History by month
July
31 days of history. Every date is an entry point to the events, births, and moments that shaped our world.
July 1
1997 The midnight handover ceremony at the Hong Kong Convention Centre marked the end
July 2
1964 Lyndon Johnson signed the bill using 75 pens, handing one to Martin Luther King
July 3
1775 George Washington rode into Cambridge, Massachusetts on July 3, 1775, and found
July 4
1776 Thomas Jefferson spent seventeen days writing and rewriting a document that fift
July 5
1996 Scientists at Scotland's Roslin Institute took a single mammary cell from a six-
July 6
1885 Nine-year-old Joseph Meister had been bitten fourteen times by a rabid dog when
July 7
1898 President William McKinley signed the Newlands Resolution on July 7, 1898, forma
July 8
1776 The bell that would later be called the Liberty Bell rang from the Pennsylvania
July 9
1877 Spencer Gore won the first Wimbledon championship on July 9, 1877, defeating 21
July 10
1940 Hermann Goring's Luftwaffe launched its first major attack against British shipp
July 11
1804 Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton faced each other on a narrow ledge overlooking
July 12
1943 The Battle of Prokhorovka on July 12, 1943, pitted roughly 800 Soviet tanks agai
July 13
1985 Bob Geldof organized Live Aid in ten weeks after seeing BBC footage of Ethiopian
July 14
1789 The Bastille held just seven prisoners on July 14, 1789: four forgers, two lunat
July 15
1799 Soldier Pierre-François Bouchard unearthed a granodiorite stele embedded in Fort
July 16
1945 J. Robert Oppenheimer named the test site "Trinity," possibly after John Donne's
July 17
1918 Bolshevik executioners woke the Romanov family at 1:30 a.m. on July 17, 1918, te
July 18
64 The Great Fire of Rome broke out in the merchant district near the Circus Maximu
July 19
1848 Three hundred men and women gathered at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New
July 20
1969 Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface at 10:56 p.m. EDT on July 20, 1969
July 21
1861 Union General Irvin McDowell marched 35,000 raw recruits toward Manassas Junctio
July 22
1934 John Dillinger had been designated Public Enemy Number One by the FBI when he wa
July 23
1914 Austria-Hungary delivered a ten-point ultimatum to Serbia on July 23, 1914, deli
July 24
1974 The Supreme Court ruled 8-0 in United States v. Nixon on July 24, 1974, ordering
July 25
1943 Italy's Grand Fascist Council voted 19 to 7 to strip Mussolini of his military c
July 26
1947 Harry Truman signed the National Security Act on July 26, 1947, the most sweepin
July 27
1953 The Korean War armistice signed at Panmunjom on July 27, 1953, ended three years
July 28
1914 Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28, 1914, exactly one month after
July 29
1958 President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, 1
July 30
1975 Jimmy Hoffa walked into the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloo
July 31
1964 Ranger 7 was NASA's first successful lunar probe after six consecutive failures