Thursday, July 19, 2012

19th of July

It is the 200th day of the year, with only 165 days remaining until the end of the year.

64 - Known as the Great Fire of Rome, a fire begins to burn in the merchant area of Rome and soon burns completely out of control.  According to a popular, but untrue legend, Nero fiddled as the city burned.

1701 - Representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy sign the Nanfan Treaty, ceding a large territory north of the Ohio River to England.

1863 - At Buffington Island in Ohio, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan's raid into the north is mostly thwarted when a large group of his men are captured while trying to escape across the Ohio River.

1919 - Following Peace Day celebrations, marking the end of World War I, ex-servicemen riot and burn down Luton Town Hall.

1942 - German Grand Admiral Karl Donitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions in response to the effective American convoy system.

1963 - Joe Walker, flies a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 347,800 feet (106,010 meters).  The flight qualifies as a human spaceflight.

1981 - In a private meeting with President Ronald Reagan, French Prime Minister Francois Mitterrand reveals the existence of the Farewell Dossier, a collection of documents showing that the Soviets had beenstealing American technological research and development.

1983 - The first three-dimensional reconstruction of a human head in a CT is published.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

18th of July

It is the 199th day of the year with on;y 166 days remaining.

390 BC - A Roman army is defeated by raiding Gauls, leading to the subsequent sacking of Rome.

362 AD - Emperor Julian arrives at Antioch with a Roman expeditionary force of 60,000 men, and stays there for nine months to launch a campaign against the Persian Empire.

1863 - At the Battle of Fort Wagner, the first formal engagement of the 54th Massachusetts, an African-American military, fails in their assault on Confederate-held Battery Wagner.

1925 - Adolph Hitler publishes his personal manifesto, Mein Kampf.

1942 - The German test fly the Messerschmitt Me-262 using only its jet engines for the first time.

1944 - Hideki Tojo resigns as Prime Minister of Japan, due to numerous setbacks in the war effort.

1968 - The Intel Corporation is founded in Santa Clara, California.

1969 - After a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts drives an Oldsmobile off a bridge and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, dies.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

17th of July

It is the 198th day of the year and only 167 days are remaining.

1717 - King George I of Great Britain sails down the River Thames with a barge of 50 musicians, where George Frideric Handel's Water Music is premiered.

1771 - Known as the Bloody Falls Massacre, Chipewyan Chief Matonabbee, traveling as the guide to Samuel Hearne on is Arctic overland journey, massacres a group of unsuspecting Inuit.

1918 - On the orders of the Bolshevik Party carried out by Cheka, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his immediate family and retainers are murdered at the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, Russia.

1918 - The RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued the 705 survivors of the Titanic, is sunk off Ireland by the German SM U-55, 5 lives are lost.

1944 - Napalm incendiary bombs are dropped for the first time by American P-38 pilots on a fuel depot at Coutances, near St. Lo, France.

1955 - Disneyland is dedicated and opened by Walt Disney in Anaheim, California.

1989 - It is the first flight of the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.

1998 - A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea killing an estimated 3,183 leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless.

Monday, July 16, 2012

16th of July

It is the 197th day of the year, with only 168 days remaining.

1769 - Father Junipero Serra founds California's first mission, Mission San Diego de Alcala.  Over the following decades, it evolves into the city of San Diego.

1782 - It is the first performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera, Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail.

1861 - At the order of President Abraham Lincoln, Union troops begin a 25-mile march into Virginia for what will become The First Battle of Bull Run, the first major land battle of the war.

1862 - David Farragut is promoted to rear admiral, becoming the first officer in the United States Navy to hold the rank.

1935 - The world's first parking meter is installed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

1941 - Joe DiMaggio hits safely for the 56th consecutive game, a streak that still stands as a Major League Baseball record.

1942 - The Vel' d'Hiv Roundup occurs, as the government of Vichy France orders the mass arrest of 13,152 Jews who are held at the Winter Velodrome in Paris before deportation to Auschwitz.

