Garfield rules!

June 20th
 

1819 ~ Birthday of Jacques Offenbach, Composer.

1837 ~ Queen Victoria ascended to the British throne.

1877 ~ Alexander Graham Bell installed the first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario.

1899 ~ Birthday of Jean Moulin, leader of the French Resistance in WW II.

1909 ~ Birthday of Errol Flynn, Actor.

1948 ~ The Ed Sullivan Show, (née Toast of the Town) debuted.

1953 ~ Birthday of Cyndi Lauper, singer.

1966 ~ Canada sold 336 million bushels of wheat to the U.S.S.R.

1977 ~ Oil began to flow through the Trans-Alaska pipeline.

2002 ~ Death of Erwin Chargaff, biochemist.

June 21st
 

1527 ~ Death of Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian Historian & Political Author.

1749 ~ Halifax, Nova Scotia founded.

1781 ~ Birthday of Siméon-Denis Poisson, Mathematician & Physicist.

1905 ~ Birthday of Jean-Paul Sartre, Philosopher & Playwright, recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature 1964.

1908 ~ Death of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian Composer.

1940 ~ World War II: France surrendered to Germany.

1965 ~ Folk rock band The Byrds released their debut album Mr. Tambourine Man.

1989 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. Johnson that flag burning is protected speech under the United States Constitution.

2001 ~ Death of Carroll O'Connor, American Actor.

2004 ~ SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded space plane to achieve spaceflight.

June 22nd
 

1825 ~ British Parliament abolished feudalism in British North America.

1837 ~ Birthday of Paul Morphy, Chess phenomenon.

1856 ~ Birthday of H. Rider Haggard, Author.

1936 ~ Birthday of Kris Kristofferson, Singer, Songwriter, Actor, & Rhodes scholar.

1941 ~ Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.

1969 ~ Death of Judy Garland, Singer & Actress.

1976 ~ Canadian House of Commons voted to abolish capital punishment.

1987 ~ Death of Fred Astaire, Dancer & Actor.

1996 ~ The Quake computer game was released.

2002 ~ Death of Ann Landers, Columnist.

June 23rd
 

1894 ~ International Olympic Committee (I.O.C.) was founded at the Sorbonne, Paris, at the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin.

1894 ~ Birthday of Alfred Kinsey, Sexologist.

1912 ~ Birthday of Alan Turing, Mathematician.

1927 ~ Birthday of Bob Fosse, Choreographer.

1940 ~ German leader Adolf Hitler toured Paris in now occupied France.

1943 ~ Birthday of Vint Cerf, co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and one of the Fathers of the Internet.

1944 ~ Thomas Mann became a US citizen.

1956 ~ Gamal Abdel Nasser elected president of Egypt.

1958 ~ The Dutch Reformed Church accepted women ministers.

1995 ~ Death of Jonas Salk, developer of the Salk polio vaccine.

June 24th
 

1314 ~ Scotland regained its independence in the Battle of Bannockburn, where Scottish forces led by Robert the Bruce defeat Edward II of England.

1497 ~ John Cabot landed in Newfoundland, the first European discovery of the region since the Vikings.

1519 ~ Death of Lucrezia Borgia, duchess of Ferrara.

1692 ~ Kingston, Jamaica founded.

1901 ~ First exhibition of Pablo Picasso's work.

1910 ~ Japan invades Korea.

1915 ~ Birthday of Fred Hoyle, cosmologist and science fiction author.

1948 ~ Start of the Berlin Blockade. The Soviet Union made land travel between West Germany and West Berlin impossible.

1995 ~ The New Jersey Devils swept the Detroit Red Wings in four games in the NHL Stanley Cup finals.

2003 ~ Death of Leon Uris, Author.

June 25th
 

1822 ~ Death of E.T.A. Hoffmann, German Writer, Composer & Painter

1876 ~ Battle of the Little Big Horn & death of Colonel George Armstrong Custer.

