“Human history in essence is the history of ideas.” —HG Wells
July 20
1402 – Turkic leader Tamerlane defeats the Ottoman sultan at the Battle of Ankara.
1822 – Austrian Augustinian friar and discoverer of the basic principles of heredity Gregor Mendel is born.
1903 – Pope Leo XIII dies.
1937 – Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi, who invented the first effective radio communication system, dies.
1969 – American astronaut Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the moon. “240,000 miles from Earth, [he] speaks these words to more than a billion people listening at home: ‘That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.’”
1973 – Actor and martial artist Bruce Lee dies.
July 21
356 BC – An arsonist named Herostratus burns down the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. This same date is also reportedly the birthday of Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great.
365 AD – An earthquake near the island of Crete triggers a major tsunami that causes devastation throughout the Eastern Mediterranean.
1861 – The First Battle of Bull Run occurs, unfortunately a Confederate victory, at which Rebel Gen. Thomas Jackson earned his famous nickname of “Stonewall.” This “was the first full-scale battle of the Civil War. The fierce fight there forced both the North and South to face the sobering reality that the war would be long and bloody.”
1899 – Nobel Prize-winning American writer Ernest Hemingway is born.
1951 – U.S. actor and comedian Robin Williams is born.
1954 – The Geneva Conference on Indochina ends, dividing former French colonial holdings into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Kingdom of Cambodia, the State of Vietnam, and the Kingdom of Laos.
1967 – British actor Basil Rathbone dies.
July 22
1099 – Reportedly the date on which Crusader Godfrey of Bouillon is elected as the first Defender of the Holy Sepulchre of The Kingdom of Jerusalem.
1306 – King Philip of France expels all Jews.
1456 – Inspired by St. Juan de Capistrano and led by John Hunyadi, despite numerical disadvantage, the forces of the Christian West “scored one of [their] greatest victories over the [Islamic] jihad [at Belgrade] — and, in so doing, inaugurated the ringing of church bells at noon.” Read the remarkable story here.
1942 – Nazi mass deportations of Jews begin from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka concentration and extermination camp.
July 23
1148 – The Siege of Damascus begins during the Second Crusade; unfortunately, the Christians’ siege failed.
1711 – The Treaty of the Pruth ends the Russo-Turkish War.
1885 – U.S. Grant, the brilliant general who saved the Union during the Civil War and who then became arguably the greatest civil rights president in American history, dies. Fortunately, before his death, he had written his memoirs at the request of his friend Mark Twain. Read more about Grant here.
1989 – Daniel Radcliffe, English actor famous for playing Harry Potter, is born.
July 24
1534 – French explorer Jacques Cartier erects a 30 foot-high cross with the arms of France at Penouille Point.
1567 – The Protestant British under evil Queen Elizabeth I force the abdication of Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, who was later treacherously executed by her cousin Queen Elizabeth. Mary’s infant son James is made king of Scotland.
1660 – Great Fire breaks out in Istanbul.
1783 – Simon Bolivar, called “The Liberator” for leading revolutions against Spanish rule in South America, is born.
1832 – The first wagon train goes over South Pass, Wyoming, in the Rocky Mountains, blazing a trail for Westward-bound pioneers.
1866 – Tennessee becomes the first Confederate state allowed readmission to the Union.
1911 – U.S. historian Hiram Bingham discovers the ruins of Incan settlement Machu Picchu.
1943 – During Operation Gomorrah in WWII, Allied bombing begins that will cause a firestorm in Hamburg.
July 25
306 – Constantine is proclaimed Roman Emperor by his troops at his father’s death.
1834 – English Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge dies.
1943 – During WWII, “Benito Mussolini, fascist dictator of Italy, is voted out of power by his own Grand Council and arrested upon leaving a meeting with King Vittorio Emanuele, who tells Il Duce that the war is lost.”
1944 – As part of the WWII Battle of Normandy, the American Operation Cobra and the Anglo-Canadian Operation Spring begin.
July 26
1519 – Reportedly the date on which “Francisco Pizarro receives royal charter for the west coast of South America.”
1533 – Possibly the date on which Spain’s Pizarro executes the last Incan emperor, Atahualpa.
1856 – Socialist and writer George Bernard Shaw is born in Ireland.
1863 – Sam Houston, key figure in the Texan Revolution against oppressive Mexico and first president of the briefly independent Republic of Texas, dies. He was elected governor of Texas (one of the state’s chief cities bears his name) but was removed from office after bravely refusing to pledge allegiance to the breakaway Confederate States of America. Houston opposed the expansion of slavery.
1908 – The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is founded; as whistleblower Steve Friend said, it is now high time to abolish this corrupt and pernicious agency.
1945 – During WWII, the Allied nations of America, China, and Great Britain demand the “unconditional surrender” of Imperial Japan with the Potsdam Declaration.
1945 – Shakespearean actress Helen Mirren is born.
July 27
1214 – The Battle of Bouvines occurs, “a decisive victory to the French king Philip II Augustus over an international coalition of the Holy Roman emperor Otto IV, King John of England, and the French vassals Ferdinand (Ferrand) of Portugal, count of Flanders, and Renaud (Raynald) of Dammartin, count of Boulogne. The victory enhanced the power and the prestige of the French monarchy in France and in the rest of Europe.”
1549 – St. Francis Xavier becomes the first Christian missionary to reach Japan.
1689 – Jacobite forces loyal to deposed Catholic King James defeat Protestant government forces at the Battle of Killiecrankie, first battle of the Jacobite uprisings.
1866 – “[EDN] The first successful transatlantic telegraph cable was completed, stretching from Valentia Island, Ireland, to Heart’s Content, Newfoundland.”
1940 – Iconic cartoon character Bugs Bunny, voiced by Mel Blanc, debuts in the animated short “A Wild Hare.”
1941 – During WWII, amidst Nazi-inspired massacres of Jews, “Jews from Kovno, Lithuania, before their Execution, [are] being led by Lithuanian Militia to the Seventh Fort.”
2003 – Legendary English-born American comedian Bob Hope dies.
Did I miss any important events? Let me know in the comments.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Catherine Salgado
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://catherinesalgado.substack.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.
