This Day in History

[GordMay]

July 19

1553 ~ Lady Jane Grey Deposed
After only nine days as the monarch of England, Lady Jane Grey is deposed in favor of her cousin Mary. The 15-year-old Lady Jane, beautiful and intelligent, had only reluctantly agreed to be put on the throne. The decision would result in her execution.

1799 ~ Rosetta Stone Found
During Napoleon Bonaparte's Egyptian campaign, a French soldier discovers a black basalt slab inscribed with ancient writing near the town of Rosetta, about 35 miles north of Alexandria. The irregularly shaped stone contained fragments of passages written in three different scripts: Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Egyptian demotic. The ancient Greek on the Rosetta Stone told archaeologists that it was inscribed by priests of Ptolemy V in the second century B.C. More startlingly, the Greek passage announced that the three scripts were all of identical meaning. The artifact thus held the key to solving the riddle of hieroglyphics, a written language that had been "dead" for nearly two millennia. Two decades later, French Egyptologist Jean Franýois Champollion was able to decipher the hieroglyphics using his knowledge of Greek as a guide, and the language and culture of ancient Egypt was suddenly open to scientists as never before.

1816 ~ Survivors of French frigate Medusa Rescued off Senegal
During July 1816 the French frigate Medusa leaves Guadalupe en route to Senegal. On board is a crew sympathetic to the recently defeated Napoleon Bonaparte and a captain who hasn't sailed for twenty years and is close to the restored king, Louis XVIII. Despite warnings from the crew, the captain steers the frigate into a sandbank, prompting the passengers to take to the five lifeboats; the 150 crew and soldiers are corralled onto a makeshift raft. The lifeboats tow the raft until the captain orders the lines to be cut. For 14 days the crew drifts. Cannibalism ensues and when a passing ship finally picks up the survivors, only 15 are left.

1836 ~ HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin reaches Ascension
Voyages of the Beagle: http://gutenberg.hwg.org/xhtmlfiles/vbgle10xht.html
and more: http://pages.britishlibrary.net/charles.darwin/

1956 U.S. refuse to lend Egypt money to build Aswan Dam
Just north of the border between Egypt and Sudan lies the Aswan High Dam, a huge rockfill dam which captures the world's longest river, the Nile, in one of the world's third largest reservoirs, Lake Nasser. The dam, known as Saad el Aali in Arabic, was completed in 1970 after 18 years of work.
Egypt has always depended on the water of the Nile River. The two main tributaries of the Nile River are the White Nile and the Blue Nile. Lake Victoria is the source of the White Nile and the Blue Nile begins in the Ethiopian Highlands. The two tributaries converge in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan where they form the Nile River. The Nile River has a total length of 4,160 miles (6,695 kilometers) from source to sea.

In 1952, the interim Revolutionary Council government of Egypt decided to build a High Dam at Aswan, about four miles upstream of the old dam. In 1954, Egypt requested loans from the World Bank to help pay for the cost of the dam (which eventually added up to US$1 billion). Initially, the United States agreed to loan Egypt money but then withdrew their offer for unknown reasons. Some speculate that it may have been due to Egyptian and Israeli conflict. The United Kingdom, France, and Israel had invaded Egypt in 1956, soon after Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal to help pay for the dam.
The Soviet Union offered to help and Egypt accepted. The Soviet Union's support was not unconditional, however. Along with the money, they also sent military advisers and other workers to help enhance Egyptian-Soviet ties and relations.

1989 ~ 181 Survive Crash
181 out of 293 passengers and crew survived the crash of a United Airlines DC-10. The pilot of Flight 232, bound for Chicago, reported trouble to the Sioux City, Iowa airport half an hour before it slammed into the Sioux City runway. Prepared emergency personnel were credited with helping many to survive the fiery crash.

[GordMay]

July 20

1994 ~ Reward !
O.J. Simpson offers a $500,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the Real Killers. To this day progress remains elusive, although Simpson's golf score has improved somewhat.

