August 22

• August 22, 634
  Abu Bakr, successor of Mohammed and first Caliph, dies; Umar, a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, becomes the second Caliph
• August 22, 1138
  The english defeat Scots at the battle of the Standard
• August 22, 1236
  Volkwin, the Master of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, is defeated and killed by the Samogitians at the Battle of Saule which causes merging the order into the Teutonic Order
• August 22, 1350
  Philip VI of Valois, King of France, dies; John II of France succeeds
• August 22, 1485
  England's King Richard III, the last of the Plantagenet kings, is killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field, that ends the War of the Roses and establishes the Tudor dynasty in England
• August 22, 1614
  Trades people under Vincent Fettmilch chase and plunder Jews out of ghetto in Frankfurt
• August 22, 1642
  Civil war in England, resulted in the establishment of the supremacy of Parliament over the king, begins as King Charles I declared war on the Puritan Parliament at Nottingham
• August 22, 1676
  Ole Rømer, a Danish astronomer, publishes the first measurement of the speed of light based on the times of the eclipses of Io, the moon of Jupiter
• August 22, 1717
  The Austrian army under Eugene of Savoy force the Turkish army out of Belgrade, ending the Turkish revival in the Balkans
• August 22, 1787
  Inventor John Fitch demonstrates his steamboat, the Perseverance, on the Delaware River to delegates of the Continental Congress
• August 22, 1791
  Haitian Revolution, the only slave revolt which led to the founding of a state, begins in the French colony of Saint-Domingue
• August 22, 1831
  Nat Turner's Rebellion, a slave rebellion in Virginia, which claimed from 55 to 65 people, is suppressed by white militias
• August 22, 1849
  Earliest recorded air raid occurs, as Austria employs 200 balloons to deliver ordinance against Venice
• February 12, 1851
  Gold fields are discovered by gold prospector Edward Hargraves in New South Wales, Australia, starting Victorian gold rush
• August 22, 1864
  In Geneva, Switzerland, representatives of 12 nations agreed to sign the First Geneva Convention "for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field"
• August 22, 1875
  Russia recognizes Japan's control over the 4 southernmost Kuril Islands and by the Treaty of Saint Petersburg and gets all rights over Sakhalin in exchange
• August 22, 1910
  Imperial Japan annexes Korea bringing to a close the Joseon Dynasty and starting the modernization and industrialization in the peninsula
• August 22, 1932
  The British Broadcasting Corporation begins experimental regular TV broadcasts
• August 22, 1942
  Brazil declares war on Germany
• August 22, 1969
  Hurricane Camille strikes U.S. Gulf Coast and kills 255
• August 22, 2006
  The International Congress of Mathematicians awards Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman the Fields Medal for proving the Poincare conjecture, one of seven Millennium Prize Problems, but Perelman refuses the medal
• August 22, 2007
  Myanmar government arrests thirteen dissidents who led protests against huge rises in fuel prices
• August 22, 2008
  Pirates hijack German, Iranian, and Japanese cargo ships off the coast of Somalia, in seven such attacks since June 20

