The end of this day marks the halfway point of a leap year. It also falls on the same day of the week as New Year's Day in a leap year.
Events
- 1097 – Battle of Dorylaeum: Crusaders under Bohemond of Taranto defeat a Seljuk army under Qilich Arslan I.
- 1520 – La Noche Triste: Joint Mexican Indian force led by Aztecs under Cuitláhuac defeat Spanish
Conquistadors under Hernán Cortés.
- 1569 – Union of Lublin: The Kingdom of Poland
(Polish
Crown) and Great Duchy of
Lithuania confirm a real union, the
united country is called the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth or the Republic of Both Nations.
- 1690 – Glorious Revolution: Battle of the Boyne as reckoned under
Julian calendar.
- 1770 – Lexell's
Comet passed closer to the Earth than any other comet in
recorded history, approaching to a distance of 0.0146 a.u.
- 1782 – American
privateers attack Lunenburg
, Nova
Scotia
.
- 1837 – A system of the
civil registration of births, marriages and
deaths is established in England
and Wales
.
- 1855 – Quinault
Treaty signed, Quinault and
Quileute cede their land to the
United States.
- 1858 – The joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's papers on
evolution to the Linnean Society.
- 1862 – The Russian State
Library
is founded.
- 1862 –
American Civil War: The Battle of
Malvern Hill
takes place, the final battle in the Seven Days Campaign, part of the
George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign.
- 1863 – Keti Koti, Emancipation Day in Suriname
, marking the abolition of slavery by the Netherlands
.
- 1863 – American Civil
War: The Battle of
Gettysburg
begins.
- 1867 – The British North America Act, 1867 takes
effect as the Constitution of
Canada, creating the Canadian
Confederation; John A.
Macdonald is sworn in as first
Prime Minister.
- 1870 – The United States
Department of Justice
formally comes into existence.
- 1873 – Prince
Edward Island
joins the Canadian Confederation.
- 1878 – Canada
joins the
Universal
Postal Union
.
- 1879 – Charles Taze Russell publishes the
first edition of the religious magazine The Watchtower.
- 1881 – The world's first
international telephone call is made
between St. Stephen
, New
Brunswick
, Canada, and
Calais
, Maine
, United States
.
- 1881 – General Order 70, the culmination of the Cardwell-Childers
reforms of the British Army, comes
into effect.
- 1885 – The United States terminates
reciprocity and
fishery agreement with Canada.
- 1890 – Canada and
Bermuda
are linked by telegraph
cable.
- 1892 – The Homestead Strike, a strike by the Amalgamated
Association of Iron and Steel Workers against the Carnegie Steel Company, begins.
- 1898 – Spanish-American War: The Battle of San Juan Hill is fought in
Santiago de
Cuba
.
- 1908 – SOS is adopted as
the international Distress
signal.
- 1915 – Leutnant Kurt Wintgens achieves the first known aerial
victory with a synchronized gun-equipped fighter plane, the
Fokker M.5K/MG Eindecker.
- 1916 – World War
I: First day on the Somme
– On the first day of the Battle of the Somme 19,000
soldiers of the British Army are killed
and 40,000 wounded.
- 1921 – The Communist Party of China is
founded.
- 1931 – United
Airlines begins service (as Boeing Air Transport).
- 1933 – The Canadian
Parliament
suspends all Chinese
immigration.
- 1935 – Regina
, Saskatchewan
police and Royal Canadian Mounted Police
ambush strikers participating in On-to-Ottawa-Trek.
- 1942 – World War II: First Battle
of El Alamein
.
- 1942 – Australian
Federal Government becomes sole collector of Income Tax (State
Income Tax Abolished).
- 1943 – Tokyo City merges with Tokyo
Prefecture
and is dissolved. Since then, no city
in Japan
has had the
name "Tokyo
".
(Present-day Tokyo is not a city.)
- 1947 – The Philippine Air Force is
established.
