History July This Day in History

                           

July This Day in History, Historic Events

Fireworks

What Historic July Events Occurred on Your Birthday?

Our “This Day in History for July” section contains historical July events categorized by month and day. See what happened on your birthday, or any day of the year. Find out what happened on this day in July.

August Summer Sun

Major Historical July Events

July 1, 1847 – U.S. postage stamps went on sale for the first time. 

July 1, 1848 – The first photographs were used in a newspaper.

July 1, 1862 – The Bureau of Internal Revenue Service was established.

July 1, 1874 – The Philadelphia Zoo opens, the first zoo in the U.S.

July 1, 1898 – Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders charge up San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish American War.

July 1, 1903 – The first Tour de France begins.

July 1, 1905 – Albert Einstein introduces his Theory of Relativity.

July 1, 1943 – Taxes begin to be withheld from paychecks.

July 1, 1963 – ZIP codes go into use.

July 1, 1968 – Medicare health insurance program goes into effect.

July 2, 1881 – President Garfield is shot. His struggle to survive lasted 80 days until his death on September 19th.

July 2, 1937 – Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan disappear over the Pacific Ocean on their way to Howland Island.

July 2, 1955 – The Lawrence Welk show premieres on television.

July 2, 1962 – Sam Walton opens his first Walmart store in Rogers, Arkansas.

July 2, 1964 – President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law.

July 3, 1608 – Samuel de Champlain founds the city of Quebec.

July 3, 1775 – George Washington takes command of the Continental Army.

July 3, 1806 – The first cultivated strawberry is displayed by Michael Kent 

July 4, 1776 – U.S. Independence Day. The U.S. Congress declares independence from Britain, issuing the Declaration of Independence.

July 4, 1796 -The first Independence Day celebration is held.

July 4, 1803 – President Thomas Jefferson announces the Louisiana Purchase. The price tag: $15M, about 4 cents per acre.

July 4, 1884 – The Statue of Liberty is presented to the United States in Paris.

July 4, 1984 – After being displayed for over a century, the torch on the Statue of Liberty is removed so it can be replaced.

July 4, 1994 – Hotmail internet email provider begins service.

July 5, 1865 – Great Britain creates the world’s first automobile speed limit law.

July 5, 1937 – Baseball great Joe DiMaggio hits his first grand slam.

July 5, 1942 – Ian Fleming graduates from a training school for spies in Canada.

July 5, 1946 – The bikini makes its debut at a Paris fashion show.  See National Bikini Day

July 5, 1994 – Jeff Bezos founds Amazon.com.

July 5, 2017 – Volvo is the first car company to announce that by 2019 their automobiles will all be hybrid or battery-powered. 

July 6, 1189 – Richard the Lionheart is crowned the King of England, upon the death of King Henry II.

July 6, 1885 – Louis Pasteur creates the anti-rabies shot.

July 6, 1898 – The U.S. Senate votes to annex Hawaii.

July 6, 1933 – In the very first All-Star Baseball game, the American League wins 5-2.

July 6, 2016 – Pokémon Go is released.

July 7, 1456 – In a retrial, Joan of Arc is acquitted of heresy 25 years after her death.

July 7, 1928 – The Chillicothe Baking Company creates and markets sliced bread. It is heralded as the greatest invention since…. well since sliced bread!

July 7, 1981 – Sandra Day O’Connor is the first female nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court.

July 8, 1776 – Colonel John Nixon gives the first reading of the Declaration of Independence to the citizens of Philadelphia, PA.

July 8, 1796 – The U.S. State Department issues the first passport. 

July 8, 1889 – The Wall Street Journal is published for the first time.

July 8, 2011 – The space shuttle Atlantis is launched. It is the last launch of the space shuttle program.

July 9, 1795 – The U.S. debt is paid off. The total: $2,024,899.

July 9, 1815 – The first natural gas well in the U.S. is discovered while drilling for salt in Charleston, SC.

July 9, 1947 – Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth) and Lt. Philip Mountbatten (later Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh) are engaged.

July 9, 1956 – Dick Clark hosts American Bandstand for the very first time.

July 9, 2018 – Starbucks announces it will stop using plastic straws by 2020, saving over 1 billion straws per year.

July 10, 988 – The city of Dublin is founded on the banks of the Liffey River.

July 10, 1040 -In an effort to force her husband, the Earl of Mercia, to lower taxes, Lady Godiva rides naked on a horse through the streets of Coventry.

July 10, 1938 – Howard Hughes flies around the world in 91 hours.  