1894 ~ Birthday of Hermann Oberth, Physicist & one of the founding fathers of Rocketry and Astronautics.

1903 ~ Birthday of George Orwell, Writer.

1950 ~ The start of the Korean War.

1991 ~ Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from Yugoslavia.

1993 ~ Kim Campbell became the first female Prime Minister of Canada.

1995 ~ Death of Warren Burger, United States Supreme Court justice.

1997 ~ Death of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, French Explorer, Scientist & Inventor.

1998 ~ In Clinton v. City of New York, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 unconstitutional.

Today 2005

Everyone seems to have too many hormones cursing through their system and need to go and have a good romp. ;)

June 26th
 

1541 ~ Death of Francisco Pizarro, Spanish Conqueror of Peru.

1824 ~ Birthday of Lord Kelvin, Physicist.

1898 ~ Birthday of Willy Messerschmitt, Aircraft Designer.

1933 ~ Birthday of Claudio Abbado, Conductor.

1934 ~ Initial flight of the first practical helicopter, the Focke-Wulf Fw 61.

1975 ~ Death of St. Josemaría Escrivá, creator of Opus Dei.

1948 ~ The Western allies began the Berlin Airlift, after the Soviet Union blockaded West Berlin.

1964 ~ The Beatles released the album A Hard Day's Night.

1997 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Communications Decency Act violated the First Amendment, and thus unconstitutional.

2003 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court rules that sodomy laws are unconstitutional in Lawrence v. Texas.

June 27th
 

1759 ~ General James Wolfe began the siege of Quebec.

1838 ~ Birthday of Paul von Mauser, Weapon Designer.

1880 ~ Birthday of Helen Keller, spokeswoman for the Deaf and Blind.

1893 ~ Crash of the New York Stock Exchange.

1905 ~ Mutiny on the battleship Potemkin.

1931 ~ Birthday of Charles Bronfman, Industrialist & Philanthropist

1954 ~ World's first nuclear power station went on line in Obninsk, near Moscow.

1967 ~ World's first ATM installed in Enfield, London.

1979 ~ Muhammad Ali announced his retirement from boxing.

2001 ~ Death of Jack Lemmon, Actor & Film Director.

June 28th
 

1577 ~ Birthday of Peter Paul Rubens, German Painter.

1712 ~ Birthday of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Franco-Swiss Philosopher.

1880 ~ Ned Kelly the Australian bushranger captured at Glenrowan.

1906 ~ Birthday of Maria Goeppert-Mayer, Physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics.

1914 ~ Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and his wife Sophia were killed by a Serbian nationalist, the casus belli of World War I.

1919 ~ The Treaty of Versailles was signed, ending World War I with Germany.

1926 ~ Birthday of Mel Brooks, Filmmaker.

1969 ~ Stonewall riots in New York city marked the beginning of the modern gay rights era.

1992 ~ Death of Mikhail Tal, eighth World Chess Champion.

2004 ~ Sovereign power was handed to the interim government of Iraq by the Coalition Provisional Authority, ending the U.S.-led rule.

June 29th
 

1861 ~ Death of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Poet. “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…”

1868 ~ Birthday of George Ellery Hale, Astronomer.

1880 ~ France annexed Tahiti .

1895 ~ Death of Thomas Henry Huxley, Scientist. "Darwin's Bulldog"

1914 ~ Birthday of Rafael Kubelik, Czech Conductor.

1922 ~ France granted 1 km² at Vimy Ridge "freely, and for all time, to the Government of Canada, the free use of the land exempt from all taxes".

1925 ~ Canada House opened in London.

1963 ~ Birthday of Anne-Sophie Mutter, Violinist.

1995 ~ Death of Lana Turner, Actress.

2003 ~ Death of Katharine Hepburn, Actress.

June 30th
 

1817 ~ Birthday of Joseph Dalton Hooker, Botanist & Champion of Charles Darwin.

