70 – Siege of Jerusalem: Titus, son of emperor Vespasian, storms the Fortress of Antonia north of the Temple Mount. The Roman army is drawn into street fights with the Zealots.
792 – Kardam of Bulgaria defeats Byzantine Emperor Constantine VI at the Battle of Marcellae.
911 – Rollo lays siege to Chartres.
1189 – Richard I of England officially invested as Duke of Normandy.
1304 – Wars of Scottish Independence: Stirling Castle falls to Edward I of England and his formidable siege engine, War Wolf, believed to be the largest trebuchet ever built.
1402 – Ottoman-Timurid Wars: Battle of Ankara: Timur, ruler of Timurid Empire, defeats forces of the Ottoman Empire sultan Bayezid I.
1592 – During the first Japanese invasion of Korea, Japanese forces led by Toyotomi Hideyoshi captured Pyongyang, although they were ultimately unable to hold it.
1738 – Canadian explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye reaches the western shore of Lake Michigan.
1799 – Tekle Giyorgis I begins his first of six reigns as Emperor of Ethiopia.
1807 – Nicéphore Niépce is awarded a patent by Napoleon for the Pyréolophore, the world's first internal combustion engine, after it successfully powered a boat upstream on the river Saône in France.
1810 – Citizens of Bogotá, New Granada declare independence from Spain.
1848 – The first Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, a two-day event, concludes.
1859 – American baseball fans were charged an admission fee for the first time. About 1,500 spectators each paid 50 cents to see Brooklyn play New York.
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Peachtree Creek: Near Atlanta, Georgia, Confederate forces led by General John Bell Hood unsuccessfully attack Union troops under General William T. Sherman.
1866 – Austro-Prussian War: Battle of Lissa: The Austrian Navy , led by Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, defeats the Italian Navy near the island of Vis in the Adriatic Sea.
1871 – British Columbia joins the confederation of Canada.
1881 – Five years after U.S. Army Gen. George A. Custer's defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn, Sioux leader Sitting Bull surrendered to the Army, which promised amnesty for him and his followers.
1885 – The Football Association legalizes professionalism in association football under pressure from the British Football Association.
1903 – The Ford Motor Company ships its first car.
1917 – World War I: The Corfu Declaration, which leads to the creation of the post-war Kingdom of Yugoslavia, is signed by the Yugoslav Committee and Kingdom of Serbia.
1920 – The Greek Army takes control of Silivri after Greece is awarded the city by the Paris Peace Conference; by 1923 Greece effectively lost control to the Turks.
1921 – Congresswoman Alice Mary Robertson is the first woman to preside over the floor of the House of Representatives.
1922 – The League of Nations awards mandates of Togoland to France and Tanganyika to the United Kingdom.
1932 – In Washington, D.C., police fire tear gas on World War I veterans, part of the Bonus Expeditionary Force, who attempt to march to the White House.
1934 – Labor unrest in the U.S.: Police in Minneapolis fire upon striking truck drivers, during the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934, killing two and wounding sixty-seven.
1934 – West Coast waterfront strike: In Seattle, Washington, police fire tear gas on and club 2,000 striking longshoremen. The governor of Oregon calls out the National Guard to break a strike on the Portland docks.
1935 – Switzerland: A Royal Dutch Airlines plane en route from Milan to Frankfurt crashes into a Swiss mountain, killing thirteen.
1936 – The Montreux Convention is signed in Switzerland, authorizing Turkey to fortify the Dardanelles and Bosphorus but guaranteeing free passage to ships of all nations in peacetime.
1938 – The United States Department of Justice files suit in New York City against the motion picture industry charging violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act in regards to the studio system. The case would eventually result in a break-up of the industry in 1948.
1940 – Denmark leaves the League of Nations.
1940 – California opens its first freeway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway.
1940 – Billboard magazine published its first "Music Popularity Chart," topped by "I'll Never Smile Again" by the Tommy Dorsey orchestra with Frank Sinatra.
1941 – Soviet leader Joseph Stalin consolidates the Commissariats of Home Affairs and National Security to form the NKVD and names Lavrenti Beria its chief.
