kyoto, Japan at Ikedaya.
1874 – The Mounties begin their March West.
1876 – White supremacists kill five Black Republicans in Hamburg, SC.
1879 – Sailing ship USS Jeannette (1878) departs San Francisco carrying an ill-fated expedition to the North Pole.
1889 – The first issue of the Wall Street Journal is published.
1892 – St. John's, Newfoundland is devastated in the Great Fire of 1892.
1896 – William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of Gold speech advocating bimetalism at the 1896 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
1898 – The death of crime boss Soapy Smith (who is shot) releases Skagway, Alaska from his iron grip.
1907 – Florenz Ziegfeld staged his first Follies on the roof of the New York Theater in New York City.
1912 – Henrique Mitchell de Paiva Couceiro leads an unsuccessful royalist attack against the Portuguese First Republic in Chaves.
1932 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level of the Great Depression, closing at 41.22.
1937 – Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan sign the Treaty of Saadabad.
1947 – Reports are broadcast that a UFO crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico.
1948 – The United States Air Force accepts its first female recruits into a program called Women in the Air Force (WAF).
1960 – Francis Gary Powers is charged with espionage resulting from his flight over the Soviet Union.
1962 – Ne Win besieges and dynamites the Rangoon University Student Union building to crash the Student Movement.
1966 – King Mwambutsa IV Bangiriceng of Burundi is deposed by his son Prince Charles Ndizi.
1970 – Richard Nixon delivers a special congressional message enunciating Native American Self-Determination as official US Indian policy, leading to the Indian Self-Determination Act.
1982 – Assassination attempt against Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in Dujail.
1988 – The Island Express train travelling from Bangalore to Kanyakumari derails on the Peruman bridge and falls into Ashtamudi Lake, killing 105 passengers and injuring over 200 more.
1994 – Kim Jong-il begins to assume supreme leadership of North Korea upon the death of his father, Kim Il-sung.
2011 – Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched in the final mission of the U.S. Space Shuttle program.

Holidays and observances

Christian Feast Day:
Abda and Sabas
Auspicius of Trier
Grimbald
Kilian, Totnan, and Colman
Procopius of Scythopolis
Sunniva and companions
Theobald of Marly
July 8 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

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