August 15

• August 15, 636
  At the Battle at Yarmuk Islamic forces under Khalid ibn al-Walid beat a Byzantine army under Emperor Heraclius and gain control of Syria and Palestine
• August 15, 718
  The combined Byzantine–Bulgarian forces decisively defeat Umayyad navy using Greek fire after thirteen months of siege of Constantinople, stopping the Arab threat in Eastern Europe
• August 15, 778
  The Basques, an ethnic group from western end of the Pyrenees, beat forces of Charlemagne and Roland, prefect of the Breton March, at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass
• August 15, 1040
  Macbeth kills Duncan I at Pitgaveny and becomes the King of the Scots
• August 15, 1057
  Macbeth, the King of Scotland, is mortally wounded at the Battle of Lumphanan, by Malcolm Canmore, the eldest son of King Duncan I, who was killed by Macbeth 17 years earlier
• August 15, 1261
  Constantinople falls to Michael VIII Palaiologos who transforms the Empire of Nicaea into a restored Byzantine Empire
• August 15, 1511
  Malacca, the capital of the Sultanate of Malacca and center of East Indian spice trade, is captured by Portuguese general Afonso de Albuquerque
• August 15, 1519
  Panama City is founded
• August 15, 1549
  Francis Xavier, a co-founder of the Society of Jesus, lands in Kagoshima with the first Portuguese Jesuit missionary to rich Japan
• August 15, 1598
  Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, leads an Irish force to victory over the British at Battle of Yellow Ford
• August 15, 1649
  Oliver Cromwell lands in Ireland beginning the conquest of Ireland
• August 15, 1760
  Frederick II, king of Prussia, defeats the Austrians at the Battle of Liegnitz
• August 15, 1769
  Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France and continental Europe, is born on the island of Corsica
• August 15, 1799
  Combined army of Austrians and Imperial Russians under Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov beat French Revolutionary Army at Novi Ligure, Italy, recapturing lands taken by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1796
• August 15, 1806
  Construction of Arc de Triomphe, a triumphal arch in Paris, starts by order of Napoleon in honor of the victory at Austerlitz
• August 15, 1865
  Sir Joseph Lister discovers the antiseptic process while working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, which led to a reduction in post-operative infections
• August 15, 1867
  Second Reform Bill extends suffrage in England giving the vote to the working classes
• August 15, 1914
  Panama Canal, one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects, officially opens in Panama, connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean
• August 15, 1935
  Famed American aviator Wiley Post and humorist Will Rogers are killed in plane crash in Alaska
• August 15, 1944
  The Allies launch Operation Anvil, as a second Allied invasion force under Lieutenant-General Jacob Devers lands on the Mediterranean coast of France between Cannes and Toulon
• August 15, 1947
  The greater Indian subcontinent formed by the Partition of India gain independence from the British Empire as Dominion of India, with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru as the first Prime Minister
• August 15, 1948
  Republic of Korea, South Korea, is proclaimed by an anti-Communist Syngman Rhee, who has been backed and appointed by the United States as head of the provisional government
• August 15, 1969
  Woodstock Music and Art Fair, widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history, opens in New York State
• August 15, 1971
  US President Richard Nixon's administration refuses to settle foreign debts in gold at $35 per ounce, dropping the gold standard, and allowing the dollar to float in foreign exchanges, also imposes a 90-day wage and price freeze

August 13

• August 13, 604
  Chinese emperor Wen is murdered by Yang, his son, who succeeds the throne
• August 13, 1415
  King Henry V of England takes his army across the English Channel and lays siege on Port Harfleur in Normandy
• August 13, 1521
  Spanish conqueror Hernando Cortez conquers the Mexican city of Tenochtitlan, modern-day Mexico City, after an 85-day battle and completes conquest of Aztec Empire
• August 13, 1624
  French King Louis XIII names Cardinal Richelieu his first minister who becomes the world's first Prime Minister and begins to transform France into a centralized state
• August 13, 1630
  Emperor Frederick II fires Albrecht von Wallenstein, his best military commander
• August 13, 1642
  Christiaan Huygens, a prominent Dutch mathematician, discovers the Martian south polar cap
• August 13, 1645
  At Brömsebro peace is signed between Sweden and Denmark. Sweden gains the islands of Gotland and Halland from Denmark, Norway cedes to Sweden the northern provinces of Jämtland and Härjedalen
• August 13, 1704
  The Battle of Blenheim, the turning point of the War of the Spanish Succession, results in decisive English and Austrian forces victory under Prince Eugene of Savoy and Duke of Marlborough over the Franco-Bavarian army
• August 13, 1787
  The Russian ambassador to the Ottomans, Yakov Bulgakov, is thrown into prison and the Ottoman Empire declares war on Russia starting the Russo–Turkish War of 1787–1792
• August 13, 1792
  Louis XVI of France is declared an enemy of the people and imprisoned with the French royal family, including Marie Antoinette, by revolutionaries
• August 13, 1814
  Netherland is signed to stop the transport of slaves and returns its colonial possessions before the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars by Treaty of London
• August 13, 1826
  Alexander Gordon Laing, British Army Major, crosses on camel the Sahara Desert from Tripoli and becomes the first European to enter the fabled city of Timbuktu in Mali
• August 13, 1849
  Hungary's General Artúr Görgey surrender to the Russian forces, who invaded Hungary to help Austrian Empire in struggle against Hungarian rebellions
• August 13, 1868
  In Arica, Peru, a magnitude 8.5-9.0 earthquake occurs, with catastrophic tsunamis killing 25,000 in South America
• August 13, 1876
  Richard Wagner's monumental epic, "Der Ring des Nibelungen" is first performed in its entirety at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, Bavaria, Germany
• August 13, 1898
  Manila, the capital of the Philippines, falls to the United States Army under Admiral George Dewey
• August 13, 1913
  Harry Brearley, an English metallurgist, produces the first stainless steel
• August 13, 1918
  Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is established as a public company for aircraft-engine production in Germany
• August 13, 1923
  Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is elected president of the newly established Republic of Turkey
• August 13, 1960
  Central African Republic proclaims independence from France
• August 13, 1961
  The units of the East German army close the border and begin building of the Berlin Wall

