July 31
July 31 is the 212th day (213th in leap years ) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar , with 153 days remaining, as the final day of July.
Events
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 .
1588 - The Spanish Armada is spotted off the coast of England .
1667 - The Treaty of Breda ends the Second Anglo-Dutch War .
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.
1790 - First US patent issued; granted to inventor Samuel Hopkins .
1856 - Christchurch , New Zealand chartered as a city.
1917 - The Third Battle of Ypres starts in Flanders .
1919 - German national assembly adopts the Weimar constitution (to enter into force August 14 )
1930 - The radio mystery program The Shadow 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.
1948 - At Idlewild Field in New York , New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport ) is dedicated.
1954 - First ascent of K2 , by an Italian expedition led by Ardito Desio .
1956 - Jim Laker sets 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 due to 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 ).
1971 - Apollo program : Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover .
1973 - A Delta Airlines 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 - NASA releases the famous Face on Mars photo, taken by Viking 1
1987 - A rare, class F-4 tornado rips through Edmonton, Alberta , killing 27 people and causing $330 million in damage.
1992 - A Thai Airways Airbus A300 -310 crashes into mountain south of Kathmandu , Nepal killing 113.
1996 - MIL-STD-1750A is declared inactive for use in new designs.
1999 - NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon , thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface.
Births
1396 - Philip III of Burgundy , duke of Burgundy (d. 1467 )
1803 - John Ericsson , Swedish inventor and engineer (d. 1889 )
1816 - George Henry Thomas , American general (d. 1870 )
1901 - Jean Dubuffet , painter and sculptor (d. 1985 )
1911 - George Liberace , musician (d. 1983 )
1912 - Milton Friedman , recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in economics
1912 - Irv Kupcinet , newspaper columnist (d. 2003 )
1913 - William Todman , game show producer
1914 - Louis de Funès , actor and comedian (d. 1983 )
1916 - Bill Todman , game show producer (d. 1979 )
1918 - Hank Jones , pianist
1919 - Curt Gowdy , sports announcer
1919 - Primo Levi , author, chemist (d. 1987 )
1921 - Whitney Young , civil rights activist (d. 1971 )
1923 - Ahmet Ertegun , record company executive
1928 - Kurt Sontheimer , political scientist
1929 - Don Murray , actor
1930 - Oleg Popov , clown
1931 - Kenny Burrell , guitarist
1939 - France Nuyen , actress
1941 - Amarsinh Chaudhary , politician
1943 - William Bennett , former U.S. Secretary of Education and drug czar
1943 - Susan Flannery , actress
1944 - Geraldine Chaplin , actress
1946 - Gary Lewis , rock and roll musician
1946 - Bob Welch , rock and roll musician
1951 - Evonne Goolagong , tennis star
1951 - Barry Van Dyke , actor
1952 - Alan Autry , American football player, actor, mayor of Fresno, California
1952 - Helmuts Balderis , Latvian ice-hockey player
1958 - Bill Berry , rock and roll musician (of the band R.E.M. )
1958 - Mark Cuban , billionaire businessman, producer, Dallas Mavericks owner
1959 - Stanley Jordan , jazz guitarist
1962 - Wesley Snipes , actor
1964 - Jim Corr , singer, musician ("The Corrs ")
1965 - J. K. Rowling , novelist
1966 - Dean Cain , actor
1974 - Jonathan Ogden , American football player
1974 - Luca Tiengo , Italian guitar player
1977 - Tim Couch , American football quarterback
1981 - Eric Lively , actor
1981 - Ira Losco , Maltese singer
Deaths
1099 - Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar ("El Cid "), Spanish warrior
1108 - King Philip I of France
1396 - William Courtenay , Archbishop of Canterbury
1547 - King Francis I of France (b. 1494 )
1556 - Ignatius Loyola , founder of the Jesuits
1875 - Andrew Johnson , 17th President of the United States (b. 1808 )
1886 - Franz Liszt , composer
1914 - Jean Jaurès , French Socialist politician (d. 1859 )
1917 - Francis Ledwidge , Irish poet
1937 - Charles Martine , Apache scout
1944 - Antoine de Saint-Exupery , French pilot and writer
1953 - Robert Taft , Senator from Ohio , former candidate for President of the United States , son of William Howard Taft , "Mr. Republican"
1980 - Mohd. Rafi , Bollywood playback singer. (b. 24 December 1924 )
1993 - Baudouin I of Belgium
2001 - Poul Anderson , science fiction author
2003 - Guido Crepax , Italian comics artist
Holidays and observances
External links
July 30 - August 1 - June 30 - August 31 -- listing of all days