- 1948 – Quaid-i-Azam inaugurates Pakistan
's central bank, the
State Bank of
Pakistan.
- 1949 – Merger of two
princely states of India, Cochin
and Travancore to become the state of Thiru-Kochi (later re-organized as Kerala
) in Indian
Union.
- 1957 – The International Geophysical
Year begins.
- 1958 – The Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation links television
broadcasting across Canada via microwave.
- 1958 – Flooding of the St.
Lawrence Seaway begins.
- 1959 – The Party of the African
Federation holds its constitutive conference.
- 1959 – Specific values for the international yard, avoirdupois
pound and derived units (e.g. inch,
mile and ounce) are
adopted after agreement between the U.S., U.K. and other
commonwealth countries.
- 1960 – Independence of Somalia
.
- 1960
– Ghana
becomes a
Republic and Kwame
Nkrumah becomes its first President as Queen Elizabeth II of the United
Kingdom ceases to be the Head of
state.
- 1962 – Independence of
Rwanda
.
- 1962
– Independence of Burundi
.
- 1963 – ZIP Codes
are introduced for United
States mail.
- 1963
– The British Government admits
that former diplomat Kim Philby had worked as a Soviet
agent.
- 1966 – The first
color television transmission in
Canada
takes place
from Toronto
.
- 1967 – The European Community is formally created
out of a merger with the Common
Market, the European Coal and Steel
Community, and the European Atomic Energy
Commission.
- 1967 – Canada celebrates the 100th anniversary of the British North America Act, 1867.
- 1968 – The CIA's Phoenix Program is officially
established.
- 1968
– The Nuclear
non-proliferation treaty is signed in Washington,
D.C.
, London
and
Moscow
by
sixty-two countries.
- 1968 – Formal separation of the United Auto Workers from the AFL-CIO.
- 1970 – President General Yahya Khan abolishes One-Unit of West Pakistan restoring the provinces.
- 1972 – Andreas Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe and Holger Meins of the Red Army Faction are captured in Frankfurt
after a shootout with the police.
- 1972 – The first Gay Pride march in
England takes place.
- 1976 – Portugal
grants autonomy to Madeira
.
- 1978 – The Northern
Territory
in Australia is granted
Self-Government.
- 1979 – Sony introduces
the Walkman.
- 1980 – O
Canada officially becomes the national anthem of Canada.
- 1983 – A North Korean
Ilyushin Il-62M jet
en route to Conakry
Airport in Guinea
crashes
into the Fouta Djall Mountains in Guinea-Bissau
, killing all 23 people on board.
- 1984 – The PG-13
rating is introduced by the MPAA.
- 1987 – American radio
station WFAN
in
New York
City
is launched as the world's first all-sports radio station.
- 1990 – German re-unification: East Germany
accepts the Deutsche
Mark as its currency, thus uniting the economies of East and
West
Germany
.
- 1991 – The Warsaw Pact is officially dissolved at a meeting
in Prague
.
- 1997 – The People's
Republic of China
resumes sovereignty over the city-state of Hong Kong
, ending 156 years of British
colonial
rule.
- 1999 – The Scottish
Parliament
is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth on the
day that legislative powers are officially transferred from the old
Scottish Office in London
to the new
devolved Scottish Executive in
Edinburgh
.
- 2000 – Vermont
's civil unions law goes
into effect.
- 2000
– The Oresund
Bridge
, connecting Sweden
and
Denmark
, opens for traffic.
- 2002 – The International Criminal Court is
established to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes
against humanity, war crimes, and the
crime of aggression.
- 2002
– A Bashkirian Airlines
(flight 2937
) Tupolev TU-154 and a DHL (German cargo)
Boeing 757 collide in mid-air over
Ueberlingen
, southern
Germany
, killing 71.
- 2004 – Saturn
Orbit insertion of Cassini-Huygens begins at 01:12 UTC and ends at 02:48 UTC.
- 2006 – The first
operation of Qinghai-Tibet
Railway in the People's Republic of China
.