August 12

• August 12, 30 BC
  Cleopatra, the most famous queen and the last active pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, kills herself by inducing an Egyptian cobra to bite her after her beloved Mark Antony's suicide
• August 12, 1093
  In England the foundation stone for Durham Cathedral is laid down
• August 12, 1332
  Rebels supporting the Balliol beat forces of the infant David II, the son of Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Dupplin Moor in Scotland
• August 12, 1399
  Battle of the Vorskla River, a major battle between joint armies of Tokhtamysh and Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania, and the Tatars, under Edigu and Temur Qutlugh, ends in a decisive Tatar victory
• August 12, 1508
  Juan Ponce de León, a Spanish explorer, arrives to New World to conquer the Puerto Rico
• August 12, 1648
  Seven-year-old Mehmed IV succeeds Ibrahim in the Ottoman House of Osman
• August 12, 1687
  At the Battle of Mohács, Hungary, the forces of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, commanded by Charles of Lorraine defeated the Turks
• August 12, 1759
  Forces of Frederick the Great are defeated by combined army of Russians and Austrians under Pyotr Saltykov at Kunersdorf, which gives the victors the opportunity to march against Berlin
• August 12, 1812
  British commander the Duke of Wellington occupies Madrid, Spain, forcing out Joseph Bonaparte
• August 12, 1851
  Isaac Singer, the founder of the Singer Sewing Machine Company, is granted a patent for his sewing machine
• August 12, 1883
  The last quagga, subspecies of the plains zebra, dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam
• August 12, 1896
  Gold is discovered at Dawson on the Klondike River in Alaska, triggering Klondike Gold Rush in Canada
• August 12, 1981
  At the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, and in Boca Raton, Florida, IBM announces the model 5150, called IBM Personal Computer, a progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform
• August 12, 1982
  Mexico announces it is unable to pay its large foreign debt, triggering a debt crisis that quickly spreads throughout Latin America
• August 12, 1985
  Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes in Japan, killing 520 people becoming the worst single-aircraft disaster in history
• August 12, 1990
  The largest and most complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex, called "Sue", is discovered near Faith, South Dakota
• August 12, 2000
  The Russian submarine K-141 Kursk sinks in the Barents Sea, resulting in the deaths of all 118 men on board

August 11

• August 11, 3114 BC
  The Mayan calendar, a system of calendars consisting of several counts of different lengths, begins in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica
• August 11, 117
  The Roman army of Syria hail its legate, Hadrian, as emperor, which made the senate's formal acceptance an almost meaningless event
• August 11, 991
  Danes under Olaf Tryggvason defeat Anglo-Saxons forces at Battle of Maldon and kill Ealdorman of Essex Byrhtnoth
• August 11, 1804
  Austrian Empire is proclaimed by Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, who assumes the title of the first Emperor of Austria, as a reaction to Napoleon making himself an emperor
• August 11, 1918
  Battle of Amiens, the opening phase of the Allied offensive against Germany, known as the Hundred Days Offensive, ends with Allied victory
• August 11, 1960
  Chad declares independence from France and becomes one of seventeen nations in Africa to gain independence in 1960, what became known as Year of Africa
• August 11, 1966
  Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation ends after Indonesian General Suharto sign peace agreement with Malaysia
• August 11, 1984
  United States President Ronald Reagan, during a voice check for a radio broadcast remarks "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes"
• August 11, 2003
  A heat wave in Paris causes temperatures up to 44 degrees C
• August 11, 2009
  The Perseid meteor showers peak at 200 observations per hour