1985 ~ Treasure Harvested
Treasure hunters began hauling off $400 million in coins and silver ingots from the sea floor in the biggest underwater jackpot in history. The bounty came from the Spanish galleon ”Nuestra Senora de Atocha”. The Spanish galleon sank 40 miles off the coast of Key West, Florida in 1622. It was located by treasure hunter Mel Fisher. The 40 tons of gold and silver and was the richest treasure find since the opening of King Tut’s tomb in the 1930s.

1969 ~ Armstrong Takes “One Small Step”
At 10:56 p.m. EDT, American astronaut Neil Armstrong, 240,000 miles from Earth, speaks these words to more than a billion people listening at home: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." A moment later, he stepped off the lunar landing module Eagle (Apollo 11) and became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon.

1923 ~ Villa Assassinated
While driving his 1919 Dodge, retired Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa is ambushed and assassinated. But even with 16 gunshot wounds he still manages to kill one of his attackers. Curiously, Villa's head is stolen from his grave three years later and never recovered.

1919 ~ Sir Edmund Hillary Born

1881 ~ Sitting Bull Surrenders
Five years after General George A. Custer's infamous defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn, Hunkpapa Teton Sioux leader Sitting Bull surrenders to the U.S. Army, which promises amnesty for him and his followers.

1871 ~ British Columbia Becomes 6th Canadian Province

1810 ~ Colombia Declares Independence from Spain

[GordMay]

July 21

365 ~ Alexandria Hit by Earthquake - About 50,000 Die

1595 ~ Alvaro Mendana discovers Marquesas Island
MENDANA DE NEYRA, Alvaro (men-dan'-yah-deh-nay'-rah), Spanish navigator, born in Saragossa in 1541; died in Santa Cruz, Solomon islands, 18 October, 1596. He emigrated in 1565 to Peru, where his uncle, Lope Garcia de Castro, was governor-general, and held various posts till 1567, when Garcia appointed him to the command of two ships, with which to make discoveries and conquests in the Pacific ocean. Sailing from Callao on 19 November, 1567, Mendana after a long voyage discovered a group which he named the Solomon islands, and visited the principal ones. He returned to Callao in 1569, and published a marvel-h>us relation of his discoveries, praising the Solomon group as a very rich country, but, (>wing to the wars in which Spain was involved, he could not obtain the necessary means for a second expedition. He then married a wealthy Peruvian lady, Isabel Barreto, and in 1594 Philip II. commissioned him governor of the island of San Cristobal in the group that he had discovered, and gave orders to found a colony there. Mendana left Callao on 11 April, 1595, w{th four vessels and 280 soldiers, accompanied by his wife and Pedro de Quires as chief pilot. At Payta more colonists joined the expedition, and on 16 June he left Peru for the Solomon islands. He discovered on 21 July a group, which lie named Marquesas de Mendoza, in honor of the viceroy of Peru. Continuing his voyage toward the Solomon group, he discovered on the way a large island which he named Santa Cruz, and resolved to establish his colony there. He was at first well received by the natives, but some of his crew murdered one of the native chiefs, and a bloody war was begun against the invaders. Afterward there was a mutiny among the troops. These adversities undermined Mendana's health. and he soon died, leaving the government to his wife, who under the direction of Quiros resolved to abandon the colony, and after the loss of two vessels arrived safely at the Philippine islands. Hernan Gallego, Mendana's pilot in the first voyage, described the discovery, and his manuscript is now in the library of Barcia. Mendatia himself left notes about both voyages and they were collected by the historian Pedro 'Gudrico de Victoria under the title "Derrotero de Mendana de Neyra," the manuscript of which is still preserved in the National library of Paris.

1861 ~ The First Battle of Bull Run
In the first major land battle of the US Civil War, a large Union force under General Irvin McDowell is routed by a Confederate army under General Pierre G.T. Beauregard.

1925 ~ Monkey Trial Ends
In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called "Monkey Trial" ends with John Thomas Scopes being convicted of teaching evolution in violation of Tennessee law. Scopes was ordered to pay a fine of $100, the minimum the law allowed.

