July 31

Events30 BC - Battle of Alexandria: Mark Antony achieves a minor victory over Octavian's forces, but most of his army subsequently deserts, leading to his suicide.432 - 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.1451 - Jacques Cœur is arrested by order of Charles VII of France.1498 - On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to discover the island of Trinidad.1588 - The Spanish Armada is spotted off the coast of England.1655 - Russo-Polish War (1654-1667): Russian army enters the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Vilnius, which it holds 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.1777 - The United States Congress passes a resolution that the services of Marquis de Lafayette "be accepted, and that, in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family and connexions, he have the rank and commission of major-general of the United States."1790 - First U.S. patent is issued; granted to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.1856 - Christchurch, New Zealand is chartered as a city.1865 - The first narrow gauge mainline railway in the world opens at Grandchester, Australia.1910 - Dr. Crippen is arrested for murdering wife.1913 - The Balkan States signs an armistice at Bucarest.1917 - The Third Battle of Ypres starts in Flanders.1919 - German national assembly adopts the Weimar constitution (to come into force on August 14)1930 - The radio mystery program The Shadow is aired for the first time.1932 - The NSDAP wins more than 38% of the vote in German elections.1936 - The International Olympic Committee announces that the 1940 Summer Olympics will to be held in Tokyo. However, the games are given back to the IOC after the Second Sino-Japanese War breaks out, and are 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 - Pierre Laval, fugitive former leader of Vichy France, surrenders to Allied soldiers in Austria.1945 - John K. Giles attempts to escape from Alcatraz prison.1948 - At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) is dedicated.1951 - Japan Airlines is established.1954 - First ascent of K2, by an Italian expedition led by Ardito Desio.1956 - Jim Laker sets an extraordinary record at Old Trafford in the fourth Test of taking nineteen wickets in a first-class match (the previous best was seventeen).1961 - At Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, the first All-Star Game tie in major league baseball history occurs when the game is stopped in the 9th inning because of rain.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.1964 - US country singer Jim Reeves is killed in a light airplane crash near Nashville, Tennessee. The crash also claims the life of his manager, and piano player, Dean Manuel. 1970 - Black Tot Day: The last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy.1971 - Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover.1972 - Northeast Airlines flies its last flight before being integrated into Delta Air Lines the next day.1973 - A Delta Air Lines jetliner crashes while landing in fog at Logan Airport, Boston, Massachusetts killing 89.1975 - In Detroit, Michigan, Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa is reported missing.1976 - Viking program: Viking 1 - NASA releases the famous Face on Mars photo.1981 - General Omar Torrijos of Panama dies in a plane crash.1981 - 42-day strike of Major League Baseball ends in the United States.1987 - A rare, class F-4 tornado rips through Edmonton, Alberta, killing 27 people and causing $330 million in damage.1988 - 32 people are killed and 1,674 injured when a bridge at the Sultan Abdul Halim ferry terminal collapses in Butterworth, Malaysia.1991 - The Medininkai Massacre in Lithuania. Soviet OMON attacks Lithuanian customs post in Medininkai and kills 7 officers, 1 of severely wounded (after a head shot) becomes disabled.1992 - A Thai Airways Airbus A300-310 crashes into mountain north of Kathmandu, Nepal killing 113.1996 - MIL-STD-1750A is declared inactive for use in new designs.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.2007 - Operation Banner, the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland, and longest-running British Army operation ever, comes to an end at midnight.
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