1945 - The leaders of the three Allied nations, Winston Churchill (then Clement Atlee), Harry Truman, and Joseph Stalin, meet in the German city of Potsdam to decide the future of Germany.

1945 - The Heavy Cruiser USS Indianapolis leaves San Francisco with parts for the atomic bomb "Little Boy" bound for Tinian Island.  This would be the last time the Indianapolis would be seen by the mainland, she would be torpedoed, two weeks later.

1945 - The Atomic Age begins when the United States successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon at the Trinity site near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

1951 - The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, is published for the first time by Little, Brown and Company.

1956 - Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus closes its very last "Big Tent" show in Pittsburgh, due to changing economics all subsequent shows will be held in arenas.

1957 - United States Marine major John Glenn, flies a F8U Crusader supersonic jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes, and 8 seconds.  He set a new transcontinental record.

1960 - The USS George Washington, a modified Skipjack class submarine, successfully test fires the first ballistic missile while submerged.

1969 - Apollo 11 is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

1999 - John F. Kennedy, Jr., piloting a Piper Saratoga aircraft, dies when his plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard.  His wife Carolyn Bessette and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette are also killed.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

15th of July

It is the 196th day of the year, with only 169 days remaining.

1799 - The Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-Francois Bouchard during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign.

1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte surrenders aboard the HMS Bellerophon.

1870 - Georgia becomes the last of the former Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union.

1910 - In his book Clinical Psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin gives a name to Alzheimer's disease, naming it after his colleague Alois Alzheimer.

1916 - In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing and George Conrad Westervelt incorporate Pacific Aero Products.

1966 - The United States and South Vietnam begin Operation Hastings to push the North Vietnamese out of the DMZ.

1997 - In Miami, Florida, serial killer Andrew Phillip Cunanan guns down Gianni Versace outside his home.

2002 - Anti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan hands down the death sentence to British born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and life terms to three others suspected of murdering Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

2003 - AOL Time Warner disbands Netscape Communications Corporation.  The Mozilla Foundation is established on the same day.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

14th of July

It is the 195th day of the year, with 170 days remaining.

1798 - The Sedition Act becomes law in the United States, making it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false of malicious statements about the United States government.

1865 - the first ascent of the Matterhorn by Edward Whymper and party, four of whom die on the descent.

1911 - Harry Atwood, an exhibition pilot for the Wright Brothers lands his airplane at the South Lawn of the White House.  He is later awarded a Gold medal from President Taft for his feat.

1960 - Jane Goodall arrives at the Gombe Stream Reserve in present-day Tanzania to begin her famous study of chimpanzees.

1969 - The United States $500, $1000, $5000 and $10,000 bills are officially withdrawn from circulation.

2003 - In an effort to discredit U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, who had written an article critical of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Washington Post columnist Robert Novak reveals that Wilson's wife Valerie Plame, is a CIA operative.

Billy the Kid - The American Old West outlaw, is shot and killed by Pat Garrett outside Fort Sumner.

Friday, July 13, 2012

13th of July

It is the 194th day of the year, with only 171 days remaining until the new year.

1863 - In New York City, opponents of conscription begin three days of rioting, which will later be regarded as the worst in U.S. history.

1923 - The Hollywood Sign is officially dedicated in the hills above Los Angeles, It originally reads "Hollywoodland" but the four last letters are dropped after renovation in 1949.

1985 - The Live Aid benefit concert takes place in London an Philadelphia, as well as other venues such as Sydney and Moscow.

1990 - An earthquake with its epicentre in Afghanistan, when an avalanche kills 43 climbers in Camp I on Pik Lenina, Tajikistan.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

12th of July

It is the 193rd day of the year, with only 172 days remaining.

1804 - Former United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton dies a day after being shot in a duel.

1862 - The Medal of Honor is authorized by the United States Congress.

1962 - The Rolling Stones perform their first ever concert, at the Marquee Club in London.

