356 BC – The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, is destroyed by arson.
230 – Pope Pontian succeeds Urban I as the eighteenth pope.
285 – Diocletian appoints Maximian as Caesar and co-ruler.
365 – A tsunami devastates the city of Alexandria, Egypt. The tsunami was caused by the Crete earthquake estimated to be 8.0 on the Richter scale. Five thousand people perished in Alexandria, and 45,000 more died outside the city.
1242 – Battle of Taillebourg: Louis IX of France puts an end to the revolt of his vassals Henry III of England and Hugh X of Lusignan.
1403 – Battle of Shrewsbury: King Henry IV of England defeats rebels to the north of the county town of Shropshire, England.
1545 – The first landing of French troops on the coast of the Isle of Wight during the French invasion of the Isle of Wight.
1568 – Eighty Years' War: Battle of Jemmingen: Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva defeats Louis of Nassau.
1645 – Qing dynasty regent Dorgon issues an edict ordering all Han Chinese men to shave their forehead and braid the rest of their hair into a queue identical to those of the Manchus.
1656 – The Raid on Málaga takes place during the Anglo-Spanish War.
1718 – The Treaty of Passarowitz between the Ottoman Empire, Austria and the Republic of Venice is signed.
1774 – Russo-Turkish War (1768–74): Russia and the Ottoman Empire sign the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca ending the war.
1789 – Ransacking of the Town hall by the citizens of Strasbourg.
1798 – Battle of the Pyramids takes place.
1831 – Inauguration of Leopold I of Belgium, first king of the Belgians.
1853 – The New York State Legislature devotes 750 acres of land on Manhattan Island for Central Park.
1861 – At Manassas Junction, Virginia, the First Battle of Bull Run, the first major battle of the war begins, ending in a victory for the Confederate army.
1865 – In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots and kills Davis Tutt in what is regarded as the first western showdown.
1873 – At Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James–Younger Gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the American Old West.
1877 – After rioting by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers and the deaths of nine rail workers at the hands of the Maryland militia, workers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania stage a sympathy strike that is met with an assault by the state militia.
1904 – Louis Rigolly, a Frenchman, becomes the first man to break the 100 mph (161 km/h) barrier on land. He drove a 15-liter Gobron-Brillié in Ostend, Belgium.
1907 – The passenger steamer SS Columbia collides with the steam schooner San Pedro off Shelter Cove, California, causing the Columbia to sink killing 88 people.
1918 – U-156 shells Nauset Beach, in Orleans, Massachusetts.
1919 – The dirigible Wingfoot Air Express crashes into the Illinois Trust and Savings Building in Chicago, killing 12 people.
 |
| 1925 - Scopes Trial, Dayton, TN from whatwasthere.com |
1925 – Sir Malcolm Campbell, father of Donald Campbell, becomes the first man to break the 150 mph (241 km/h) land barrier at Pendine Sands in Wales. He drove a Sunbeam at a two-way average speed of 150.33 mph (242 km/h).
1944 – World War II: Battle of Guam: American troops land on Guam starting the battle. It would end on August 10.
1944 – World War II: Claus von Stauffenberg and fellow conspirators are executed in Berlin, Germany, for the July 20 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
1949 – The United States Senate ratifies the North Atlantic Treaty.
1952 – The 7.3 Mw Kern County earthquake strikes Southern California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), killing 12 and injuring hundreds.
1954 – First Indochina War: The Geneva Conference partitions Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam.
1959 – NS Savannah, the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, is launched as a showcase for Dwight D. Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" initiative.
1959 – Elijah Jerry "Pumpsie" Green becomes the first African-American to play for the Boston Red Sox, the last team to integrate. He came in as a pinch runner for Vic Wertz and stayed in as shortstop in a 2–1 loss to the Chicago White Sox.
1960 – Sirimavo Bandaranaike is elected Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, becoming the world's first female head of government.
1961 – Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 4 Mission: Gus Grissom piloting Liberty Bell 7 becomes the second American to go into space (in a suborbital mission).
1969 – U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, lifted off from the moon in the Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle and docked with the command module Columbia piloted by Michael Collins.
1970 – After 11 years of construction, the Aswan High Dam across the Nile River in Egypt was completed, ending the cycle of flood and drought in the Nile River region but triggering an environmental controversy.
1972 – The Troubles: Bloody Friday: The Provisional IRA detonate 22 bombs in central Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom in the space of 80 minutes, killing nine and injuring 130.
1973 – In the Lillehammer affair in Norway, Israeli Mossad agents kill a waiter whom they mistakenly thought was involved in the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre.
1971 – The House Judiciary approves two Articles of Impeachment against President Richard Nixon.
1976 – Christopher Ewart-Biggs, the British ambassador to the Republic of Ireland, is assassinated by the Provisional IRA.
1977 – The start of the four-day-long Libyan–Egyptian War.
1983 – The world's lowest temperature in an inhabited location is recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica at −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F).
1995 – Third Taiwan Strait Crisis: The People's Liberation Army begins firing missiles into the waters north of Taiwan.
2000 – A report from special counsel John Danforth cleared U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and the government of wrongdoing in the April 19, 1993, fire that ended the Branch Davidian siege near Waco, Texas.
2001 – At the conclusion of a fireworks display on Okura Beach in Akashi, Hyōgo, Japan, 11 people are killed and more than 120 are injured when a pedestrian footbridge connecting the beach to JR Asagiri Station becomes overcrowded and people leaving the event fall down in a domino effect.
2005 – July 2005 London Bombings takes place.
2007 – "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the seventh and final installment in the best-selling series, sold more than 8.3 million copies on its first day in bookstores.
2008 – Ram Baran Yadav is declared the first president of Nepal.
2011 – NASA's Space Shuttle program ends with the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-135.
2011 – Greece continued efforts to climb out of a financial chasm with a second bailout pledge from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund worth $157 billion. Earlier, the nation dealt with its debt crisis with the help of a $146 billion loan package.
2012 – Staff Sgt. Luis A. Walker, a U.S. Air Force boot camp instructor convicted of sexual offenses, including rape, was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The victims were female trainees.
2012 – Erden Eruç completes the first solo human-powered circumnavigation of the world.
2013 – Phil Mickelson, five shots back starting the final round, birdied four of his last six holes, shot a 5-under-par 66 and won the British Open at Muirfield in Scotland -- his fifth Grand Slam title.
2014 – Former Army Staff Sgt. Ryan M. Pitts of New Hampshire was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Barack Obama in a ceremony at the White House. Pitts was honored for his heroism in a fierce battle in which nine other soldiers were killed in the war in Afghanistan. "Valor was everywhere that day and the real heroes are the nine men who made the ultimate sacrifice so the rest of us could come home," Pitts said.
2014 – Former Army Staff Sgt. Ryan M. Pitts of New Hampshire was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Barack Obama in a ceremony at the White House. Pitts was honored for his heroism in a fierce battle in which nine other soldiers were killed in the war in Afghanistan. "Valor was everywhere that day and the real heroes are the nine men who made the ultimate sacrifice so the rest of us could come home," Pitts said.