- 2007 – Smoking in
England
is banned in all public indoor
spaces. With the ban already in force in Wales
, Scotland
and Northern
Ireland
, this means it is illegal to smoke in indoor public
places anywhere in the UK. The ban is also put into effect
in Australia.
- 2008 – Rioting erupted in Mongolia in
response to allegations of fraud surrounding the 2008 legislative
elections.
Births
- 1481 – Christian II of Denmark, Sweden and
Norway (d. 1559)
- 1506 – Louis II of Hungary and
Bohemia (d. 1526)
- 1534 – Frederick II of Denmark (d.
1588)
- 1574 – Joseph Hall,
English bishop and writer (d. 1656)
- 1586 – Claudio
Saracini, Italian composer (d. 1630)
- 1633 – Johann Heinrich Heidegger, Swiss
theologian (d. 1698)
- 1646 – Gottfried Leibniz, German mathematician
(d. 1716)
- 1676 – Anthony
Collins, English philosopher (d. 1729)
- 1723 – Pedro Rodríguez, Conde
de Campomanes, Spanish statesman (d. 1802)
- 1725 – Comte
de Rochambeau, French soldier (d. 1807)
- 1742 – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg,
German physicist (d. 1799)
- 1788 – Jean-Victor Poncelet, French
mathematician (d. 1867)
- 1804 – George
Sand, French writer (d. 1876)
- 1807 – Thomas Green Clemson, American
university founder (d. 1888)
- 1818 – Ignaz
Semmelweis, Hungarian physician (d. 1865)
- 1834 – Jadwiga Łuszczewska, Polish poet
(d. 1908)
- 1863 – William Grant Stairs, Canadian explorer
(d. 1892)
- 1869 – William Strunk Jr., American grammarian
(d. 1946)
- 1872 – Louis
Blériot, French aviator (d. 1936)
- 1873 – Alice Guy-Blaché, American film
director (d. 1968)
- 1879 – Léon
Jouhaux, French labor leader, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1954)
- 1883 – Arthur
Borton, English soldier (d. 1933)
- 1899 – Thomas
A. Dorsey, American composer
(d. 1993)
- 1899 – Charles Laughton,
English actor (d. 1962)
- 1899 – Konstantinos
Tsatsos, 2nd President of
Greece (d. 1987)
- 1902 – William
Wyler, French-born film director (d. 1981)
- 1903 – Amy
Johnson, English pilot (d. 1941)
- 1906 – Estée Lauder, American
entrepreneur (d. 2004)
- 1906 – Jean Dieudonné,
French mathematician (d. 1992)
- 1907 – Bill
Stern, American sportscaster (d. 1971)
- 1911 – Sergei Sokolov, Soviet marshal
- 1912 – David
R. Brower, American
environmentalist (d. 2000)
- 1912 – Sally Kirkland,
American fashion editor (d. 1989)
- 1913 – Frank Barrett, baseball player (d.
1998)
- 1915 – Willie
Dixon, American musician (d. 1992)
- 1915 – Joseph Ransohoff,
American neurosurgeon (d. 2001)
- 1916 – Olivia de Havilland, British-born
actress
- 1917 – Humphry
Osmond, British psychiatrist (d. 2004)
- 1920 – Harold
Sakata, American actor (d. 1982)
- 1921 – Seretse
Khama, first President of
Botswana (d. 1980)
- 1925 – Farley
Granger, American actor
- 1926 – Robert
Fogel, Nobel
laureate
- 1926 – Hans Werner Henze,
German composer
- 1926 – Carl Hahn, German automotive
executive
- 1927 – Alan J. Charig, British palaeontologist (d.