2007 - U.S. Army Apache helicopters perform airstrikes in Baghdad, Iraq.  Footage from the cockpit is later leaked to the Internet.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

11th of July

It is the 192nd day of the year, with only 173 days remaining until the new year.

1798 - The United States Marine Corps is re-established, they had been disbanded after the American Revolutionary War.

1804 - A duel occurs in which the Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr, mortally wounds former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton.

1893 - The first cultured pearl is obtained by Kokichi Mikimoto.

1895 - The Lumiere brothers demonstrate film technology to scientists.

1914 - Babe Ruth makes his debut in Major League Baseball.

1921 - Former President William Taft, is sworn in as the 10th Chief Justice.

1960 - To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is first published.

1977 - Martin Luther King Jr., is posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

1979 - America's first space station, Skylab, is destroyed as it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean.

1987 - According to the United Nations, the world population crosses the 5,000,000,000 mark.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

10th of July

It is the 191st day of the year, with only 174 days remaining.

138 - Emperor Hadrian dies after a heart failure at Baiae, he is buried at Rome in the Tomb of Hadrian beside his late wife, Vibia Sabina.

1821 - The United States possession of its newly bought territory of Florida from Spain.

1890 - Wyoming is admitted as the 44th U.S. state.

1913 - Death Valley, California hits 134 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest temperature recorded in the U.S.

1925 - In Dayton, Tennessee, the so called "Monkey Trial" begins with John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.

1938 - Howard Hughes sets a new record by completing a 91 hour airplane flight around the world.

1962 - Telstar, the world's first communications satellite, is launched into orbit.

1973 - John Paul Getty III, grandson of the oil magnate, is kidnapped in Rome, Italy.

1992 - In Miami, Florida, former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega is sentenced to 40 years in prison for drug and racketeering violations.

1997 - In London, scientists report the findings of the DNA analysis of a Neanderthal skeleton which support the "out of Africa theory" of human evolution placing an "African Eve" at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.

2002 - At a Sotheby's auction, Peter Paul Reubens' painting The Massacre of the Innocents, is sold for $76.2 million to Lord Thomson.

Monday, July 9, 2012

9th of July

It is the 190th day of the year, with only 175 days remaining until the new year.

1776 - George Washington ordered the Declaration of Independence to be read out loud to members of the Continental Army in New York City for the first time.

1816 - Argentina declares independence from Spain.

1850 - Millard Fillmore becomes the 13th President of the United States.

1968 - The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified guaranteeing African-American full citizenship and all persons in the United States due process of law.

1900 - The Governor of Shanxi province in North China orders the execution of 45 foreign Christian missionaries and local church members, including children.

1918 - In Nashville, Tennessee, an inbound local train collides with an outbound express killing 101 and injuring 171 people.

1943 - Allied forces perform an amphibious invasion of Sicily known as Operation Husky.

1962 - Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans exhibition opens at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, California.

1979 - A car bomb destroys a Renault motor car owned by famed "Nazi hunters" Serge and Beate Klarsfeld at their home in France.  A note is purportedly from ODESSA claiming responsibility.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

8th of July

It is the 189th day of the year and there are only 176 days remaining.

1099 - 15,000 starving Christian soldiers march in a religious procession around Jerusalem as its Muslim defenders look on.

1899 - The first issue of the Wall Street Journal is published.

1947 - Reports are UFO crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico.

1948 - The United States Air Force accepts its first female recruits.

1960 - Francis Gary Powers is charged with espionage resulting from his flight over the Soviet Union.

1994 - Kim Jong-il begins to assume supreme leadership of North Korea upon the death of his father.

2011 - Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched in the final mission of the U.S. Space Shuttle program.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

7th of July

It is the 188th day of the year, with only 177 days remaining.

1456 - A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy, 25 years after her death.

1534 - It is the first known exchange between Europeans and natives of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in New Brunswick.