1960 ~ Francis Chichester Arrives in New York Aboard Gypsy Moth II, Setting Record of 40 Days for a Solo Atlantic Crossing

1974 ~ House Judiciary Approves 2 Articles of Impeachment Against US President Nixon

1976 ~ First Outbreak of "Legionnaire's Disease" Kills 29 in Philadelphia, Pa.

[GordMay]

July 22

1648 ~ 10,000 Jews of Polannoe Murdered in Chmielnick Massacre
The Union of Poland and Lithuania in 1569 prompted Polish nobles to create large estates in the Ukraine. Jews often served as middlemen for the Polish lords and were hated by the local peasantry for their work on behalf of foreign lords. By 1640, there were 50,000 Jews in the Ukraine. In the spring of 1648, Bogdan Chmielnicki united the Ukrainian peasantry against their Catholic Polish rulers and the Jews. The peasants’ anger was particularly directed against Jews. It is estimated that almost a quarter of all Jews living in Poland were killed, and many others were left homeless.

1784 ~ Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Born
The German astronomer and mathematician was the first to triangulate the heavens by observing the parallax of the star 61 Cygni (the change in its angular position as the Earth moved between opposite extremes of its orbit). Bessel estimated the distance of the star to be 101 light years from Earth (the Bessel function).

1933 ~ Wiley Post flies solo around the world
American aviator Wiley Post returns to Floyd Bennett Field in New York, having flown solo around the world in 7 days, 18 hours, and 49 minutes. He was the first aviator to accomplish the feat. Post traveled 15,596 miles in just over a week, in his famous plane, the “Winnie Mae”.
Post, instantly recognizable by the patch he wore over one eye, began the journey on July 15, flying nonstop to Berlin. After a brief rest, he flew on to the Soviet Union, where he made several stops before returning to North America, with stops in Alaska, Canada, and finally a triumphant landing at his starting point in New York.

1944 ~ IMF Created
The Bretton Woods (New Hampshire) Conference created the International Monetary Fund, a cooperative institution that maintains a stable system of buying and selling currencies so that payments in foreign money can take place between countries smoothly and without delay. The IMF was based on the ideas of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Director of Monetary Research, Harry Dexter White, John Maynard Keynes of England and the IBRD (International Bank for Reconstruction & Development). The IMF began operations in Washington, D.C. in May 1946 with 39 member countries.

1948 ~ Newfoundland Votes to Join Canada
The second Newfoundland referendum, in less than two months, gives narrow 7,000 majority for union with Canada.

1983 ~ Dick Smith Makes 1st Solo Helicopter Flight Around the World

[GordMay]

July 23

1983 ~ Gimli Glider
Air Canada Flight 143 runs out of fuel in midair and makes emergency glide landing at abandoned Gimli airstrip; due to metric confusion and fuel meter problems.
Q: If a Boeing 767 runs out of fuel at 41,000 feet what do you have?
A: A 132 ton glider, with a sink rate of over 2000 feet-per-minute, and marginally enough hydraulic pressure to control the ailerons, elevator, and rudder...
Read the exciting tale: http://www.silhouet.com/motorsport/tracks/gimli.html

1962 ~ First Live TV Broadcast U.S. to Europe via ‘Telstar’ Satelite

1952 ~ Military seizes power in Egypt
The Society of Free Officers (Egypt) seizes control of the government in a military coup d'etat staged by Colonel Gamal Abdal Nasser's Free Officers. King Farouk, whose rule had been criticized for its corruption and failures in the first Arab-Israeli war, was forced to abdicate and relinquish power to General Muhammad Naguib, the figurehead leader of the coup. The revolutionaries redistributed land, tried politicians for corruption, and in 1953 abolished the monarchy. In 1954, Nasser emerged from behind the scenes, removed Naguib from power, and proclaimed himself prime minister of Egypt. For the next two years, Nasser ruled as an effective and popular leader and promulgated a new constitution that made Egypt a socialist Arab state, consciously nonaligned with the prevalent communist and democratic-capitalist systems of the Cold War world. In 1956, he was elected, unopposed, to the new office of president. He died still in office in 1970 from a heart attack.

