Events
30 BC – Battle of Alexandria: Mark Antony achieves a minor victory over Octavian's forces, but most of his army subsequently deserts, leading to his suicide.
781 – The oldest recorded eruption of Mount Fuji (Traditional Japanese date: July 6, 781).
1009 – Pope Sergius IV becomes the 142nd pope, succeeding Pope John XVIII.
1201 – Attempted usurpation of John Komnenos the Fat.
1423 – Hundred Years' War: Battle of Cravant: The French army is defeated by the English at Cravant on the banks of the river Yonne.
1451 – Jacques Cœur is arrested by order of Charles VII of France.
1492 – The Jews are expelled from Spain when the Alhambra Decree takes effect.
1498 – On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to discover the island of Trinidad.
1588 – The Spanish Armada is spotted off the coast of England.
1655 – Russo-Polish War (1654–67): The Russian army enters the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Vilnius, which it holds for six years.
1658 – Aurangzeb is proclaimed Moghul emperor of India.
1667 – Second Anglo-Dutch War: Treaty of Breda ends the conflict.
1703 – Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, but is pelted with flowers.
1712 – Action of 31 July 1712 (Great Northern War): Danish and Swedish ships clash in the Baltic Sea; the result is inconclusive.
1715 – Seven days after a Spanish treasure fleet of 12 ships left Havana, Cuba for Spain, 11 of them sink in a storm off the coast of Florida. A few centuries later, treasure is salvaged from these wrecks.
1741 – Charles Albert of Bavaria invades Upper Austria and Bohemia.
1763 – Odawa Chief Pontiac's forces defeat British troops at the Battle of Bloody Run during Pontiac's War.
1777 – The U.S. Second Continental Congress passes a resolution that the services of Gilbert du Motier "be accepted, and that, in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family and connexions, he have the rank and commission of major-general of the United States."
1790 – The first U.S. patent is issued, to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.
1856 – Christchurch, New Zealand is chartered as a city.
1865 – The first narrow gauge mainline railway in the world opens at Grandchester, Queensland, Australia.
1864 – Ulysses S. Grant is named General of Volunteers.
1904 – Russo-Japanese War: Battle of Hsimucheng: Units of the Imperial Japanese Army defeat units of the Imperial Russian Army in a strategic confrontation.
1913 – The Balkan States sign an armistice in Bucharest.
1919: Germany’s Weimar Constitution was adopted by the republic’s National Assembly. It came into force on August 14.
1930: The radio character “The Shadow” made his debut as narrator of the “Detective Story Hour” on CBS Radio.
1932 – The NSDAP (Nazi Party) wins more than 38% of the vote in German elections.
1938 – Bulgaria signs a non-aggression pact with Greece and other states of Balkan Antanti (Turkey, Romania, Yugoslavia).
1938 – Archaeologists discover engraved gold and silver plates from King Darius the Great in Persepolis.
1941 – The Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS General Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired Final Solution of the Jewish question."
1945 – Pierre Laval, the fugitive former leader of Vichy France, surrenders to Allied soldiers in Austria.
1948 – At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) is dedicated.
1948 – USS Nevada is sunk by an aerial torpedo after surviving hits from two atomic bombs (as part of post-war tests) and being used for target practice by three other ships.
1954 – First ascent of K2, by an Italian expedition led by Ardito Desio.
1961 – At Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, the first All-Star Game tie in Major League Baseball history occurs when the game is stopped in the 9th inning because of rain.
1964 – Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes.
1970 – Black Tot Day: The last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy.
1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover.
1972 – The Troubles: In Operation Motorman, the British Army re-takes the urban no-go areas of Northern Ireland. It is the biggest British military operation since the Suez Crisis of 1956, and the biggest in Ireland since the Irish War of Independence. Later that day, nine civilians are killed by car bombs in the village of Claudy.
1980 – The strongest hurricane on record forms in the Atlantic Ocean. Hurricane Allen reached winds of 190mph.
1988 – Thirty-two people are killed and 1,674 injured when a bridge at the Sultan Abdul Halim ferry terminal collapses in Butterworth, Penang, Malaysia.
1991: In Moscow, President George H.W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed the START I Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the first to reduce, with verification, both countries' stockpiles.
1992 – Georgia joins the United Nations.
1999 – Discovery Program: Lunar Prospector: NASA intentionally crashes the spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface.
2006 – Fidel Castro hands over power to brother Raúl Castro.
2007 – Operation Banner, the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland, and the longest-running British Army operation ever, comes to an end.
2009 – Three members of the popular South Korean group TVXQ, (Kim Jaejoong, Kim Junsu, and Park Yoochun), filed lawsuit against their Korean management S.M. Entertainment.
2012 – Michael Phelps breaks the record set in 1964 by Larisa Latynina for the most medals won at the Olympics.
Saints' Days and Holy Days
Traditional Western
Eastern Orthodox
July 31 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Righteous Saint Eudocimus of Cappadocia (9th century)
Saint Germanus of Auxerre, bishop (448)
Righteous Joseph of Arimathea
Martyr Julitta at Caesarea (305)
Saint Maughold, Bishop of the Isle of Man
Martyr Sergius the Archimandrite of Petrograd (1922)
Hieromartyr Benjamin the Metropolitan of Petrograd and Gdovsk (1922)
Martyr Yuri the Layman of Petrograd (1922)
Martyr John the Layman of Petrograd (1922)
Saint Arsenius the Bishop of Ninotsminda (11th century)
Translation of the relics of Philip the Apostle to Cyprus
Repose of Elder Gerasim the Younger of Kaluga's St. Sergius Skete (1918)
Consecration of the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos of Blachernae
Righteous Saint Eudocimus of Cappadocia (9th century)
Saint Germanus of Auxerre, bishop (448)
Righteous Joseph of Arimathea
Martyr Julitta at Caesarea (305)
Saint Maughold, Bishop of the Isle of Man
Martyr Sergius the Archimandrite of Petrograd (1922)
Hieromartyr Benjamin the Metropolitan of Petrograd and Gdovsk (1922)
Martyr Yuri the Layman of Petrograd (1922)
Martyr John the Layman of Petrograd (1922)
Saint Arsenius the Bishop of Ninotsminda (11th century)
Translation of the relics of Philip the Apostle to Cyprus
Repose of Elder Gerasim the Younger of Kaluga's St. Sergius Skete (1918)
Consecration of the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos of Blachernae
Coptic Orthodox
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