1905 ~ During his annus mirabilis, Albert Einstein published the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies in which he introduced special relativity. OMG! That must have been an exciting period to be a physicist!

1908 ~ Tunguska impact event occurred in Siberia.

1934 ~ Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany took place.

1936 ~ Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell published.

1943 ~ Birthday of Florence Ballard, American Singer (The Supremes).

1960 ~ Congo gained independence from Belgium.

1971 ~ The crew of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft died when a faulty valve allowed their air supply to escape.

1985 ~ Birthday of Michael Phelps, American Swimmer.

1997 ~ China resumed sovereignty over Hong Kong, ending 156 years of British colonial rule.

July 1st
 

1646 ~ Birthday of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, German Mathematician & Philosopher.

1858 ~ The joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's papers on evolution.

1872 ~ Birthday of Louis Blériot, French aviation pioneer.

1873 ~ Prince Edward Island joined the Canadian Confederation.

1906 ~ Birthday of Estée Lauder, Cosmetics Pioneer.

1916 ~ On the first day of the Battle of the Somme 20,000 British soldiers were killed, and 40,000 wounded.

1925 ~ Death of Erik Satie, French Composer.

1963 ~ The British Government admitted that former diplomat Kim Philby had worked as a Soviet agent.

2000 ~ Death of Walter Matthau, Actor.

2000 ~ Vermont's civil unions law went into effect.

July 2nd
 

1714 ~ Birthday of Christoph Willibald Gluck, German Composer.

1777 ~ Vermont became the first state to abolish slavery.

1808 ~ Simon Fraser reached the Pacific near New Westminster.

1906 ~ Birthday of Hans Bethe, Nobel Prize-winning German-born nuclear physicist.

1908 ~ Birthday of Thurgood Marshall, U. S. Supreme Court justice.

1937 ~ Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean.

1961 ~ Death of Ernest Hemingway, American author, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1976 ~ North and South Vietnam, divided since 1954, reunited to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

1977 ~ Death of Vladimir Nabokov, Russian-born writer.

1982 ~ Larry Walters attached 45 helium balloons to a lawn chair and ascended to a height of 16,000 feet.

July 3rd
 

1608 ~ Quebec City founded by Samuel de Champlain.

1844 ~ The last pair of Great Auks was killed.

1854 ~ Birthday of Leoš Janáček, Czech Composer.

1863 ~ The final and bloodiest day of the battle of Gettysburg.

1883 ~ Birthday of Franz Kafka, Austrian Writer.

1935 ~ Death of André Citroën, Automobile Pioneer.

1938 ~ World speed record set for a steam railway locomotive, by the Mallard, which reached 126 mph.

1986 ~ Death of Rudy Vallee, Singer, Actor, Bandleader, & Entertainer.

1988 ~ USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf.

1995 ~ Death of Pancho Gonzales, Tennis Player.

July 4th
 

1054 ~ A supernova was recorded by the Chinese near the star ζ Tauri. Its remnants form the Crab Nebula.

1776 ~ The Continental Congress approves a Declaration of Independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, forming the United States of America.

1807 ~ Birthday of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian Patriot.

1826 ~ Death of John Adams & Thomas Jefferson, 2nd & 3rd Presidents of the U.S.

1855 ~ The first edition of Walt Whitman's book of poems Leaves of Grass is published.

1883 ~ Birthday of Rube Goldberg, Cartoonist.

1934 ~ Death of Maria Curie, Polish-born scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry & Physics.

1976 ~ Israeli commandos rescued 105 hostages at Entebbe Airport, Uganda.

1997 ~ NASA's Pathfinder space probe lands on Mars.

1997 ~ Death of Charles Kuralt, Television Reporter.

July 5th
 

1810 ~ Birthday of Phineas Taylor "P. T." Barnum, Circus Owner.

1853 ~ Birthday of Cecil Rhodes, South African Politician.