August 10

• August 10, 843
  Sons of Louis the Pious divide Charlemagne's Empire by Treaty of Verdun, so Charles the Bald receives the western portion, which later became France, Louis the German get eastern lands, later the medieval kingdom of Germany, and Lothair I receives the central part
• August 10, 1497
  John Cabot told King Henry VII of his trip to "Asia" after his return from his first successful journey to the Labrador coast
• August 10, 1500
  Portuguese explorer Diogo Dias discovers Madagascar
• August 10, 1539
  King Francis I of France signs edict known as Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts, declaring that all official documents are to be written in French, not Latin
• August 10, 1557
  Spanish and English troops in alliance defeat the French at the Battle of St. Quentin (San Quintino)
• August 10, 1582
  Russia ends its 25-year war with Poland and cedes Livonia and Estonia to Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth losing access to the Baltic
• August 10, 1627
  Cardinal Richelieu begins a siege to Protestant La Rochelle, a Huguenot stronghold
• August 10, 1628
  The Swedish 69-meter warship Vasa capsizes and sinks in Stockholm harbor on her maiden voyage because the ballast is insufficient to counterweight the 64 guns and ballast
• August 10, 1675
  King of England Charles II lays the foundation stone of Royal Observatory in Greenwich, an important institution in the history of astronomy and navigation
• August 10, 1678
  The Treaty of Nijmegen ends the hostilities with France and gives to France control over the region of the Franche-Comté
• August 10, 1680
  In New Mexico Popé, a Tewa religious leader, leads rebellion of Pueblo Indians against Spaniads
• August 10, 1755
  The Great Upheaval, forced population transfer of the French Acadian population from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, begins
• August 10, 1779
  Louis XVI of France frees the last remaining serfs on royal land
• August 10, 1787
  Mozart completes his composition Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
• August 10, 1792
  Some 20,000 Parisians attack the Tuileries palace of Louis XVI at the instigation of Georges Jacques Danton and massacre some 600 guardsmen after Louis orders his Swiss guard to stop firing on the people
• August 10, 1809
  Quito, the seat of a real audiencia of Spain in modern-day Ecuador, declares independence from Spain
• August 10, 1861
  Union general Nathaniel Lyon the first Union general to be killed in the American Civil War, at the Battle of Wilson's Creek in Missouri, which ends with a Confederate victory
• August 10, 1913
  Second Balkan War ends with Treaty of Bucharest, which confirms territorial acquisitions of Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria at the expense of Ottoman Empire during the First and Second Balkan Wars
• August 10, 1927
  United States President Calvin Coolidge formally dedicates the Mount Rushmore site
• August 10, 2010
  The World Health Organization declares the H1N1 influenza pandemic over, saying worldwide flu activity has returned to typical seasonal patterns

August 4

• August 4, 1265
  At the Battle of Evesham Edward I of England defeat forces rebellious barons under Simon de Montfort, who dies in battle
• August 4, 1347
  After an 11 month siege, French city of Calais falls to England's King Edward III
• August 4, 1578
  King Sebastian of Portugal is killed and Portuguese forces are defeated at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir, in Morocco against Saadi dynasty of Morocco, which leads to Portuguese succession crisis of 1580
• August 4, 1735
  Jury acquits John Zenger is charged with seditious libel by royal governor of New York
• August 4, 1753
  George Washington becomes a master mason
• August 4, 1789
  National Constituent Assembly in France dissolves feudal system by abolishing the privileges of nobility
• August 4, 1791
  The chief item in the Peace of Sistova agreement between the Austrian Empire and Ottoman Empire returns of Belgrade, taken in 1789 by the Holy Roman emperor Joseph II, to Turkey
• August 4, 1912
  United States forces are dispatched from Annapolis to the Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, at the recommendation of the Nicaraguan president, starting occupation of Nicaragua
• August 4, 1916
  United States agrees to buy Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million
• August 4, 1944
  German Gestapo discover the hiding place of Anne Frank and family, and others hiding in a warehouse and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, but Anne's diary is left behind, undiscovered by the Germans, later found in 1947
• August 4, 1984
  The African republic Upper Volta changes its name to Burkina Faso
• August 4, 2009
  North Korean leader Kim Jong Il pardons two American journalists, who have been arrested and imprisoned for illegal entry earlier in the year, after former United States President Bill Clinton meets with Kim in North Korea