1935 ~ Military Airplane Crashes Into the Empire State Building

1888 ~ John Boyd Dunlop Applies to Patent Pneumatic Tire

1834 ~ HMS Beagle Anchors in Bay of Valparaiso

1798 ~ Napoleon captures Alexandria, Egypt

1715 ~ First U.S. Lighthouse Authorized at Little Brewster Island, Massachusetts.

1148 ~ Crusaders attack Damascus

636 ~ Arabs gain control of most of Palestine from Byzantine Empire

[GordMay]

July 24

1534 ~ Jacques Cartier Lands - Claims Canada for France

1567 ~ Mary Queen of Scots deposed (abdicates in favour of 1-year-old James VI)

1783 ~ Simon Bolivar Born

1793 ~ France passes 1st Copyright Law

1833 ~ HMS Beagle Departs Maldonado Uruguay

1898 ~ Amelia Earhart Born

1915 ~ Excursion Ship ‘Eastland’ Capsizes at Chicago Dock in Lake Michigan (852 dead)
More: http://www.eastlanddisaster.org/timea3a1.htm

1943 ~ RAF bombs Hamburg (20,000 dead)

1948 ~ Soviets Blockade Berlin

1969 ~ Apollo 11 Returns to Earth

1974 ~ Supreme Court Unanimously Rules Nixon Must Turn Over Watergate Tapes

1987 ~ Crooks Conquers Mount Fuji
Hulda Crooks, at 91 years of age, climbed Mt. Fuji. Hulda became the oldest person to climb Japan’s highest peak. When she got to the top, she was heard to say, “Hey, dudes -- how do I get down from here?”

1992 ~ Khaled Mahmoud Saeed (assistant to Palestine terrorist Abu Nidal) Murdered

[GordMay]

July 25

1999 ~ Armstrong’s First ‘Tour’
Lance Armstrong rode to victory in the Tour de France, capping an amazing comeback from cancer. He was only the second American to win cycling’s showcase race.

1956 ~ ‘Andrea Doria’ and ‘Stockholm’ Collide (51 Dead)
At 11:10 p.m., 45 miles south of Nantucket Island, the Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria and the Swedish ocean liner Stockholm collide in a heavy Atlantic fog. Fifty-one passengers and crew were killed in the collision, which ripped a great hole in the broad side of the Italian vessel. All of the 52 who were lost died as a direct result of the initial collision. Miraculously, 1,660 survivors on the Andrea Doria were rescued from the severely listing ship before it sunk late the next morning. Both ships were equipped with sophisticated radar systems, and authorities were puzzled as to the cause of the accident.
More: http://www.andreadoria.org/

1952 ~ Puerto Rico Becomes a Self-Governing U.S. Commonwealth

1935 ~Adnan Khashoggi Born (Saudi billionaire arms dealer)

1909 ~ Bleriot Crosses Chanel
Louis Bleriot of France crossed the English Channel in a 28-hp monoplane with a wingspan of just 23 feet. It was the first time that trick had been accomplished, and was the world’s first international, overseas flight.

1898 ~ US Invades Puerto Rico
During the Spanish-American War, U.S. forces launch their invasion of Puerto Rico (at Guanica Bay), the 108-mile-long, 40-mile-wide island that was one of Spain's two principal possessions in the Caribbean. With little resistance and only seven deaths, U.S. troops under General Nelson A. Miles were able to secure the island by mid-August. After the signing of an armistice with Spain, American troops raised the U.S. flag over the island, formalizing U.S. authority over its one million inhabitants. In December, the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Spanish-American War and officially approving the cession of Puerto Rico to the United States.
In the first three decades of its rule, the U.S. government made efforts to Americanize its new possession, including granting full U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans in 1917 and considering a measure that would make English the island's official language. However, during the 1930s, a nationalist movement led by the Popular Democratic Party won wide support across the island, and further U.S. assimilation was successfully opposed. Beginning in 1948, Puerto Ricans could elect their own governor, and in 1952 the U.S. Congress approved a new Puerto Rican constitution that made the island an autonomous U.S. commonwealth, with its citizens retaining American citizenship. The constitution was formally adopted by Puerto Rico on July 25, 1952, the 54th anniversary of the U.S. invasion.

