Events Pre-1600 296 – Pope Marcellinus begins his papacy. 763 – The Byzantine army of emperor Constantine V defeats the Bulgarian forces in the Battle of Anchialus. 1398 – Zhu Yunwen ascended the throne to the Ming dynasty to become the Jianwen Emperor. 1422 – Battle of Arbedo between the duke of Milan and the Swiss cantons. 1521 – Spanish forces defeat a combined French and Navarrese army at the Battle of Noáin during the Spanish conquest of Iberian Navarre. 1559 – King Henry II of France is mortally wounded in a jousting match against Gabriel de Lorges, Count of Montgomery. 1598 – The Spanish-held Castillo San Felipe del Morro in San Juan, Puerto Rico having been besieged for fifteen days, surrenders to an English force under Sir George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland.
1601–1900 1632 – The University of Tartu is founded. 1643 – Royalists loyal to King Charles I led by the Earl of Newcastle defeat Parliamentarian troops commanded by Lord Fairfax in the battle of Adwalton Moor, allowing them to capture Bradford and Leeds. 1651 – The Deluge: Khmelnytsky Uprising: The Battle of Berestechko ends with a Polish victory. 1688 – The Immortal Seven issue the Invitation to William, which would culminate in the Glorious Revolution. 1691 – A Williamite army under Godert de Ginkell takes the city of Athlone from the Jacobites after a short siege. 1703 – The Battle of Ekeren between a Dutch force and a French force. 1758 – Seven Years' War: Habsburg Austrian forces destroy a Prussian reinforcement and supply convoy in the Battle of Domstadtl, helping to expel Prussian King Frederick the Great from Moravia. 1794 – Northwest Indian War: Native American forces under Blue Jacket attack Fort Recovery. 1805 – Under An act to divide the Indiana Territory into two separate governments, adopted by the U.S. Congress on January 11, 1805, the Michigan Territory is organized. 1859 – French acrobat Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope. 1860 – The 1860 Oxford evolution debate at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History takes place. 1864 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln grants Yosemite Valley to California for "public use, resort and recreation". 1876 – Serbia declares war on the Ottoman Empire, leading to the Serbian Wars for Independence. 1882 – Charles J. Guiteau is hanged in Washington, D.C. for the assassination of U.S. President James Garfield. 1886 – The first transcontinental train trip across Canada departs from Montreal, Quebec. It arrives in Port Moody, British Columbia on July 4. 1892 – The Homestead Strike begins near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 1900 – A savage fire wrecked three steamships docked at a pier in Hoboken, New Jersey. Over 200 crew members and passengers are killed, and hundreds injured.
1901–present 1905 – Albert Einstein sends the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduces special relativity, for publication in Annalen der Physik. 1906 – The United States Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act. 1908 – The Tunguska Event, the largest impact event on Earth in human recorded history, resulting in a massive explosion over Eastern Siberia. 1912 – The Regina Cyclone, Canada's deadliest tornado event, kills 28 people in Regina, Saskatchewan. 1916 – World War I: In "the day Sussex died", elements of the Royal Sussex Regiment take heavy casualties in the Battle of the Boar's Head at Richebourg-l'Avoué in France. 1921 – U.S. President Warren G. Harding appoints former President William Howard Taft as Chief Justice of the United States. 1922 – In Washington D.C., U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Dominican Ambassador Francisco J. Peynado sign the Hughes–Peynado agreement, which ends the United States occupation of the Dominican Republic. 1934 – The Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, takes place. 1936 – Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia appeals for aid to the League of Nations against Italy's invasion of his country. 1937 – The world's first emergency telephone number, 999, is introduced in London. 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Cherbourg ends with the fall of the strategically valuable port to American forces. 1953 – The first Chevrolet Corvette rolls off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan. 1956 – A TWA Super Constellation and a United Airlines DC-7 collide above the Grand Canyon in Arizona and crash, killing all 128 on board both airliners. 1959 – A United States Air Force F-100 Super Sabre from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, crashes into a nearby elementary school, killing 11 students plus six residents from the local neighborhood. 1960 – Belgian Congo gains independence as Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville). 1963 – Ciaculli bombing: a car bomb, intended for Mafia boss Salvatore Greco, kills seven police officers and military personnel near Palermo. 1966 – The National Organization for Women, the United States' largest feminist organization, is founded. 1968 – Pope Paul VI issues the Credo of the People of God. 1971 – The crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft are killed when their air supply escapes through a faulty valve.; 1972 – The first leap second is added to the UTC time system. 1973 – Concorde 001 intercepts the path of a total solar eclipse and follows the moon's shadow, experiencing the longest total eclipse observation. 1974 – The Baltimore municipal strike of 1974 begins. 1977 – The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization disbands. 1985 – Thirty-nine American hostages from the hijacked TWA Flight 847 are freed in Beirut after being held for 17 days. 1986 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Bowers v. Hardwick that states can outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults. 1989 – A coup d'état in Sudan deposes the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and President Ahmed al-Mirghani. 1990 – East and West Germany merge their economies. 1993 – Malta is officially subdivided into 68 local councils by the Local Councils Act. 1994 – An Airbus A330-300 crashes during a test flight at Toulouse–Blagnac Airport, killing all seven people on board. 2007 – A Jeep Cherokee filled with propane canisters drives into the entrance of Glasgow Airport, Scotland in a failed terrorist attack. This was linked to the 2007 London car bombs that had taken place the day before. 2009 – Yemenia Flight 626, an Airbus A310-300, crashes into the Indian Ocean near Comoros, killing 152 of the 153 people on board. A 14-year-old girl named Bahia Bakari survives the crash. 2013 – Nineteen firefighters die controlling a wildfire near Yarnell, Arizona. 2013 – Protests begin around Egypt against President Mohamed Morsi and the ruling Freedom and Justice Party, leading to their overthrow during the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état. 2015 – A Hercules C-130 military aircraft with 113 people on board crashes in a residential area in Medan, Indonesia, resulting in at least 116 deaths. 2019 – Donald Trump becomes the first sitting US President to visit the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). 2020 – The Hong Kong National Security Law is passed by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and immediately comes into effect after gazettal. 2021 – The Tiger Fire ignites near Black Canyon City, Arizona, and goes on to burn of land before being fully contained on July 30. 2023 – A Tajik citizen with ISIS connections, wanted in Tajikistan for murder and kidnapping, kills two people at Chișinău International Airport in Moldova, after being denied entry to the country.