1911 ~ Birthday of Georges Pompidou, President of France.

1948 ~ British National Health Service Act enacted.

1951 ~ William Shockley invented the junction transistor.

1962 ~ Algeria became independent from France.

1969 ~ Death of Walter Gropius, German architect.

1971 ~ The voting age in the U.S. was reduced to 18 from 21.

1975 ~ Cape Verde gained its independence from Portugal.

1996 ~ Birthday of Dolly the sheep, first cloned mammal.

July 6th
 

1885 ~ Louis Pasteur successfully tested his vaccine against rabies. The patient was Joseph Meister, a boy bitten by a rabid dog.

1917 ~ Arabian troops led by T.E. Lawrence captured Aqaba from the Turks.

1946 ~ Birthday of George W. Bush, 43rd President of the U.S.

1962 ~ Death of William Faulkner, American Novelist.

1964 ~ A Hard Day's Night, the first Beatles film, premiered.

1971 ~ Death of Louis Armstrong, Jazz Musician.

1973 ~ Death of Otto Klemperer, German Conductor.

1974 ~ The radio program A Prairie Home Companion first broadcast.

1989 ~ The Piper Alpha drilling platform in the North Sea was destroyed by explosions and fires killing 167 oil workers.

1998 ~ Death of Roy Rogers, Cowboy Actor & Singer.

July 7th
 

1846 ~ Commodore Sloat ordered his troops to occupy Monterey and Yerba Buena, beginning the U.S. annexation of California.

1860 ~ Birthday of Gustav Mahler, Austrian Composer.

1887 ~ Birthday of Marc Chagall, Russian-born Painter.

1898 ~ U.S. President William McKinley signs the Newlands Resolution which annexed Hawaii as a territory.

1907 ~ Birthday of Robert Heinlein, Science Fiction Writer.

1930 ~ Death of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Scottish Writer.

1940 ~ Birthday of Ringo Starr, Beatle.

1958 ~ U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Alaska Statehood Act.

1978 ~ The Solomon Islands gains independence from the U.K.

1994 ~ Aden was occupied by troops from North Yemen, completing the reunification of Yemen.

July 8th
 

1497 ~ Vasco da Gama set sail on his first direct voyage to India.

1663 ~ Charles II of England grants John Clarke a Charter to Rhode Island.

1695 ~ Death of Christiaan Huygens, Dutch Scientist.

1822 ~ Death of Percy Shelley, English poet.

1838 ~ Birthday of Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, German Inventor.

1882 ~ Birthday of Percy Grainger, Australian Composer.

1889 ~ In the last championship bare-knuckle boxing match, John L. Sullivan defeated Jake Kilrain.

1889 ~ The first issue of the Wall Street Journal published.

1969 ~ CICS was made available for the IBM 360 mainframe computer.

1997 ~ Mayo Clinic researchers warned that the dieting-drug "fen-phen" could cause severe heart and lung damage.

July 9th
 

1793 ~ Act Against Slavery passes in Upper Canada and importation of slaves into Lower Canada prohibited.

1816 ~ Argentina declared independence from Spain.

1900 ~ Queen Victoria gave royal assent to an act creating the Commonwealth of Australia, uniting separate colonies under one federal government.

1916 ~ Birthday of Edward Heath, P.M. of the U.K.

1943 ~ Operation Husky - Allied forces performed an amphibious invasion of Sicily.

1955 ~ The Russell-Einstein Manifesto was released by Bertrand Russell in London.

1974 ~ Death of Earl Warren, Governor of California, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

1989 ~ Two bombs exploded in Mecca, killing one pilgrim and wounding 16 others.

1991 ~ South Africa returned to the Olympic movement after 30 years.

1997 ~ Mike Tyson's boxing license was suspended and he was fined $3 million for biting Evander Holyfield's ear in a televised match.

July 10th
 

1842 ~ Birthday of :wingang: Adolphus Busch, German-born Brewer.