1997)
- 1929 – Gerald
Edelman, American biologist, Nobel laureate
- 1930 – Bobby Day,
American singer (d. 1990)
- 1930 – Moustapha Akkad,
Syrian-American filmmaker (d. 2005)
- 1930 – Carol
Chomsky, American linguist, (d. 2008)
- 1931 – Leslie
Caron, French actress
- 1932 – Ze'ev
Schiff, Israeli journalist (d. 2007)
- 1934 – Jamie
Farr, American actor
- 1934 – Jean Marsh, English
actress
- 1934 – Sydney Pollack, American
film director (d. 2008)
- 1934 – Claude Berri, French actor,
director and screenwriter (d. 2009)
- 1938 – Craig Anderson, baseball
player
- 1939 – Karen
Black, American actress
- 1941 – Alfred
G. Gilman, American scientist,
Nobel
laureate
- 1941 – Myron Scholes, American
economist, Nobel
laureate
- 1941 – Twyla Tharp, American
choreographer
- 1941 – Rod Gilbert, Canadian hockey
player
- 1942 – Geneviève Bujold, Canadian
actress
- 1942 – Andraé Crouch, American
singer
- 1942 – Mike Malloy, American talk
radio host
- 1943 – Jeff
Wayne, American musician
- 1945 – Deborah
Harry, American musician (Blondie)
- 1945 – Mike Burstyn,
Israeli-American actor
- 1947 – Shirley
Hemphill, American actress (d. 1999)
- 1947 – Kazuyoshi Hoshino,
Japanese racing driver
- 1948 – John
Ford , English musician (Strawbs)
- 1949 – John
Farnham, Australian singer
- 1950 – David
Duke, American politician, K.K.K.
member
- 1951 – Fred
Schneider, American singer (The
B-52's)
- 1951 – Trevor
Eve, British actor
- 1951 – Anne Feeney, American protest
singer
- 1951 – Terrence Mann, American
actor and dancer
- 1952 – Dan
Aykroyd, Canadian actor
- 1952 – Steve Shutt, Canadian ice
hockey player
- 1952 – Timothy J. Tobias, American composer and musician (d.
2006)
- 1953 – Jadranka Kosor, first female Prime minister
of Croatia
.
- 1953 – Lawrence
Gonzi, Maltese Prime minister
- 1955 – Keith
Whitley, American singer (d. 1989)
- 1956 – Ulf
Larsson, Swedish actor (d. 2009)
- 1956 – Alan Ruck, American actor
- 1957 – Hannu
Kamppuri, Finnish ice hockey player
- 1959 – Dale
Midkiff, American actor
- 1960 – Evelyn King, American singer
- 1960 – Kevin
Swords, American Rugby Player
- 1961 – Kalpana
Chawla, Indian-American astronaut (d. 2003)
- 1961 – Diana, Princess of
Wales (d. 1997)
- 1961 – Malcolm Elliott, British
cyclist
- 1961 – Carl Lewis, American
athlete
- 1961 – Michelle Wright, Canadian
musician
- 1962 – Andre
Braugher, American actor
- 1963 – Roddy
Bottum, American musician (Faith No
More and Imperial Teen)
- 1963 – David Wood , American
environmental activist
- 1964 – Bernard
Laporte, French rugby player & coach
- 1965 – Harald
Zwart, Norwegian film director
- 1966 – Enrico
Annoni, Italian footballer
- 1967 – Pamela
Anderson, Canadian model
- 1968 – Tim Abell,
American actor
- 1968 – Jordi Mollà, Spanish
actor
- 1970 – Henry
Simmons, American actor
- 1970 – Melissa Peterman,
American actress
- 1971 – Steven
W. Bailey, American actor
- 1971 – Amira Casar, French
actress
- 1971 – Missy Elliott, American
rapper and singer
- 1971 – Julianne Nicholson,
American actress
- 1971 – Jamie Walker, American
baseball player
- 1972 – Claire
Forlani, English actress
- 1972 – Alex Machacek, Austrian
musician
- 1974 – Jefferson Pérez, Ecuadorian Gold
Medalist
- 1975 – Sufjan
Stevens, American musician
- 1976 – Patrick
Kluivert, Dutch footballer
- 1976 – Plies, American
rapper
- 1976 – Ruud van Nistelrooy,
Dutch footballer
- 1976 – Justin Lo, Hong Kong singer and
songwriter
- 1976 – Hannu Tihinen, Finnish