July 10, 1985 – After an unsuccessful attempt to change its formula, Coca-Cola brings back the ever-popular original formula as “Classic Coke”.

July 10, 2008 – The Apple App Store premieres. It opens with about 500 apps. Today, it has over 1.96 million apps.  See National App Day.

Campfire Day

July Events: Celebrate National Bikini Day

July 11, 1792 – Robert Bailey Thomas publishes the first issue of the Farmer’s Almanac. It is now called the “Old Farmer’s Almanac”.

July 11, 1798 – An Act of Congress creates the U.S. Marine Corps.

July 11, 1804 – Former Vice President Aaron Burr kills Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel.

July 11, 1812 – During the War of 1812, the U.S. invades Canada, Detroit frontier.

July 11, 1955 – Congress authorizes all U.S. currency to say “In God We Trust”.

July 11, 1979 – Skylab space station re-enters the earth’s atmosphere. Pieces land in the Indian Ocean and in Australia. 

July 12, 1862 – The U.S. Congress authorizes the Medal of Honor.

July 12, 1909 – The 16th Amendment, the power to tax income, is passed by Congress.

July 12, 1928 – The first televised tennis match.

July 12, 1933 – Congress passes the first minimum wage law. The minimum wage is set at 33 cents per hour.

July 12, 1960 – Etch-a-Sketch goes on sale.

July 13, 1835 – Swedish-American inventor John Ericsson files for a patent of his screw propeller design.

July 13, 1836 – U.S. patent #1 is issued. It is for a locomotive wheel design. Note: Previously, the Patent Office issued 9,957 un-numbered patents.

July 13, 1865 – P.T. Barnum’s Museum burns down.

July 13, 1898 – The radio is patented by Guglielmo Marconi.

July 13, 1909 – Gustav Robert Paalen receives a patent for the double-walled vessel required to make Nitrogen Ice Cream. See Nitrogen Ice Cream Day.

July 13, 1994 – Former NFL Superstar running back O.J. Simpson is charged with the murder of his wife. Will the glove fit!?

July 14, 1789 – Bastille Day. The French Revolution begins with the fall of Bastille prison.

July 14, 1867 – Alfred Nobel demonstrates dynamite. 

July 14, 1891 – John T. Smith applies for a patent for corkboard.

July 14, 1914 – Liquid rocket fuel is patented. 

July 15, 1099 – The city of Jerusalem is captured and plundered by Christian forces during the First Crusade.

July 15, 1844 – Vulcanized rubber is patented by Goodyear.

July 15, 1858 – Margarine is patented.

July 15, 1916 – William Boeing founds Boeing Company in Seattle, WA.

July 15, 1920 – German Hans Riegel creates gummi bears.

July 15 – 1081- Trolli Company markets the “Yucky” gummi worms.

July 16, 1790 – Congress declares the city of Washington and the District of Columbia the permanent capital of the United States.

July 16, 1936 – The first x-ray photo of arterial circulation is taken in Rochester, NY

July 16, 1951 – The novel “Catcher in the Rye “by. J.D. Salinger is published.

July 16, 1969 – Apollo 11 is launched, carrying the first men to step foot on the surface of the moon.

July 16, 1999 – John F. Kennedy Jr. dies in a plane crash off Martha’s Vineyard. 

July 16, 2004 – Martha Stewart is sentenced to five months in prison plus five months of home confinement, after being convicted of lying to federal investigators.

July 17, 1867 – The Harvard School of Dentistry becomes the first dental school in the U.S.

July 17, 1902 – The air conditioner was invented. 

July 17, 1955 – Walt Disney’s Disneyland opens in Anaheim, Ca.

July 18, 1925 – Adolph Hitler publishes Mein Kampf.

July 18, 1925 – Nadia Comăneci becomes the first gymnast in Olympic Games history to score a perfect 10 score at the Montreal Games.

July 18, 1994 – Comet Shoemaker-Levy’s largest collision with Jupiter leaves a black spot a phenomenal 12,000 km across!

July 18, 1994 – Crayola begins to market scented crayons.

July 18, 2013 – The city of Detroit, MI files for bankruptcy.

July 19, 1814 – Samuel Colt invents the revolver 

July 19, 1922 – American swimmer Johnny Weissmuller becomes the first to break the 1-minute barrier for 100m freestyle; swims 58.6 seconds at Alameda, CA.

July 19, 1940 – Winston Churchill uses the two-finger “V” for victory sign. 

July 19, 1940 – Adolph Hitler orders Great Britain to surrender.

July 19, 1990 – Cincinnati Red’s Pete Rose is sentenced to five years in jail for tax evasion.