1846 - American troops occupy Montery and Yerba Buena, thus beginning the U.S. acquisition of California.

1863 - United States begins its first military draft, exemptions cost $300.

1865 - Four conspirators in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln are hanged.  Those included Lewis Powell, David Harold, David Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt.

1930 - Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser begins construction of the Hoover Dam.

1944 - The largest Banzai charge of the Pacific War at the Battle of Saipan during World War II.

1946 - Howard Hughes nearly dies, when his XF-11 spy plane prototype crashes in a Beverly Hills neighborhood.

1954 - Elvis Presley makes his radio debut when WHBQ Memphis played his first recording for Sun Records, "That's All Right."

1981 - President Ronald Reagan appoints Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female member of the Supreme Court.

1983 - Samantha Smith, a U.S. schoolgirl, flies to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Secretary General Yuri Andropov.

1985 - Boris Becker becomes the youngest player ever to win Wimbledon at the age of 17.

Friday, July 6, 2012

6th of July

It is the 187th day of the year, with only 178 days remaining.

1189 - Richard the Lionheart is crowned King of England.

1777 - After a bombardment by British artillery under General John Burgoyne, American forces retreat from Fort Ticonderoga, New York.

1785 - The dollar is unanimously chosen as the monetary unit for the United States.

1885 - Louis Pasteur successfully tests his vaccine against rabies.  The patient is Joseph Meister, a boy who was bitten by a rabid dog.

1933 - The first Major League Baseball All-Star Game is played in Chicago's Comiskey Park.  The American League defeats the National League, 4 to 2.

1942 - Anne Frank and her family go into hiding in the "Secret Annexe" above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.

1944 - Jackie Robinson refuses to move to the back of the bus, leading to a court martial.

1947 - The AK-47 goes into production in the Soviet Union.

1957 - John Lennon and Paul McCartney are introduced to each other when Lennon's band The Quarrymen performs at the St. Peter's Church Hall fete in Woolton.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

5th of July

Today is the 186th day of the year, with only 179 days remaining until the new year.

1811 - Venezuela declares its independence from Spain.

1937 - Spam, the luncheon meat, is introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods Corporation.

1947 - Larry Doby signs a contract with the Cleveland Indians baseball team, becoming the first black player in the American League.

1989 - Oliver north is sentenced by U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell to a three-year suspended prison term, two years probation, $150,000 in fines and 1,200 hours community service.  His convictions are later overturned.

1996 - Dolly the Sheep becomes the first mammal cloned from an adult cell.

2009 - Roger Federer wins a record 15th Grand Slam title in tennis, winning a five set match against Andy Roddick at Wimbledon.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

4th of July

It is the 185th day of the year, with only 180 days remaining until the end of the year.

The Aphelion, the point in the year when the Earth is farthest from the Sun, occurs around this date.

1776 - The United States Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress.

1802 - At West Point, New York the United States Military Academy opens.

1803 - The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people.

1817 - At Rome, New York, construction on the Erie Canal begins.

1826 - Thomas Jefferson, 3rd U.S. President, dies the same day as John Adams, 2nd President of the United States, on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

1855 - In Brooklyn, New York, the first edition of Walt Whitman's book of poems, titled Leaves of Grass is published.

1862 - Lewis Carroll tels Alice Liddell a story that would grow into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequels.

1863 - Vicksburg, Mississippi surrenders to Ulysses Grant after 47 days of siege.  150 miles up the Mississippi River, a Confederate Army is repulsed at the Battle of Helena, Arkansas.

1865 - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is published.

1886 - The people of France offer the Statue of Liberty to the people of the United States.

1918 - Bolsheviks kills Tsar Nicholas II of Russia.

1934 - Leo Szilard patents the chain-reaction design for the atomic bomb.

1939 - Lou Gehrig, recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, tells a crowd at Yankee Stadium that he considers himself "The luckiest man on the face of the earth" as he announces his retirement from major league baseball.