July 26

• July 26, 657
  Battle of Siffin occurs between Governor of Syria Muawiyah I and Rashidun Caliphate during the first Muslim civil war
• July 26, 811
  The Bulgarian under monarch Krum beat the Byzantines at the Battle at Pliska and kill Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros I
• July 26, 1529
  Francisco Pizarro is made governor for life and captain-general in New Spain
• July 26, 1758
  British battle fleet under General James Wolfe capture France's Fortress of Louisbourg on Ile Royale in Nova Scotia after a 7-week siege, thus gaining control of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River
• July 26, 1759
  The French relinquish Fort Carillon in Ticonderoga, New York, to the British under General Jeffrey Amherst
• July 26, 1775
  The Continental Congress established a postal system for the colonies with Benjamin Franklin as the first postmaster general in Philadelphia
• July 26, 1794
  The French defeat an Austrian army at the Battle of Fleurus in France
• July 26, 1830
  King Charles X of France issues five ordinances limiting the political and civil rights of citizens triggering July Revolution
• July 26, 1847
  Liberia becomes the first African colony to become an independent state after Declaration of Independence from American Colonization Society, and promulgate a constitution based on the political principles denoted in the United States Constitution
• July 26, 1848
  Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention in the United States, sign the Declaration of Sentiments written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, which leads to the battle for suffrage and women's legal rights
• July 26, 1953
  Fidel Castro leads attack on Moncada Barracks, beginning Cuban revolution
• July 26, 1956
  Egypt nationalize Suez Canal, triggering Suez Crisis
• July 26, 1957
  USSR launches the first intercontinental multistage ballistic missile, R-7 Semyorka
• July 26, 1963
  Syncom 2, the first geostationary satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral, United States
• July 26, 1965
  Republic of Maldives gains independence from Britain

July 23

• July 23, 1759
  Russians under Saltikov defeat Prussians at Kay in eastern Germany, and one-fourth of Prussian army of 27,000 lost
• July 23, 1785
  Prussia's King Frederick the Great forms Fürstenbund, an alliance of mostly Protestant princes in the Holy Roman Empire to oppose the long-cherished ambition of Joseph II to add Bavaria to the Habsburg domains
• July 23, 1829
  William Austin Burt, an American inventor, receives a patent for his typographer, a forerunner of the typewriter
• July 23, 1868
  The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, granting freed slaves full citizenship and equal protection under the laws, however it did not spell out the extent of integration with white America
• July 23, 1920
  British East Africa Protectorate is turned into a colony and renamed Kenya, for its highest mountain
• July 23, 1952
  A military junta in Egypt under command of Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrows King Farouk and proclaims republic
• July 23, 1967
  Massive riot erupts in Detroit after confrontation between police officers and African American bar patrons leaving in 5 days, 43 people dead, 467 injured, and thousands of buildings destroyed
• July 23, 1972
  First Earth Resources Technology Satellite is launched for obtaining information on agricultural and forestry resources, geology and mineral resources
• July 23, 1985
  Commodore International introduces the Amiga 1000 computer, which features custom color graphics and stereo sound processors, a multitasking, windowing operating system

July 21

• July 21, 365
  An earthquake with epicenter in Crete levels the Egyptian Port of Alexandria as well as the Roman outpost of Leptis Magna in Libya, while thousands people dies
• July 21, 1403
  Henry IV defeats the rebel forces of English nobleman Henry Percy in the Battle of Shrewsbury during Glyndŵr Rising
• July 21, 1669
  John Locke's Constitution of English colony Carolina is approved
• July 21, 1711
  Russia and Turkey sign the Treaty of Pruth, which ends the year-long Russo-Turkish War and stipulates the return of Azov to the Ottomans and destruction of Taganrog and several Russian fortresses
• July 21, 1718
  The Turkish threat to Europe is eliminated with the signing of the Treaty of Passarowitz between Austria, Venice and the Ottoman Empire, starting Tulip period of the Ottoman Empire, a relatively peaceful period, during which the Ottoman Empire orients towards Europe
• July 21, 1773
  Pope Clement XIV promulgates Dominus ac Redemptor, a papal brief by which the Society of Jesus is suppressed
• July 21, 1798
  Napoleon Bonaparte defeats Murad Bey and his Mameluke warriors on the outskirts of Cairo at the Battle of the Pyramids ending 700 years of Mamluk rule in Egypt
• July 21, 1822
  Agustín de Iturbide, a Mexican army general and politician, is crowned Agustín I and becomes the first Emperor of Mexico
• July 21, 1831
  The Belgian Revolution in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands leads to the creation of Belgium as independent country with Leopold I, who takes the oath as King of the Belgians
• July 21, 1832
  Treaty of Constantinople grants Greek independence
• July 21, 1861
  In the first major battle of the Civil War, known as First Battle of Bull Run, Confederate forces repel an attempt by the Union Army to turn their flank in Virginia
• July 21, 1873
  At Adair, Iowa, more than seven years after the Liberty holdup, the James-Younger gang makes their first train robbery
• July 21, 1917
  Alexander Kerensky, a moderate socialist party member, becomes Russian Prime Minister
• July 21, 1925
  John Scopes, a Tennessee high school teacher, is indicted for teaching the theory of evolution to students of his science classes in violation of a Tennessee state law, and fined US$100
• July 21, 1954
  At Geneva, Switzerland, France agrees to independence of North and South Vietnam ending the First Indochina War
• July 21, 1969
  American astronaut Neil Armstrong steps off the lunar landing module Eagle during the spaceflight Apollo 11, becoming the first human to walk on the surface of the moon
• July 21, 1973
  USSR launches Mars 4 for fly-by of the red planet