1866 ~ David Faragut Appointed as 1st Admiral of U.S. Navy, and Ulysses S. Grant Appointed 1st Full General of U.S. Army

1814 ~ Americans defeat British at Battle of Lundy’s Lane (Canada)

1261 ~ Byzantium Emperor Michael VIII recaptures Constantinople

[GordMay]

July 26

1499 ~ Alonso dhe Ojeda Discovers Curacao Island.

1533 ~ Atahualpo Dies (Inca Ruler)

1579 ~ Francis Drake Departs San Francisco to Cross Pacific Ocean.

1758 ~ British Battle Fleet Under General James Wolfe Conquerors Louisbourg.

1788 ~ Sydney, Australia Settled by British Colonists

1847 ~ Liberian Independence Proclaimed
The Republic of Liberia, formerly a colony of the American Colonization Society, declares its independence. Under pressure from Britain, the United States hesitantly accepted Liberian sovereignty, making the West African nation the first democratic republic in African history. A constitution modeled after the U.S. Constitution was approved, and in 1848 Joseph Jenkins Roberts was elected Liberia's first president.
More: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p1521.html

1874 ~ Alexander Graham Bell first describes his idea for the telephone to his father in Brantford.

1894 - Aldous (Leonard) Huxley Born (“Brave New World” et al)

1945 ~ Winston Churchill Resigns

1953 ~ Cuban Revolution
Fidel Castro begins rebellion, the "26th of July Movement," against Fulgenico Batista's Corrupt Regime.

1956 ~ Egypt Nationalizes the Suez Canal (Suez Crisis Begins)

1957 ~ Carlos Castillo Armas (President of Guatemala) Murdered.
More: http://www.west.net/~tmiller/gh/era4/armas.html

1995 ~ Brewery Sold
John Labatt Ltd. sold to Belgian brewer lnterbrew SA, completing a takeover valued at C$2.7 billion; deal makes lnterbrew the world's third-largest brewery.

[GordMay]

July 27

1996 ~ Bomb explodes at Atlanta Olympic Park (1 killed, 110 injured)

1974 ~ House Judiciary Committee votes 27-11 recommending Nixon impeachment

1935 ~ Floods at Yangtzee Jiang and Hoangh, China (200,000 killed)

1921 ~ Frederick Banting and Charles Best isolates insulin at University of Toronto

1916 ~ Capt. Charles Fryatt (SS ‘Brussels’) executed by Germans

1862 ~ Hurricane hits Canton (40,000 killed)

1862 ~ Steamer "Golden Gate" burns and sinks off west coast of Mexico (213 killed)
More: http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.com/~ssgoldengate/

1837 ~ U.S. Mint opens in Charlotte, North Carolina
Destroyed by fire July 27, 1844, 8 years to the day later.

1714 ~ Battle at Hango (Hangut): Russians beat Swedish fleet

1667 ~ Jean (Johann) Bernoulli born (mathematician)

1661 ~ English Parliament confirms Navigation Act

[GordMay]

July 28

1148 ~ Crusaders Attack Damascus

1588 ~ Spanish Armada Sets Sail to Overthrow England's Queen Elizabeth I
In the summer of 1588, King Philip II of Spain sent the Great Armada fleet (130ships carrying 30,000 men) to conquer England. That "great enterprise" was the result of Spain's battle for world supremacy in religion, trade and territory.
More: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/spanish_armada.htm

1609 ~ Admiral George Somers Settles in Bermuda
More: http://www.bermuda-online.org/sirgeorgesomers.htm

1794 ~ Maximilien Robespierre (and 22 other French Revolutionaries) Dies by Guillotine - Crowds Roar Approval

1821 ~ Peru Declares Independence from Spain (National Day)

1849 ~ ‘Memmon’ is 1st clipper to Reach San Francisco, 120 days Out of New York

1866 ~ Metrics Legalized
Although its use was not required, the metric system was legalized by the U.S. Congress for the standardization of weights and measures throughout the United States. How many feet in a meter or quarts in a litre?