1856 ~ Birthday of Nikola Tesla, Croatian physicist.

1895 ~ Birthday of Carl Orff, German Composer.

1925 ~ In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called Monkey Trial began with John T. Scopes, a high school science teacher, accused of teaching evolution in violation of Tennessee state law.

1962 ~ The world's first communications satellite, Telstar, was launched.

1979 ~ Death of Arthur Fiedler, American Conductor.

1985 ~ The Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior was sunk in Auckland Harbor by French agents.

1997 ~ Scientists report their DNA analysis findings from a Neandertal skeleton which support the Out of Africa hypothesis of human evolution.

2002 ~ At a Sotheby's auction, Peter Paul Rubens' painting The Massacre of the Innocents was sold for $76.2 million.

2003 ~ Death of Lord Shawcross, U.K. chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials.

July 11th
 

1798 ~ The U.S. Marine Corps was re-established after having been disbanded at the end of the American Revolutionary War.

1857 ~ Birthday of Alfred Binet, French Psychologist.

1859 ~ Charles Dickens’ A Tale Of Two Cities was published.

1899 ~ Birthday of E. B. White, American Writer. (Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web, The Trumpet of the Swan.)

1921 ~ Former U.S. President Taft was sworn in as 10th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, becoming the only man to be both President and Chief Justice.

1937 ~ Death of George Gershwin, American Composer.

1962 ~ First transatlantic satellite television transmission.

1971 ~ Death of John W. Campbell, Writer & Editor.

1989 ~ Death of Sir Laurence Olivier, Actor.

1995 ~ Bosnian Serbs capture the city of Srebrenica.

July 12th
 

1536 ~ Death of Erasmus, Dutch Writer & Philosopher.

1690 ~ William of Orange's army won the Battle of the Boyne.

1730 ~ Birthday of Josiah Wedgwood, English Potter.

1773 ~ Death of Johann Joachim Quantz, German Flutist & Composer.

1817 ~ Birthday of Henry David Thoreau, American Writer & Philosopher.

1862 ~ Medal of Honor authorized by the U.S. Congress.

1904 ~ Birthday of Deng Xiaoping, Chinese politician.

1933 ~ U.S. Congress passes the first federal minimum wage law in the U.S.

1943 ~ The largest tank engagement of WWII took place, part of the Battle of Kursk

1979 ~ The island nation of Kiribati became independent.

July 13th
 

100 BC ~ Birthday of Julius Caesar, Soldier & Politician.

40 ~ Birthday of Gnaeus Agricola, Roman Governor of Britain.

1793 ~ Jean Paul Marat, one of the leaders of the French revolution, was murdered by Charlotte Corday.

1837 ~ Queen Victoria moved into Buckingham Palace – the first monarch to live there.

1908 ~ Women first included in modern Olympic competition.

1930 ~ The first FIFA World Cup began in Uruguay.

1951 ~ Death of Arnold Schoenberg, Austrian Composer.

1972 ~ The U.S. Democratic Party nominated George McGovern for president.

1982 ~ Montreal was host to the first baseball All-Star Game outside the U.S.

1985 ~ The Live Aid benefit concerts took place in London, Philadelphia, Sydney, and Moscow.

July 14th
 

1789 ~ Citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille. Generally recognized as the beginning of the French Revolution.

1798 ~ The Sedition Act made it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false or malicious statements about the U.S. government.

1827 ~ The first Roman Catholic Mass was celebrated in the Hawaiian Islands by members of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. It was the foundation of the present-day Diocese of Honolulu.

1862 ~ Birthday of Gustav Klimt, Austrian Painter & Graphic Artist.

1881 ~ Death of Billy the Kid, American Outlaw.

1887 ~ Death of Alfred Krupp, German Munitions Manufacturer.

1912 ~ Birthday of Northrop Frye, Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye, Canadian Literary Critic.

1913 ~ Birthday of Gerald Ford, U.S. President.