1944 – World War II: Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.
1944 – At the Democratic convention President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is nominated for an unprecedented 4th term.
1945 – The U.S. flag was raised over Berlin as the first American troops moved in to take part in the post-World War II occupation.
1949 – Israel and Syria sign a truce to end their nineteen-month war.
1950 – Cold War: In Philadelphia, Harry Gold pleads guilty to spying for the Soviet Union by passing secrets from atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs.
1951 – King Abdullah I of Jordan is assassinated by a Palestinian nationalist while entering a mosque in the Jordanian sector of east Jerusalem to attend Friday prayers.
1954 – Germany: Otto John, head of West Germany's secret service, defects to East Germany.
1960 – Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) elects Sirimavo Bandaranaike Prime Minister, the world's first elected female head of government.
1960 – The Polaris missile is successfully launched from a submarine, the USS George Washington, for the first time.
1961 – French military forces break the Tunisian siege of Bizerte.
1964 – Vietnam War: Viet Cong forces attack the capital of Dinh Tuong Province, Cai Be, killing 11 South Vietnamese military personnel and 40 civilians (30 of which are children).
1968 – The first International Special Olympics Summer Games are held at Soldier Field in Chicago, Ill, with about 1,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities.
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| Apollo 11 on the Moon, 20 July 1969 |
1969 – A cease fire is announced between Honduras and El Salvador, six days after the beginning of the "Football War".
1974 – Turkish occupation of Cyprus: Forces from Turkey invade Cyprus after a coup d'état, organised by the dictator of Greece, against president Makarios.
1976 – The Viking 1 lander, an unmanned U.S. planetary probe, became the first spacecraft to successfully land on the surface of Mars.
1977 – The Central Intelligence Agency releases documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing it had engaged in mind control experiments.
1982 – Hyde Park and Regents Park bombings: The Provisional IRA detonates two bombs in Hyde Park and Regent's Park in central London, killing eight soldiers, wounding forty-seven people, and leading to the deaths of seven horses.
1985 – The government of Aruba passes legislation to secede from the Netherlands Antilles.
1985 – Treasure hunter Mel Fisher located a Spanish galleon sunk by a 1622 hurricane off Key West, Fla. It contained $400 million worth of treasure.
1989 – U.S. President George H.W. Bush called for the United States to organize a long-range space program to support an orbiting space station, a moon base and a manned mission to Mars.
1989 – Burma's ruling junta puts opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.
1992 – Václav Havel resigns as president of Czechoslovakia.
1993 – White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster was found shot to death in a park in northern Virginia. His death was ruled a suicide.
1997 – The fully restored USS Constitution (a.k.a. Old Ironsides) celebrates its 200th birthday by setting sail for the first time in 116 years.
1997 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan MP M. E. H. Maharoof is shot dead.
1999 – The Chinese Communist Party begins a persecution campaign against Falun Gong, arresting thousands nationwide.
2005 – The U.S. Justice Department activated its online National Sex Offender Public Registry, linking the registries of 22 states.
2011 – International Tribunal officials announced the arrest of Goran Hadzic, the last Serbian leader wanted for war crimes.
2012 – A gunman sets off tear gas grenades and opens fire at a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 and injuring 58 others. The accused killer, James E. Holmes, later pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. In 2015, he was convicted on multiple counts of murder.
2013 – Seventeen government soldiers are killed in an attack by FARC revolutionaries in the Colombian department of Arauca.
2013 – Helen Thomas, UPI White House reporter through the administrations of 10 presidents, dies at age 92. President Bill Clinton called Thomas "a symbol of everything American journalism can and should be – the embodiment of fearless integrity, fierce commitment to accuracy, the insistence of holding government accountable." Thomas left the news agency in 2000 and became a columnist for Hearst Newspapers.
2015 – A huge explosion in the mostly Kurdish border town of Suruç, Turkey, targeting The Socialist Youth Associations Federation, kills at least 31 people and injures over 100.
2015 – The United States and Cuba resume full diplomatic relations after five decades, with the reopening of reciprocal embassies in Havana and Washington.