EVENTS
- 1567 – King James VI becomes king of Scotland at the age of 1.
- 1783 – Simon Bolivar, El Liberator, is celebrated in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Venezuela.
- 1832 – The first wagon train makes it across the Rocky Mountains led by Benjamin Bonneville.
- 1911 – Rediscovery of Machu Picchu. The 15th century, largely forgotten Inca site in Peru was rediscovered by American Hiram Bingham III.
Machu Picchu - 1923 – The Treaty of Lausanne is signed between Turkey and the countries that formed the Allied Powers in the First World War. Under the treaty, Turkey had to give up all the territorial claims made by the Ottoman Empire and agree to new borders.
- 1943 – During World War II in Europe, the Royal Air Force conducted Operation Gomorrah, raiding Hamburg, while tossing bales of aluminum foil strips overboard to cause German radar screens to see a blizzard of false echoes. As a result, only twelve of 791 Allied bombers involved were shot down.
- 1945 – At the conclusion of the Potsdam Conference in Germany, Winston Churchill, Harry Truman and China’s representatives issued a demand for unconditional Japanese surrender. The Japanese, unaware the demand was backed up by an Atomic bomb, rejected the Potsdam Declaration on July 26.
- 1959 – Kitchen debate between Nixon and Khrushchev. A series of debates, now popularly called the kitchen debates, occurred between U.S. President Nixon and Soviet Premier Khrushchev in Moscow. Nixon was visiting a house built as part of an exhibit in the American National Exhibition.
- 1969 – Apollo 11, the first space mission to put a man on the moon, splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean.
- 1977 – The 4-day long Libyan-Egyptian War comes to an end. The border war began with thousands of Libyans marching towards Egypt’s borders.
- 1979 – Carl Yastrzemski hits his 400th career home run at Fenway Park.
- 2005 – Lance Armstrong wins a record 7th Tour de France.
- 2013 – Santiago de Compostela derailment. A high-speed train traveling from Madrid to Ferrol derailed on a curve killing 79 people and injuring over 100.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1783 – Simon Bolivar (South American liberator)
- 1802 – Alexandre Dumas (Author of The Three Musketeers)
- 1897 – Amelia Earhart (Pilot)
- 1900 – Zelda Fitzgerald (American author)
Zelda Fitzgerald - 1949 – Michael Richards (Actor played Kramer on Seinfeld)
- 1951 – Lynda Carter (Actress played Wonder Woman)
- 1964 – Barry Bonds (Baseball Player)
- 1969 – Jennifer Lopez (Singer / Actress)
- 1969 – Rick Fox (Basketball Player)
- 1982 – Anna Paquin (Actress)
DEATHS
- 1862 – Martin Van Buren (American politician, 8th President of the United States)
- 1980 – Peter Sellers (English film actor, comedian, singer)
Peter Sellers - 2010 – Alex Higgins (Irish snooker player)
- 2012 – John Atta Mills (Ghanaian politician, 3rd President of Ghana)
- 2012 – Robert Ledley (American scientist, invented the full-body CT scanner)