1914 ~ World War I Begins When Austria-Hungary Declares War on Serbia

1922 ~ Jacques Piccard Born (undersea explorer- bathyscaph ‘Trieste’)
More: http://www.bathyscaphtrieste.com/
and: http://www.historycentral.com/navy/M...2/trieste.html


1926 ~ U.S. and Panamanian Panama Canal Pact

1938 ~ ‘Mauretania II’ Launched at Birkenhead
Launched in 1938 at Cammell Laird, Birkenhead, Mauretania II was the largest ship built in England up to that time (34,000 ton), and the first ship built for Cunard-White Star. She made her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York on 17 June 1939, and in August was switched to the London-New York service. She made two Atlantic crossings after World War II broke out. Converted into a troopship at Sydney in 1940, Mauretania remained in that service through the end of the war, traveling 540,000 miles and carrying over 350,000 troops. After being refitted, she returned to Cunard-White Star service in 1947, principally on the Southampton-New York route. She was also used extensively for cruising, including a world cruise in 1958, and was painted green in 1962. Switched to the New York-Mediterranean service in 1963, she made her last sailing, New York-Mediterranean-Southampton in September 1965, and was then sold for scrapping at Inverkeithing.

1943 ~ Italian Facist Dictator Benito Mussolini Resigns

1976 ~ Tangshan Earthquake (242,000 killed)
At 3:42 a.m., an earthquake measuring between 7.8 and 8.2 magnitude on the Richter scale flattens Tangshan, a Chinese industrial city with a population of about one million people. As almost everyone was asleep in their beds, instead of outside in the relative safety of the streets, the quake was especially costly in terms of human life. An estimated 242,000 people in Tangshan and surrounding areas were killed, making the earthquake one of the deadliest in recorded history, surpassed only by the 300,000 who died in the Calcutta earthquake in 1737, and the 830,000 thought to have perished in China's Shaanxi province in 1556.

2004 ~ Francis Crick, Ph. D Dies
DNA researcher, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, dies at 88

[GordMay]

July 29

1560 ~ Turkish Fleet Recaptures Djerba on Spanjaarden

1588 ~ Spanish Armada Defeated
Off the coast of Gravelines, France, Spain's so-called "Invincible Armada" (Grande y Felicissima Armada) is defeated by an English naval force under the command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake. The Spanish fleet was scattered by an English fire ship attack sent in by Francis Drake. After eight hours of furious fighting, a change in wind direction prompted the Spanish to break off from the battle and retreat toward the North Sea. Its hopes of invasion crushed, the remnants of the Spanish Armada began a long and storm beattered journey back to Spain.

1715 ~ Spanish Treasure Fleet Sinks off Florida (700 - 1,000 die)
More: http://www.hrd1715.com/1715_Story.html

1783 ~ Skaptar Volcano on Iceland Erupts (about 9,000 die)

1844 ~ New York Yacht Club Formed

1871 ~ Rasputin (Gregory Efimovich) Born

1905 ~ Dag Hammarskjold Born (U.N. Secretary General 1953-61)

1945 ~ Cruiser USS ‘Indianapolis’ Torpedoed & Sunk (+500 die)
Near Leyte Gulf, the U.S. heavy cruiser ‘Indianapolis’ was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine. Of the crew of 1,199 men, only 316 survived. Several days earlier, the Indianapolis had delivered the makings for the first atomic bomb to Tinian Island.
More: http://www.discovery.com/exp/indianapolis/captain.html
and: http://www.ussindianapolis.org/story.htm

1967 ~ Fire aboard carrier USS ‘Forrestal’ in Gulf of Tonkin (134 die)

1968 ~ Mount Arenal, Costa Rica Erupts (80 die)

1974 ~ “Mamma” Cass Elliot Dies

[GordMay]

July 30

1998 ~ Jackpot !
A world-record ‘Powerball’ jackpot of $295.7 million was won by a group of 13 machinists who worked together in Westerville, Ohio. The group chose the cash option, and received a lump-sum payment of $161.5 million dollars.