July 14

• July 14, 1420
  Hussite forces under command of Jan Žižka defeat the forces of Emperor Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor at the Battle of Vítkov Hill, a part of the first anti-Hussite crusade, on the edge of the city of Prague
• July 14, 1520
  Hernando Cortes beats the Aztecs at the Battle of Otumba in Mexico
• July 14, 1683
  Turks lay siege to Vienna
• July 14, 1771
  Junípero Serra, a Spanish Franciscan friar, founds the Mission San Antonio de Padua in California
• July 14, 1789
  Citizens of Paris, France, storm the Bastille fortress used as a prison to hold political prisoners, beginning the French Revolution and building foundation to modern political structure
• July 14, 1795
  The Marseillaise, a song written by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle to mobilize all the citizens to fight against the foreign invasion, is officially adopted as the French national anthem
• April 30, 1803
  The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million and doubles the size of the country by Louisiana Purchase Treaty
• July 14, 1853
  Commodore Matthew Perry meets with the chief senior councillor in the Japanese government at ceremony at Kurihama, Japan, and presents a letter from former President Fillmore to Emperor Osahito requesting trade relations
• July 14, 1868
  Tape measure enclosed in a circular case is patented, by AJ Fellows, in Connecticut, United States
• July 14, 1877
  The Great Railroad Strike of 1877, the world's first nationwide labor strike, begins in Martinsburg, West Virginia due to wage cuts and poor working conditions
• July 14, 1889
  A Congress of world Socialist parties selected May 1 as International Workers Day to support the United States labor struggle
• July 14, 1897
  Swede Saloman Andrée's and 2 accomplices, Knute Fraenkle and Nils Strindberg, in the Ornen balloon are forced down after 64 hours in the first expedition to fly by balloon across the North Pole
• July 14, 1914
  First patent for liquid-fueled rocket design is granted to American physicist Robert H. Goddard
• July 14, 1946
  American pediatrician Benjamin Spock publishes his book The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, the best-selling book on infant and child care
• July 14, 1958
  King Faisal II, the last King of Iraq, is assassinated during the 14 July Revolution at Baghdad
• July 14, 1960
  Jane Goodall, an English primatologist and anthropologist, begins studying the Kasakela chimpanzee community in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania
• July 14, 2007
  Following a presidential decree, Russia withdraws from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe
• July 14, 2008
  The Dark Knight, one of the best superhero films based on the DC Comics character Batman, is released in New York

July 11

• July 11, 1144
  The construction of Basilica of St Denis, a large medieval abbey church and the first truly Gothic building where buried many kings of France with their families, is finished in the commune of Saint-Denis near Paris
• July 11, 1302
  Fleming militiamen defeat heavily-armoured French army at Courtrai during Franco-Flemish War
• July 11, 1533
  Pope Clement VII excommunicates England's King Henry VIII
• July 11, 1690
  Army of England's Protestant King William III defeats Roman Catholic King James II in Battle of the Boyne in Ireland which ensures the continuation of Protestant ascendancy in Ireland
• July 11, 1708
  The French are defeated at Oudenarde in the Netherlands by the Duke of Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy
• July 11, 1789
  Marquis de Lafayette introduces Declaration of Rights of Man in France
• July 11, 1792
  Prussia army moves into French territory
• July 11, 1804
  Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounds Alexander Hamilton, former first Treasury Secretary, in a pistol duel near Weehawken, New Jersey
• July 11, 1833
  In Australia the native warrior Yagan, who played a key part in early Indigenous Australian resistance to British settlement, is shot dead by teenage bounty hunters
• July 11, 1882
  Bombardment of Alexandria is begun by the British Mediterranean Fleet to suppress ‘Urabi Revolt against the khedive Tewfik Pasha
• July 11, 1893
  The first cultured pearl is obtained by Japanese entrepreneur Mikimoto Kōkichi
• July 11, 1921
  Mongolia, formerly Outer Mongolia, declares independence from China after successfully military operation of Russian and Mongolian troops
• July 11, 1960
  Harper Lee's novel To Kill A Mockingbird is published
• July 11, 1962
  Telstar 1, the first communications satellite, launched by NASA, relays its first, and non-public, television pictures
• July 11, 1979
  First space station, Skylab, reenters Earth's atmosphere and disintegrates
• July 11, 1987
  World population reaches 5 billion people, according to the United Nations
• July 11, 2006
  A series of coordinated bomb attacks strikes several commuter trains in Mumbai, India during the evening rush hour