footballer
- 1977 – Jarome
Iginla, Canadian hockey player
- 1977 – Liv Tyler, American
actress
- 1977 – Keigo Hayashi, Japanese
music artist
- 1977 – Birgit Schuurman, Dutch
musician
- 1977 – Tom Frager, French-born singer
and surfer
- 1979 – Forrest
Griffin, American mixed martial artist
- 1980 – Patrick
Aufiero, American hockey player
- 1981 – Amanda
Diva, American actress and rapper
- 1981 – Tadhg
Kennelly, Irish Australian rules footballer
- 1981 – Demetria McKinney,
American actress
- 1982 – Hilarie
Burton, American actress
- 1982 – Carmella DeCesare,
American glamor model
- 1982 – Romola Garai, English
actress
- 1982 – Justin Huber, Australian
baseball player
- 1982 – Joachim Johansson,
Swedish tennis player
- 1982 – Adrian Ward,
American football player
- 1983 – Marit
Larsen, Norwegian musician (M2M)
- 1983 – Lynsey Bartilson,
American actress
- 1983 – Leeteuk, Korean singer
- 1986 – Andrew Lee, Australian
Australian rules footballer
- 1988 – Evan
Ellingson, American actor
- 1989 – Mitch
Hewer, English actor
- 1989 – Hannah Murray, English
actress
- 1998 – Hollie
Steel, Britain's Got Talent Finalist
Deaths
- 552 – Totila, king of
the Ostrogoths
- 868 – Ali
al-Hadi, Shia Imam (b. 828)
- 1109 – King Alfonso VI of Castile (b. 1040)
- 1277 – Baibars,
Mameluk sultan of Egypt (b. 1223)
- 1592 – Marc'Antonio Ingegneri, Italian
composer
- 1614 – Isaac
Casaubon, French-born classical scholar (b. 1559)
- 1622 – William Parker, 4th Baron
Monteagle, British politician (b. 1575)
- 1681 – Oliver
Plunkett, Irish saint (b. 1629)
- 1708 – Emperor Tekle Haymanot I of Ethiopia
(b. 1706)
- 1774 – Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland,
English statesman (b. 1705)
- 1782 – Charles
Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom (b. 1730)
- 1784 – Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, German
composer (b. 1710)
- 1819 – Jemima
Wilkinson, American preacher (b. 1752)
- 1839 – Mahmud II,
Ottoman Sultan (b. 1785)
- 1860 – Charles
Goodyear, American inventor (b. 1800)
- 1863 – John
Fulton Reynolds, American Civil War general (b. 1820)
- 1894 – Allan
Pinkerton, American private detective (b. 1819)
- 1896 – Harriet Beecher Stowe, American author
(b. 1811)
- 1905 – John Hay,
American statesman (b. 1838)
- 1925 – Erik
Satie, French composer (b. 1866)
- 1942 – Peadar Mac Fhionnlaoich, Irish
language writer (b. 1857)
- 1944 – Tanya
Savicheva, Russian diarist (b. 1930)
- 1948 – Achille
Varzi, Italian race car driver (b. 1904)
- 1950 – Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Swiss musician
(b. 1865)
- 1950 – Eliel Saarinen, Finnish
architect (b. 1873)
- 1961 – Louis-Ferdinand Céline, French
writer (b. 1894)
- 1964 – Pierre
Monteux, French conductor (b. 1875)
- 1965 – Wally
Hammond, English cricketer (b. 1903)
- 1968 – Fritz
Bauer, German judge and prosecutor (b. 1903)
- 1971 – William Lawrence Bragg, English
physicist, Nobel Prize
laureate (b. 1890)
- 1974 – Juan
Perón, President of
Argentina (b. 1895)
- 1976 – Anneliese Michel, German woman said to be
possessed by demons (b. 1952)
- 1978 – Kurt
Student, German Luftwaffe general (b. 1890)
- 1981 – Carlos
de Oliveira, Portuguese writer (b. 1921)
- 1981 – Rushton Moreve, American
bass player (b. 1948)
- 1983 – R. Buckminster Fuller, American architect
and philosopher (b. 1903)
- 1984 – Moshe
Feldenkrais, Ukrainian-born educator (b. 1904)
- 1987 – Snakefinger, British-born musician (b.