July 20, 1858 – The first fee is charged to watch a baseball game. Fans paid 50 cents to watch NY beat Brooklyn, 22-18.

July 20, 1976 – Hank Aaron hits his 755th and last home run.

July 20, 1969 – In “one small step for Man, one giant step for Mankind”, Astronaut Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to walk on the moon.

Hammock 01

July Historic Events: Air Conditioners are Invented, What a Relief

July 21, 1853 – The New York State legislature sets aside 750 acres on Manhattan Island for the creation of Central Park.

July 21, 1873 – Jesse James and his gang rob their first train.

July 21, 1983 – USSR’s Vostok Station in Antarctica, records the lowest record temperature ever at 128.6 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.

July 21, 1997 -The fully restored USS Constitution (aka “Old Ironsides”) celebrates her 200th birthday, setting sail for the first time in 116 years.

July 21, 2011 – NASA’s Space Shuttle program ends with the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-135.

July 22, 1934 – Bank robber John Dillon was shot dead.

July 22, 1975 – An act of Congress restores Civil War Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s citizenship.

 July 23, 1904 – Charles E. Minches of St. Louis, Missouri fills a pastry cone with two scoops of ice cream, and the ice cream cone is invented.

July 23, 1966 – Frank Sinatra’s song “Strangers in the Night” is #1 on the charts.

July 23, 1982 – The International Whaling Commission votes for a total ban on commercial whaling, to begin in 1985.

July 23, 1999 – Air Force Colonel Eileen M. Collins becomes the first woman to command a space shuttle.

July 24, 1534 – Jacques Cartier lands in Canada and claims it for France.

July 24, 1929 – Pres. Hoover announces the Kellogg-Briand Pact which renounces war. (A lot of good that did.) 

July 24, 1965 – Bob Dylan releases his hit song Like a Rolling Stone.

July 25, 305 – Constantine I is declared the Roman Emperor by his troops.

July 25, 1814 – American forces defeat the British at the Battle of Niagara Falls (Lundy’s Lane)

July 25, 1850 – Gold is discovered in the Rogue River in Oregon.

July 25, 1871 – The Carousel is patented by Wilhelm Schneider of Davenport, IA. See National Carousel Day.

July 25, 1944 – The first fighter jet, a Messerschmitt 262, is used in combat.

July 25, 1946 – Comedians Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin perform their first comedy act together, at Club 500 in Atlantic City, NJ.

July 25, 1978 – Louise Joy Brown, the First “Test Tube” baby is born in Oldham General Hospital, UK.

July 26, 1775 – Benjamin Franklin became the first Postmaster General.

July 26, 1944 – The first German V-2 rocket hits Great Britain. 

 July 26, 1952 – Mickey Mantle hits his first “Grand Slam”.

July 26, 1990 – General Hospital records its 7,000th episode.

July 27, 1837 – The U.S. Mint in Charlotte, NC opens. It will be destroyed by a fire on this day in 1844, just 7 years to the day after it opens.

July 27, 1858 – The first use of fingerprints as a means of identification is used by Sir William James Herschel of the Indian Civil Service.  

July 27, 1940 – Bugs Bunny debuts in Warner Brothers animated cartoon “A Wild Hare”.

July 27, 1951 – Walt Disney releases the animated film Alice in Wonderland.

July 27, 1990 – Zsa Zsa Gabor begins a 3-day prison term for slapping an officer.

July 28, 1914 – World War I began. 

July 28, 1958 – The U.S. Congress authorizes the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating NASA.

July 29, 1836 – The Arc de Triomphe in Paris is inaugurated.

July 29, 1909 – Sir Lord Baden-Powell creates the Boy Scouts in England.

July 29, 1928 – Walt Disney’s “Steamboat Willie” premieres. 

July 20, 1958 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

July 29, 1981 – Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer are married.

July 30, 1965 – President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Medicare bill. 

July 30, 2003 – The last old-style Volkswagen Beetle rolled off the assembly line in Mexico.

July 31, 781 – The oldest recorded eruption of Mount Fuji in Japan. It has been dormant since 1707.

July 31, 1777 – Marquise de Lafayette, at the age of 19, is made a Major General of the Continental Army.

July 31, 1969 – Mariner 6 flies past Mars.

July 31, 2012 – American swimmer Michael Phelps becomes the greatest medal winner in Olympic history at nineteen total medals, including 15 gold medals.



Additional Resources

Flower of the Month

Birthstone of the Month

Famous Birthdays Who else was born on your Birthday? Find out!

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