July 9

• July 9, 118
  Hadrian, Rome's new emperor, makes his entry into the city
• July 9, 455
  Avitus, the Roman military commander in Gaul, becomes Emperor of the West
• July 9, 1386
  Old Swiss Confederation, a loose confederation of independent small states in modern-day Switzerland, defeats Habsburg army at the Battle of Sempach, during which Duke of Austria Leopold III dies
• July 9, 1401
  Timur, a Turko-Mongol monarch, destroys Baghdad and massacres 20,000 of its citizens
• July 9, 1595
  Johannes Kepler, a German mathematician and astronomer, inscribes geometric solid construction of universe
• July 9, 1755
  British troops are defeated at Fort Duquesne during French and Indian War and General Edward Braddock is mortally wounded
• July 9, 1789
  In Versailles, the French National Assembly, formed by the representatives of the Third Estate of the Estates-General, declares itself the Constituent Assembly and begins to prepare a French constitution
• July 9, 1790
  The Swedish navy is victorious over the Russian navy at Svenskund in the Baltic Sea sinking or capturing 50-64 Russian ships, and killing or capturing 7,000-9,000 men
• July 9, 1797
  Edmund Burke, Irish-born British statesman and founder of modern conservatism, dies
• July 9, 1816
  Congress of Tucumán, a representative assembly consisting of 33 deputies, issues the Declaration of Independence of the United Provinces of South America, also called the Argentine Republic
• July 9, 1850
  Zachary Taylor, the 12th president of the United States, dies of cholera at the age of 65 after serving only 16 months and is succeeded by Millard Fillmore
• July 9, 1893
  Daniel Hale Williams, an African-American general surgeon, performs the first successful heart surgery on a teenager in Chicago
• July 9, 1915
  Germany surrenders South West Africa to Union of South Africa
• July 9, 1943
  Allied forces launch amphibious invasion of Sicily, starting the Italian Campaign of World War II and triggering fall of Mussolini's regime
• July 9, 1962
  Andy Warhol, a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art, shows in his first one-man gallery exhibition the artwork Campbell's Soup Cans
• July 9, 1980
  Seven people are crushed to death in a crowd meeting Pope John Paul II during his visit in Brazil
• July 9, 2002
  The Organization of African Unity is officially disbanded and replaced by the African Union

July 8

• July 8, 810
  Pepin the Hunchback, the eldest son of Charlemagne, king of Italy, dies
• July 8, 1497
  Vasco da Gama, Portuguese explorer, begins his first voyage from Europe to India via South Africa
• July 8, 1686
  The Austrians take Buda, Hungary, from the Turks and annexed the country
• July 8, 1709
  Charles XII of Sweden flees to Ottoman Empire after Peter I of Russia defeats his army at the Battle of Poltava during Great Northern War and effectively ends the Swedish empire, making Russia major European power
• July 8, 1730
  A magnitude 8.7 earthquake in Valparaíso, Chile, kills at least 3,000 people
• July 8, 1758
  During the French and Indian War a British attack on Fort Carillon at Ticonderoga, New York, is foiled by the French when some 3,500 Frenchmen defeat the British army of 15,000, which lost 2,000 men
• July 8, 1776
  Colonel John Nixon gives first public reading of Declaration of Independence
• July 8, 1853
  An expedition led by United States Commodore Matthew Perry arrives in Japan on the steam-powered "Black Ships" and threatens the Japanese capital Edo with gunships, demanding that they agree to open trade
• July 8, 1889
  In Mississippi Jake Kilrain fights boxing champion John L. Sullivan in the last world heavyweight championship prizefight decided with bare knuckles under London Prize Ring rules in history
• July 8, 1969
  United States troops begin to withdrawal from Vietnam
• July 8, 1994
  Kim II Sung, the leader of North Korea since 1945, dies at age 82
• July 8, 1997
  NATO invites the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland to join the alliance in 1999
• July 8, 2014
  Amid growing tensions between Israel and Hamas following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in June, Israel launches Operation Protective Edge on the Palestinian Gaza Strip starting with numerous missile strikes