1933 ~ Gleichschaltung: In Germany, all political parties are outlawed except the Nazi Party.

1965 ~ Mariner 4 flyby of Mars took the first close-up photos of another planet.

July 15th
 

1099 ~ Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders.

1606 ~ Birthday of Rembrandt, Dutch artist.

1796 ~ Birthday of Thomas Bulfinch, American Mythologist.

1799 ~ French Captain Pierre Bouchard found the Rosetta Stone.

1870 ~ Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory were transferred to Canada, from which the province of Manitoba and the North-West Territories were established.

1916 ~ In Seattle, Washington, William Boeing incorporated Pacific Aero Products (later renamed Boeing).

1926 ~ Birthday of Leopoldo Galtieri, Argentine Dictator.

1954 ~ First flight of the Boeing 707, the first American jet passenger airliner.

2002 ~ Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and three other suspects convicted of murdering Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

2002 ~ The "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh pleaded guilty to supplying aid to the enemy and possession of explosives during the commission of a felony.

July 16th
 

622 ~ Start of the Islamic calendar.

1769 ~ Father Junipero Serra founded the Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the first mission in California. The mission later evolved into the city of San Diego.

1782 ~ First performance of Mozart's opera The Abduction from the Seraglio.

1872 ~ Birthday of Roald Amundsen, Norwegian explorer who led the expedition which was the first to reach the South Pole.

1918 ~ At Ekaterinburg, Bolsheviks executed Czar Nicholas II of Russia and his family.

1945 ~ The U.S. successfully detonated the first test nuclear weapon at the Trinity site near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

1948 ~ Birthday of Pinchas Zukerman, Israeli Violinist.

1969 ~ Apollo 11 launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida to become the first manned mission to land on the moon.

1981 ~ Death of Harry Chapin, American Singer & Songwriter.

1989 ~ Death of Herbert von Karajan, Austrian Conductor.

July 17th
 

1790 ~ Death of Adam Smith, Scottish Economist.

1897 ~ Klondike gold rush began when the first successful prospectors arrived in Seattle, Washington.

1899 ~ Birthday of James Cagney, Actor.

1917 ~ King George V issued a Proclamation stating that the male line descendants of the British royal family would bear the surname Windsor.

1935 ~ Birthday of Donald Sutherland, Actor.

1936 ~ An Armed Forces rebellion against the recently-elected leftist Popular Front government of Spain started the Spanish civil war.

1947 ~ Birthday of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (formerly Parker Bowles), former British royal mistress and now wife of Prince Charles.

1961 ~ Death of Ty Cobb, Baseball Hall of Famer.

1962 ~ Nuclear testing: The Small Boy test shot Little Feller I became the last atmospheric detonation at the Nevada Test Site.

2003 ~ Death of Dr. David Kelly, U.N. Weapons Inspector.

July 18th
 

1817 ~ Death of Jane Austen, English Novelist.

1887 ~ Birthday of Vidkun Quisling, Norwegian Politician & Traitor.

1909 ~ Birthday of Andrei Gromyko, Soviet Diplomat & President.

1922 ~ Birthday of Thomas Kuhn , Philosopher of Science.

1925 ~ Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf.

1927 ~ Birthday of Kurt Masur, Conductor.

1942 ~ The Messerschmitt Me-262 test flown using only its jets for the first time.

1969 ~ After a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts drove his car off a wooden bridge into a pond and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, died.

1986 ~ The motion picture Aliens opened in theaters.

2001 ~ In Baltimore, Maryland, a 60-car train derailment occurred in a tunnel, sparking a fire that lasted days and virtually shut down downtown Baltimore.

July 19th
 

1374 ~ Death of Petrarch, Italian Poet & early Humanist.

1834 ~ Birthday of Edgar Degas, Impressionist Painter.

1848 ~ The two day Women's Rights Convention opened in Seneca Falls, New York and the "Bloomers" were introduced at the feminist convention.

