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Events
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* 431 - Election of Pope Sixtus III.
* 781 - The oldest recorded eruption of Mt. Fuji (Traditional Japanese date: July 6, 781).
* 904 - Thessalonica falls to the Arabs, who destroy the city.
* 1009 - Pietro Boccapecora becomes Pope Sergius IV.
* 1423 - Hundred Years' War: Battle of Cravant - The French army is defeated at Cravant on the banks of the river Yonne.
* 1498 - On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to discover the island of Trinidad.
* 1655 - Russo-Polish War (1654-1667): Russian army enters the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Vilnius, which it would hold for six years.
* 1658 - Aurangzeb is proclaimed Moghul emperor of India.
* 1667 - Second Anglo-Dutch War: Treaty of Breda ends the conflict.
* 1703 - Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, but is pelted with flowers.
* 1741 - Charles Albert of Bavaria invades Upper Austria and Bohemia.
* 1790 - First U.S. patent issued; granted to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.
* 1856 - Christchurch, New Zealand chartered as a city.
* 1913 - The Balkan States sign an armistice at Bucarest.
* 1917 - The Third Battle of Ypres starts in Flanders.
* 1919 - German national assembly adopts the Weimar constitution (to enter into force August 14)
* 1936 - The International Olympic Committee announces that the 1940 Summer Olympics were to be held in Tokyo. However, the games were given back to the IOC after the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out, and were eventually cancelled altogether because of World War II.
* 1938 - Bulgaria signs a non-aggression pact with Greece and other states of Balkan Antanta (Turkey, Romania, Yugoslavia)
* 1940 - A doodlebug train in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio collides with a multi-car freight train heading the opposite way, killing 43 people.
* 1941 - Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS general Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question."
* 1945 - John K. Giles attempts to escape from Alcatraz prison.
* 1951 - Japan Airlines is established.
* 1964 - Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes.
* 1971 - Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover.
* 1975 - In Detroit, Michigan, Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa is reported missing.
* 1976 - Viking program: Viking 1 - NASA releases the famous Face on Mars photo.
* 1987 - A rare, class F-4 tornado rips through Edmonton, Alberta, killing 27 people and causing $330 million in damage.
* 1999 - Discovery Program: Lunar Prospector - NASA intentionally crashes the spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface.
* 2006 - Fidel Castro hands over power temporarily to brother Raúl Castro. This leads to a celebration in Little Havana [La Pequeña Habana in Spanish], Miami, Florida, where many Cuban-Americans participated.
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Holidays
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* Hari Pahlawan - Malaysian warrior's day.
* La Hae Hawai‘i - Hawaiian Flag Day.
* Republic of the Congo - Upswing of the Revolution.
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Borned today
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1143 - Emperor Nijo of Japan
1396 - Philip III, Duke of Burgundy
1527 - Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor
1803 - John Ericsson, Swedish inventor and engineer
1918 - Paul D. Boyer, American chemist, Nobel Prize Laureate
1965 - J. K. Rowling, British novelist (her most famous character, Harry Potter was also born this day, but in 1980)
1965 - Scott Brooks, former pro basketball player
1966 - Dean Cain, American actor