1949)
- 1991 – Michael
Landon, American actor (b. 1936)
- 1992 – Franco
Cristaldi, Italian film producer (b. 1924)
- 1992 – Francisco Mendes,
Guinea-Bissauan politician (b. 1933)
- 1994 – Merriam
Modell, American author (b. 1908)
- 1995 – Wolfman
Jack, American radio personality (b. 1938)
- 1996 – William
T. Cahill, American politician
(b. 1904)
- 1996 – Steve Tesich, Serbian
screenwriter (b. 1942)
- 1996 – Margaux Hemingway,
American actress and model (b. 1954)
- 1997 – Robert
Mitchum, American actor (b. 1917)
- 1999 – Edward
Dmytryk, Canadian-born film director (b. 1908)
- 1999 – Guy Mitchell, American
popular singer (b. 1927)
- 1999 – Forrest Mars Sr.,
American candy magnate (b. 1904)
- 1999 – Sylvia Sidney, American
actress (b. 1910)
- 2000 – Sarah
Payne, British murder victim (b. 1992)
- 2000 – Walter Matthau, American
actor (b. 1920)
- 2001 – Nikolay
Basov, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1922)
- 2003 – Herbie
Mann, American jazz flutist (b. 1930)
- 2003 – Wesley Mouzon, American
boxer (b. 1927)
- 2003 – N!xau, Namibian actor (b.
1944)
- 2004 – Peter
Barnes, English writer (b. 1931)
- 2004 – Todor Skalovski,
Macedonian composer (b. 1909)
- 2004 – Marlon Brando, American
actor (b. 1924)
- 2005 – Luther
Vandross, American singer (b. 1951)
- 2005 – Obie Benson, American
musician (b. 1936)
- 2006 – Fred
Trueman, English cricketer (b. 1931)
- 2008 – Mel
Galley, English guitarist (b. 1948)
- 2009 – Karl
Malden, American actor (b. 1912)
- 2009 – Onni Palaste, Finnish writer
(b. 1917)
- 2009 – Mollie Sugden, English
actress (b. 1922)
- 2009 – Alexis Argüello,
Nicaraguan boxer (b. 1952)
- 2009 – Marwa El-Sherbini,
Egyptian housewife (b. 1977 or 1976)
Holidays and observances
- Australia, New Zealand
: Tartan Day
- Botswana
: Sir Seretse Khama
Day
- Bulgaria
: July Morning
tradition.
- Burundi
: Independence
Day
- Canada
: Canada Day (formerly Dominion Day)
- Ghana
: Republic Day
- Hong
Kong
: Hong
Kong SAR Establishment Day
- Madeira
: Madeira Day
- Netherlands Antilles
, Suriname
: Emancipation
Day
- Rwanda
: Independence Day
- Somalia
: Republic
Day
- Roman Catholic Church:
- Aaron, brother of Moses
- Blessed Junípero Serra,
Spanish Franciscian friar
- Saint Calais, abbot of Ancille
- Saint Gaius, pope, martyr
- Saint John the Baptist's
Octave
- Saints Julius and Aaron,
martyrs
- Saint Leontius, bishop of Autun, confessor
- Saint Oliver Plunkett,
martyr
- Saint Rumbold, Rumold, or Rombout,
bishop, martyr
- Saint Servanus, bishop,
confessor
- Saint Theobald, priest,
confessor
External links