1984 ~ Tanker ‘Alvenus’ Spills 2.8 Million Gallons of Oil
The British tanker, Alvenus, hit the soft bottom of a channel 11 miles off the Louisiana coast, and buckled hard enough to crack open its main deck, spilling 2.8 million gallons of Venezuelan crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

1980 ~ Vanuatu (New Hebrides) Gains Independence from Britain and France
More: http://www.vanuatutourism.com/vanuat...ependence.html

1942 ~ Roosevelt Signs Bill Creating Women's Navy Auxiliary Agency (WAVES)

1923 ~ New Zealand Claims Ross Dependency
More: http://www.mfat.govt.nz/foreign/anta...ependency.html

1870 ~ Staten Island ferry "Westfield" Burns (100 die)

1863 ~ US Automaker Henry Ford Born

1775 ~ Captain James Cook (“Resolution”) Returns to England
More: http://geography.miningco.com/cs/cap.../jamescook.htm

1626 ~ Earthquake hits Naples (10,000 die)

[GordMay]

July 31

1498 ~ Christopher Columbus Discovers Island of Trinidad
Columbus’ Third Voyage: By the morning of July 31 water was running short, so the Admiral decided to steer directly for Dominica, the island he had discovered on his second voyage. After changing course to north by east, the fleet sighted an island in the west at noon that same day. Because the island had three hills*, Columbus named it Trinidad, after the Holy Trinity. *This has been disputed by some historians.
The fleet obtained water on the south coast of Trinidad, and in the process sighted the coast of South America, the first Europeans to see that continent. Between South America and Trinidad lies the Gulf of Paria, which Columbus explored between August 4th and August 12th. On the morning of the 13th, the fleet sailed out of the Gulf of Paria at its northern entrance and coasted west along the mainland for the next three days, reaching the island of Margarita.
More: http://muweb.millersville.edu/~columbus/columbus.html

1718 ~ English Fleet Destroys Spanish in Battle at Cape Passaro

1876 ~ U.S. Coast Guard Officers' Training School Established

1910 ~ Crippen Arrested
Dr Crippen was arrested aboard the SS Montrose as it was docking at Quebec; charged with the murder of his wife, he was the first criminal to be caught by the use of radio.

1944 ~ Last Deportation Train Out of Mechelen Departs to Auschwitz

1955 ~ Canadian Marilyn Bell, Youngest (age 17) to Swim the English Channel

1962 ~ Federation of Malaysia Formed

1974 ~ Official Languages Act - Bill 22
Robert Bourassa's government of the Province of Quebec, passes Bill 22 - the Official Languages Act (la loi sur les langues officielles) - requiring French to be used as the language of work in business and in the public service; anglophone students must also pass a linguistic aptitude test in order to attend english schools.

1976 ~ Seychelles Independence Day

1990 ~ Bosnia-Hercegovina Declares Independence

1994 ~ U.N. Votes 12-0 (2 abstentions) to Authorize Use of Force Against Haiti

[GordMay]

August 1

1988 ~ Deep Rover Unveiled
One-man research submarine unveiled at Crater Lake, Oregon.
More: http://www.deepocean.com/html/deep_rover.html

1960 ~ Benin (Dahomey) Gains Independence from France

1958 ~ US Atomic Sub’ USS ‘Nautilus’ Dives Under North Pole

1953 ~ Fidel Castro Arrested in Cuba
More: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDcastroF.htm

1944 ~ Anne Frank's Last Diary Entry
13-year-old Anne Frank made the last entry in her diary; a diary she had kept for two years while hiding with her family to escape Nazi deportation to a concentration camp. Three days later the Grune Polizei raided the secret annex in Amsterdam, Holland, where the Jewish family was in hiding. Anne died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at age 15.