1870 ~ Franco-Prussian War: France declared war on Prussia.

1898 ~ Birthday of Herbert Marcuse, Communist Philosopher.

1940 ~ Battle of Cape Spada between the Royal Navy and the Regia Marina; the Italian light cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni sunk, with 121 casualties.

1945 ~ Montgomery Ward was seized by U.S. Army troops at the direction of Attorney General Francis Biddle because of its refusal to obey National War Labor Board orders.

1947 ~ Death of Aung San, Burmese nationalist. Aung San's daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi, is now the leader of the Burmese opposition to the current military regime.

1948 ~ Games of the XIV Olympiad opened in London. In 2012 that will happen again for the XXX Olypiad.

2003 ~ Death of Bill Bright, evangelist, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ.

:line: for "bloomers" :D

July 20th
 

1923 ~ New York City Mayor Mike Hylan, in a speech in Ogdensburg, says both the Republican and Democratic Parties were "corrupt manipulators" and urged the public to abandon both of them.

1933 ~ In London, 500,000 marched against anti-Semitism.

1938 ~ Birthday of Dame Diana Rigg, Actress (The Avengers, In This House of Brede)

1938 ~ Birthday of Natalie Wood, Actress (From Here to Eternity, Rebel Without a Cause, West Side Story).

1946 ~ The U.S. House of Representatives voted 265-79 to put control of atomic energy in the hands of a civilian body, the Atomic Energy Commission, rather than leave the military in control.

1960 ~ Ceylon elected Sirimavo Bandaranaike Prime Minister, the world's first female head of government.

1969 ~ Apollo 11 landed on the Moon . Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin became the first men to walk on its surface.

1982 ~ The Provisional IRA detonated two bombs in Hyde Park and Regents Park in central London, killing eight soldiers, and wounding forty-seven people.

1998 ~ 200 aid workers from CARE International, Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups left the country on orders of the Taliban.

2004 ~ Human Rights Watch released a report stating that Sudanese government documents confirmed support for the Arab Janjaweed militia in their campaign of ethnic cleansing against African Muslims in Darfur.

July 21st
 

1796 ~ Death of Robert Burns, Scottish Poet.

1899 ~ Birthday of Ernest Hemingway, American Author.

1861 ~ First Battle of Bull Run - At Manassas Junction, Virginia, the first major battle of the American Civil War began.

1911 ~ Birthday of Marshall McLuhan, Canadian Communications Theorist.

1920 ~ Birthday of Isaac Stern, Ukrainian born Violinist.

1925 ~ In Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John Scopes was found guilty of teaching evolution in class and fined $100.

1948 ~ Birthday of Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam), English Singer.

1954 ~ The Geneva Conference partitioned Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam.

1970 ~ The Aswan High Dam in Egypt was completed at the end of eleven years of construction.

1976 ~ Christopher Ewart-Biggs, British ambassador to the Republic of Ireland, was assassinated by the Provisional IRA.

July 22nd
 

1812 ~ British forces under the command of Arthur Wellesley (Duke of Wellington) defeated the French near Salamanca, Spain.

1822 ~ Birthday of Br. Gregor Mendel, Austrian Geneticist.

1887 ~ Birthday of Gustav Hertz, German Physicist, Nobel Prize laureate.

1898 ~ Birthday of Alexander Calder, American Artist.

1916 ~ In San Francisco, a bomb exploded on Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade, killing ten.

1937 ~ The U.S. Senate voted down President Franklin Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court.

1946 ~ The Irgun bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, headquarters of the British administration, killing ninety.

1967 ~ Death of Carl Sandburg, Poet.

1992 ~ Pablo Escobar, fearing extradition to the U.S., escaped from his luxury prison.

1998 ~ Death of Alan Shepard, Astronaut.

July 23rd
 

1757 ~ Death of Domenico Scarlatti, Italian Composer.

