Events

• 70 – First Jewish-Roman War: Titus and his armies breach the walls of Jerusalem (17th of Tammuz in the Hebrew calendar).
• 756 – An Lushan Rebellion: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang is ordered by his Imperial Guards to execute chancellor Yang Guozhong by forcing him to commit suicide or face a mutiny. General An Lushan has other members of the emperor’s family killed.
• 1099 – First Crusade: Christian soldiers take the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after the final assault of a difficult siege.
• 1240 – Swedish-Novgorodian Wars: A Novgorodian army led by Alexander Nevsky defeats the Swedes in the Battle of the Neva.
• 1381 – John Ball, a leader in the Peasants’ Revolt, is hanged, drawn and quartered in the presence of King Richard II of England.
• 1410 – Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic War: Battle of Grunwald: The allied forces of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeat the army of the Teutonic Order.
• 1741 – Aleksei Chirikov sights land in Southeast Alaska.
  • He sends men ashore in a longboat, making them the first Europeans to visit Alaska.
• 1789 – French Revolution: Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, is named by acclamation Colonel General of the new National Guard of Paris.
• 1799 – The Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign.
• 1806 – Pike Expedition: United States Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike begins an expedition from Fort Bellefontaine near St. Louis, Missouri, to explore the west.
• 1815 – Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon Bonaparte surrenders aboard HMS Bellerophon.
• 1834 – The Spanish Inquisition is officially disbanded after nearly 356 years.
• 1862 – American Civil War: The CSS Arkansas, the most effective ironclad on the Mississippi River, battles with Union Navy ships commanded by Admiral David Farragut, severely damaging three ships and sustaining heavy damage herself.
  • The encounter changed the complexion of warfare on the Mississippi and helped reverse Rebel’s fortunes on the river in the summer of 1862.
• 1870 – Reconstruction Era of the United States: Georgia becomes the last of the former Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union.
• 1870 – Canadian Confederation: Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory are transferred to Canada from the Hudson’s Bay Company, and the province of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories are established from these vast territories.
• 1918 – World War I: The Second Battle of the Marne begins near the River Marne with a German attack.
• 1920 – Aftermath of World War I: The Parliament of Poland establishes Silesian Voivodeship before the Polish-German plebiscite.
• 1941 – World War II: The Holocaust: Nazi Germany begins the deportation of 100,000 Jews from the occupied Netherlands to extermination camps.
• 1946 – State of North Borneo, today in Sabah, Malaysia, annexed by the United Kingdom.
• 1954 – First flight of the Boeing 367-80, prototype for both the Boeing 707 (civilian version) and C-135 series (military version).
• 1966 – Vietnam War: The United States and South Vietnam begin Operation Hastings to push the North Vietnamese out of the Vietnamese Demilitarised Zone.
• 1971 – The United Red Army is founded in Japan.
• 1974 – In Nicosia, Cyprus, Greek junta-sponsored nationalists launch a coup d’état, deposing President Makarios and installing Nikos Sampson as Cypriot president.
• 1996 – A Belgian Air Force C-130 Hercules carrying the Royal Netherlands Army marching band crashes on landing at Eindhoven Airport.
• 1998 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lankan Tamil MP S. Shanmuganathan is killed by a claymore mine.
• 2002 – “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh pleads guilty to supplying aid to the enemy and possession of explosives during the commission of a felony.
• 2003 – AOL Time Warner disbands Netscape.
  • The Mozilla Foundation is established on the same day.
• 2006 – Twitter, later one of the largest social media platforms in the world, is launched.
• 2016 – Factions of the Turkish Armed Forces attempt a coup.

People (Births)

• 1899 – Seán Lemass, Irish soldier and politician, 4th Taoiseach of Ireland (d. 1971).
• 1911 – Edward Shackleton, Baron Shackleton, English geographer and politician, Secretary of State for Air (d. 1994).
• 1915 – Kashmir Singh Katoch, Indian army officer (d. 2007).
• 1919 – Fritz Langanke, German lieutenant (d. 2012).
• 1924 – Jeremiah Denton, American admiral and politician (d. 2014).
• 1926 – Leopoldo Galtieri, Argentinian general and politician, 44th President of Argentina (d. 2003).
• 1940 – Ronald Gene Simmons, American sergeant and convicted murderer (d. 1990).
• 1945 – Jürgen Möllemann, German soldier and politician, Vice-Chancellor of Germany (d. 2003).
• 1961 – Scott Ritter, American soldier and international weapons inspector.
• 1982 – Alan Pérez, Spanish cyclist.
• 1992 – Wayde van Niekerk, South African sprinter.

People (Deaths)

• 1410 – Ulrich von Jungingen, German Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights (b. 1360).
• 1571 – Shimazu Takahisa, Japanese daimyō (b. 1514).
• 1614 – Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme, French soldier, historian, and author (b. 1540).
• 1685 – James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, Dutch-English general and politician, Governor of Kingston-upon-Hull (b. 1649).
• 1851 – Juan Felipe Ibarra, Argentinian general and politician (b. 1787).
• 1947 – Walter Donaldson, American soldier and songwriter (b. 1893).
• 1948 – John J. Pershing, American general (b. 1860).
• 2012 – David Fraser, English general (b. 1920).
• 2013 – Meskerem Legesse, Ethiopian runner (b. 1986).
• 2014 – Robert A. Roe, American soldier and politician (b. 1924).