1960 - Due to the post-Independence Day admission of Hawaii as the 50th U.S. state on August 21, 1959, the 50-star flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania almost ten and a half months later.

1969 - One male and one female are attacked at Blue Rock Springs in California.  They are the second victims of the Zodiac Killer.  The male survives.

2004 - The cornerstone of the Freedom Tower is laid on the site of the World Trade Center in New York City.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

3rd of July

Today is the 184th day of the year, with only 181 days remaining until the new year.

1608 - Quebec City is founded by Samuel de Champlain.

1754 - George Washington surrenders Fort Necessity to French forces.

1775 - George Washington takes command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1852 - Congress establishes the United States' 2nd mint in San Francisco, California.

1863 - The final day of the Battle of Gettysburg, culminates with Pickett's Charge, as Confederate forces walk across open ground toward Federal lines at the Copse of Tree on Cemetery Ridge.

1884 - Dow Jones and Company publishes its first stock average.

1886 - Karl Benz officially unveils the Benz Patent Motorwagen, the first purpose-built automobile.

1886 - the New York Tribune becomes the first newspaper to use a linotype machine, eliminating typesetting by hand.

1890 - Idaho is admitted as the 43rd U.S. state.

1913 - Confederate veterans at the Great Reunion, reenact Pickett's Charge, upon reaching the high-water mark, they are met by outstretched hands of friendship from Union survivors.

1938 - President Franklin Roosevelt dedicates the Eternal Light Peace Memorial and lights the eternal flame at Gettysburg Battlefield.

1969 - The biggest explosion in the history of rocketry occurs when the Soviet N-1 rocket explodes and subsequently destroys the launchpad.

1988 - United States Navy warship USS Vincennes shoots down iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.

Monday, July 2, 2012

2nd of July

It is the 183rd day of the year, with only 182 days remaining until the end of the year.

This day is the midpoint of the common year.  The exact time is at noon, or 12:00 PM for countries that use "Summer Time."  The actual exact time is at 1:00 PM, this is when 182 days 12 hours have elapsed and 182 days 12 hours are remaining.

1698 - Thomas Savery patents the first steam engine.

1777 - Vermont becomes the first American territory to abolish slavery.

1839 - Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, 53 rebelling African slaves led by Joseph Cinque take over the slave ship Amistad.

1881 - Charles J. Guiteau shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President James Garfield, who eventually dies from infection.

1897 - Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi obtains a patent for radio in London, England.

1990 - The first Zeppelin flight takes place on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.

1934 - The Night of the Long Knives ends with the death of Ernst Rohm.

1962 - The first Wal-Mart store opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas.

1976 - It is the fall of the Republic of Vietnam, Communist North Vietnam declares their union to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

1st of July

It is the 182nd day of the year, with only 183 days remaining until the end of the year.

1862 - The Battle of Malvern Hill takes place.  It is the final battle in the Seven Days Campaign, part of George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign.

1863 - The Battle of Gettysburg begins, with Union General John Buford engaging enemy forces.  The Union was collapsing, sending the defenders retreating through the city streets, taking up positions on the high ground outside Gettysburg.

1870 - The United States Department of Justice formally comes into existence.

1874 - The Sholes and Glidden typewriter, the first commercially successful typewriter, goes on sale.

1898 - The Battle of San Juan Hill is fought in Santiago de Cuba.

1908 - SOS is adopted as the international distress signal.

1915 - Lieutenant Kurt Wintgens achieves the first known aerial victory with a synchronized gun-equipped fighter plane, the Fokker M.5K/MG Eindecker.

1916 - On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 19,000 soldiers of the British Army are killed and 40,000 wounded.

1963 - ZIP codes are introduced for the United States mail.

1968 - Formal sepation of the United Auto Workers from the AFL-CIO.

1979 - Sony introduces the Walkman.

1984 - The PG-13 rating is introduced by the MPAA.

2002 - The International Criminal Court is established to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crimes of aggression.