July 1

• July 1, 69
  Roman general Vespasian is proclaimed emperor by the army in Egypt under Tiberius Julius Alexander, starting Flavian Dynasty
• July 1, 600
  Sutton Hoo helmet, one of the most important Anglo-Saxon artefacts, is left among other ceremonial artefacts in the ship-burial in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of East Anglia
• July 1, 1390
  A French and Genoese armada sail out against Barbary pirates
• July 1, 1569
  The Union of Lublin replaces the personal union of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with an elective monarchy and creates the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth for protection against the growing power of Muscovite Russia
• July 1, 1596
  An English fleet under the Earl of Essex, Lord Howard of Nottingham and Francis Vere capture and sack Cadiz, Spain
• July 1, 1634
  Gian Lorenzo Bernini, an Italian artist and a prominent architect, completes bronze St. Peter's Baldachin in St. Peter's Basilica, which becomes one of the earliest examples of Baroque sculpture
• July 1, 1643
  Westminster Assembly, a synod composed of theologians and members of Parliament appointed to restructure the Church of England, begins
• July 1, 1690
  Led by Marshall Luxembourg, the French defeat the forces of the Grand Alliance at Fleurus in the Netherlands
• July 1, 1798
  Shortly after disembarkment at Alexandria forces of Napoleon Bonaparte break into the city of Alexandria in Egypt and takes it
• July 1, 1823
  The United Provinces of Central America, a state consisting of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and San Salvador, gains independence from Mexico
• July 1, 1849
  Henry David Thoreau, an American author, publishes his essay Resistance to Civil Government, an argument for disobedience to an unjust state
• July 1, 1850
  Rudolf Clausius, a German physicist, publishes the basic ideas of the second law of thermodynamics, stating that in a natural thermodynamic process, there is an increase in the sum of the entropies of the participating systems
• July 1, 1858
  The works "On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties" by British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace and "Extract from an unpublished Work on Species" by Charles Darwin, announce the theory of evolution by natural selection to the Linnean Society of London
• July 1, 1862
  In Seven Days Battles Confederate General Robert E. Lee drove the invading Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by major general George B. McClellan
• July 1, 1863
  The opening shot at the Battle of Gettysburg, the American Civil War's turning point, at 7:30 a.m. begins the first day's fighting at Gettysburg, in which Federal forces retreat through the town and dug in at Cemetery Ridge and Cemetery Hill
• July 1, 1867
  Dominion of Canada is formed from three British colonies by Constitution Act, issued by Queen Victoria, making Canada a self-governing dominion of Great Britain
• July 1, 1885
  Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher, writes philosophical novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in which points to human as a transition between apes and the "Übermensch", or "overman"
• July 1, 1898
  American troops take San Juan Hill and El Caney, Cuba, from the Spaniards
• July 1, 1916
  British suffer over 50,000 casualties in the first day of the Battle of the Somme, one of humanity's bloodiest battles, fought by the armies of the British and French empires against the German Empire
• July 1, 1944
  Bretton Woods Conference starts, establishing International Monetary Fund and World Bank
• July 1, 1951
  Colombo Plan, a regional organization that embodies the concept of collective inter-governmental effort to strengthen economic and social development of member countries in the Asia-Pacific region, comes into effect
• July 1, 1960
  Italian Somalia gains independence and unites with Somali Republic
• July 1, 1962
  Burundi and Rwanda gain independence from Belgium
• July 1, 1968
  United States, Britain, Soviet Union and 58 nations sign Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy
• July 1, 1987
  The Single European Act, which establishes a single market, is passed by European countries
• July 1, 1991
  The Warsaw Pact is officially dissolved at a meeting in Prague
• July 1, 1996
  The Northern Territory in Australia legalises voluntary euthanasia
• July 1, 1997
  The United Kingdom hands sovereignty of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China due to lease on the territories expires
• July 1, 2000
  The Oresund Bridge, a double-track railway and dual carriageway bridge-tunnel connecting Sweden and Denmark, opens for traffic and becomes the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe
• July 1, 2006
  The Qinghai-Tibet Railway launches a trial operation, connecting China proper and Tibet for the first time
• July 1, 2047
  The People's Republic of China's obligation to run Hong Kong as a special administrative region per the Sino-British joint declaration expires