1829 ~ In the U.S., William Austin Burt patented the first typewriter.

1892 ~ Birthday of Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia.

1940 ~ U.S. Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles`s declaration on the US non-recognition policy of the Soviet annexation and incorporation of three Baltic States - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

1942 ~ The Treblinka extermination camp opened.

1962 ~ Telstar relayed the first live trans-Atlantic television signal.

1972 ~ The U.S. launched Landsat 1, first Earth-resources satellite.

1982 ~ The International Whaling Commission voted a moratorium on commercial whaling by 1985-86.

1984 ~ Vanessa Williams became the first Miss America to resign when she surrendered her crown after nude photos of her appeared in Penthouse magazine.

1986 ~ Prince Andrew, Duke of York married Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey.

July 24th
 

1783 ~ Birthday of Simón Bolívar, South American liberator.

1802 ~ Birthday of Alexandre Dumas, French writer. (The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers)

1847 ~ After 17 months of travel, Brigham Young led 148 Mormon pioneers into Salt Lake Valley, resulting in the establishment of Salt Lake City.

1898 ~ Birthday of Amelia Earhart, American Aviatrix.

1911 ~ Hiram Bingham re-discovered the Lost City of the Incas, Machu Picchu.

1929 ~ The Kellogg-Briand Pact, which renounced war as an instrument of foreign policy, went into effect. It was signed in Paris on August 27, 1928 by most leading world powers.

1943 ~ Operation Gomorrah: The RAF Bomber Command bombed Hamburg by night, USAAF 8th Air Force Bomber Command by day. By the end of the operation, 9,000 tons of explosive & incendiary bombs created a firestorm which killed more than 30,000 people and destroyed 280,000 buildings.

1967 ~ During an official state visit to Canada, French President Charles de Gaulle declared in Montreal "Vive le Québec libre!" (Long live free Quebec!). The statement, interpreted as support for Quebec independence, delighted many Quebecers but angered the Canadian government and many English Canadians.

1974 ~ Death of James Chadwick, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate.

1980 ~ Death of Peter Sellers, Actor.

July 25th
 

1797 ~ Horatio Nelson lost more than 300 men and his right arm during the failed conquest attempt of Tenerife Island.

1814 ~ Battle of Lundy's Lane - Reinforcements arrived near Niagara for General Riall's British and Canadian force. A bloody, all-night battle with American invaders began at 18.00; Americans retreated to Fort Erie.

1834 ~ Death of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet. (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner & Kubla Khan )

1897 ~ Writer Jack London sailed to join the Klondike Gold Rush where he wrote his first successful stories.

1907 ~ Korea became a protectorate of Japan.

1909 ~ Louis Bleriot made the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air machine. Calais to Dover in 37 minutes.

1917 ~ Sir Thomas Whyte introduced the first income tax in Canada as a "temporary" measure (lowest bracket is 4% and highest is 25%).

1952 ~ Puerto Rico became a self-governing commonwealth of the United States.

1978 ~ The first so-called test-tube baby, Louise Brown, was born.

2000 ~ An Air France Concorde crashed just after takeoff from Paris, killing 114.

July 26th
 

1822 ~ Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín met in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

1856 ~ Birthday of George Bernard Shaw, Author, Playwright & recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, 1925.

1875 ~ Birthday of Carl Jung, Swiss Psychiatrist.

1928 ~ Birthday of Stanley Kubrick, Movie Director.

1940 ~ Birthday of Mary Jo Kopechne, aide to Robert F. Kennedy.

1941 ~ In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the seizure of all Japanese assets in the U.S.

1943 ~ Birthday of Mick Jagger, English Musician. (Rolling Stones)

1947 ~ U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act into law creating the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council.

1956 ~ Egyptian leader Gamal Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal sparking international condemnation.

1991 ~ Paul Reubens, aka Pee Wee Herman, was arrested for allegedly masturbating at a Sarasota, Florida adult theatre.