Births Pre-1600 1286 – John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey, English magnate (died 1347) 1468 – John, Elector of Saxony (died 1532) 1470 – Charles VIII of France (died 1498) 1478 – John, Prince of Asturias, Son of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile (died 1497) 1503 – John Frederick I, Elector of Saxony (died 1554) 1533 – Martín de Rada, Spanish missionary (died 1578) 1588 – Giovanni Maria Sabino, Italian organist, composer, and educator (died 1649)
1601–1900 1641 – Meinhardt Schomberg, 3rd Duke of Schomberg, German-English general (died 1719) 1685 – John Gay, English poet and playwright (died 1732) 1688 – Abu l-Hasan Ali I, ruler of Tunisia (died 1756) 1722 – Jiří Antonín Benda, Czech composer, violinist and Kapellmeister (died 1795) 1755 – Paul Barras, French soldier and politician (died 1829) 1789 – Horace Vernet, French painter and academic (died 1863) 1791 – Félix Savart, French physicist and psychologist (died 1841) 1803 – Thomas Lovell Beddoes, English poet, playwright, and physician (died 1849) 1807 – Friedrich Theodor Vischer, German author, poet, and playwright (died 1887) 1817 – Joseph Dalton Hooker, English botanist and explorer (died 1911) 1843 – Ernest Mason Satow, English orientalist and diplomat (died 1929) 1864 – Frederick Bligh Bond, English architect and archaeologist (died 1945) 1884 – Georges Duhamel, French author and critic (died 1966) 1889 – Archibald Frazer-Nash, English motor car designer, engineer and founder of Frazer Nash (died 1965) 1890 – Paul Boffa, Maltese physician and politician, 5th Prime Minister of Malta (died 1962) 1891 – Man Mountain Dean, American wrestler and sergeant (died 1953) 1891 – Ed Lewis, American wrestler and manager (died 1966) 1891 – Stanley Spencer, English painter (died 1959) 1892 – Pierre Blanchar, Algerian-French actor and director (died 1963) 1893 – Nellah Massey Bailey, American politician and librarian (died 1956) 1893 – Walter Ulbricht, German soldier and politician, chief decision maker and head of state of the GDR (East Germany) (died 1973) 1895 – Heinz Warneke, German-American sculptor and educator (died 1983) 1899 – Madge Bellamy, American actress (died 1990)
1901–present 1904 – Marianne Angermann, German–Spanish–New Zealand biochemist (died 1977) 1905 – John Van Ryn, American tennis player (died 1999) 1906 – Anthony Mann, American actor and director (died 1967) 1907 – Roman Shukhevych, Ukrainian general and politician (died 1950) 1908 – Winston Graham, English author (died 2003) 1908 – Luigi Rovere, Italian film producer (died 1996) 1908 – Rob Nieuwenhuys, Dutch writer (died 1999) 1909 – Juan Bosch, 43rd President of the Dominican Republic (died 2001) 1911 – Czesław Miłosz, Polish novelist, essayist, and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2004) 1911 – Nagarjun, Indian poet (died 1998) 1912 – Ludwig Bölkow, German engineer (died 2003) 1912 – Dan Reeves, American businessman and philanthropist (died 1971) 1912 – María Luisa Dehesa Gómez Farías, Mexican architect (died 2009) 1913 – Alfonso López Michelsen, Colombian lawyer and politician, 24th President of Colombia (died 2007) 1913 – Harry Wismer, American sportscaster (died 1967) 1914 – Francisco da Costa Gomes, Portuguese general and politician, 15th President of Portugal (died 2001) 1914 – Allan Houser, American sculptor and painter (died 1994) 1917 – Susan Hayward, American actress (died 1975) 1917 – Lena Horne, American actress, singer, and activist (died 2010) 1917 – Willa Kim, American costume designer (died 2016) 1919 – Ed Yost, American inventor of the modern hot air balloon (died 2007) 1920 – Eleanor Ross Taylor, American poet and educator (died 2011) 1921 – Washington SyCip, American-Filipino accountant (died 2017) 1924 – Max Trepp, Swiss sprinter (died 1990) 1925 – Fred Schaus, American basketball player and coach (died 2010) 1925 – Ebrahim Amini, Iranian politician (died 2020) 1926 – Paul Berg, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2023) 1927 – Shirley Fry Irvin, American tennis player (died 2021) 1927 – James Goldman, American screenwriter and playwright (died 1998) 1927 – Mario Lanfranchi, Italian director, screenwriter, producer, collector and actor (died 2022) 1927 – Frank McCabe, American basketball player (died 2021) 1928 – Hassan Hassanzadeh Amoli, Islamic philosopher, theologian, mathematician and mystic (died 2021)