1909 ~ British SS Waratah Disappears on Sydney to London - Date Approximate (300 die)
On the evening of 26 July 1909, the newly built passenger liner Waratah left Durban bound for Cape Town, where she was expected to arrive on Thursday 29 July 1909. From Cape Town she was to return to London from where she first set sail. Somewhere off the Transkei near East London, the Waratah vanished without trace with 211 souls onboard. When she failed to arrive in Cape Town, concern began to mount and extensive searches were initiated, however, nothing was ever found nor recovered, not even floating debris - so began one of maritime history's most baffling mysteries.
More: http://mysite.mweb.co.za/residents/ms73/WARATALES.HTM

1896 ~ Samuelson & Harbo Arrive
George Samuelson and Frank Harbo completed a 3,000-mile journey across the Atlantic Ocean - in a rowboat! Samuelson and Harbo, two New Jersey Fishermen of Norwegian descent, crossed the Atlantic Ocean in their wooden skiff the "Fox". It took them 55 days to reach the Scilly Islands. Their record still stands firmly after 34 attempts and 12 successful crossings.

1886 ~ Great Britain Annexes Kermadec Island Near New Zealand

1838 ~ Emancipation of British Slaves on Bahamas

1798 ~ Battle of Abukir on the Nile - Nelson Defeats Napoleon’s French Fleet

1770 - American Explorer William Clark Born (Lewis and Clark Expedition)

1498 ~ Christopher Columbus Lands on Isla Santa, Venezuela
Italian explorer Christopher Columbus sets foot on the American mainland for the first time, at the Paria Peninsula in present-day Venezuela. Thinking it an island, he christened it Isla Santa and claimed it for Spain.

527 ~ Justinus I, Byzantine Emperor Dies

[GordMay]

August 2

1002 ~ Abu Amir Mohammed ibn Abd allah ibn Mohammed ibn Abi Amir, dies at 64
Imam Ali, the cousin of the Holy Prophet, was murdered by an assassin who mortally wounded him with a poisoned sword, in the mosque of Kufah, during the morning prayer on 19th Ramadan. He was buried in an-Najaf al-Ashraf (Iraq).

1610 ~ Henry Hudson enters bay later named after him, the Hudson Bay

1876 ~ Wild Bill Hickok shot
Wild Bill (James Butler) Hickok was gunned down by Jack McCall, a desperado from Texas, in Saloon #10 at Deadwood, in the Dakota Territory on this day in 1876. Hickok was playing poker (with his back to the door) at the time of the shooting. McCall shot Wild Bill in the back, and was hanged for the shooting, never revealing his motive. The poker hand Hickok was holding when he died consisted of a pair of black aces and a pair of black eights. This combination became known as the dead man’s hand.

1922 ~ China hit by a typhoon (about 60,000 die)
Typhoons striking the China coast in August 1912 and August 1922 resulted in fatality counts of 50,000 and 60,000 respectively.

1934 ~ Hitler becomes “Fuhrer”
With the death of German President Paul von Hindenburg, Chancellor Adolf Hitler becomes absolute dictator of Germany under the title of Führer, or "Leader." The German army took an oath of allegiance to its new commander-in-chief, and the last remnants of Germany's democratic government were dismantled to make way for Hitler's Third Reich.

1939 ~ Einstein urges U.S. atomic action
From his home in Long Island, New York, German-born physicist Albert Einstein writes to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging "watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action" on the part of the United States in atomic research. Einstein, a lifelong pacifist, feared that Nazi Germany had begun work on an atomic bomb. After reading Einstein's letter, Roosevelt created the Uranium Committee, and in 1942 the highly secret U.S. and British atomic program became known as the Manhattan Project. Einstein had no role in the Allied atomic bomb program.

1943 ~ Kennedy’s PT-109 sunk
While patrolling in Blackett Strait, on the southern side of Kolombangara Island, during the early hours of 2 August 1943, PT-109 was rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri, cutting away the PT boat's starboard side and leaving her completely disabled. As she gradually sank during the day her eleven survivors abandoned ship to swim to an island some miles away. These men, led by their Commanding Officer, Lieutenant (Junior Grade) John F. Kennedy, had many adventures during the next week. With the aid of a Coastwatcher and local residents, PT-109's men were finally returned to the Rendova PT base on 8 August
PT-109 Located? http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...nedyPT109.html
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1964 ~ North Vietnam fires on a U.S. destroyer “Maddox” in Gulf of Tonkin
"Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth"
More: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2261

1972 ~ Gold hits record $70 an ounce in London

1990 ~ Iraq invades and occupies Kuwait