Events

Up to 1900 
1132  Battle of Nocera between Ranulf II of Alife and Roger II of Sicily.
1148  King Louis VII of France lays siege to Damascus during the Second Crusade.
1245  Pope Innocent IV forces King Sancho II of Portugal out, and replaces him with Afonso III of Portugal.
1411  The Battle of Harlaw, one of the bloodiest in Scotland, takes place.
1487  Citizens of Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, strike against a ban on foreign beer.
1534  Jacques Cartier plants a cross on the Gaspe peninsula in present-day Quebec, taking possession of the territory and naming it after Francis I of France.
1567  Mary, Queen of Scots, is deposed and replaced by her 1-year-old son King King James VI.
1701  Detroit, Michigan is founded.
1783  The Kingdom of Georgia and the Russian Empire sign the Treaty of Georgievsk.
1814  War of 1812: General Phineas Riall advances toward Niagara to halt Jacob Brown's American invaders.
1823  Chile abolishes Slavery.
1823  The Naval Battle of Lake Maracaibo takes place.
1832  Benjamin Bonneville leads the first wagon train across the Rocky Mountains by using Wyoming's South Pass.
1847  After 17 months of travel, Brigham Young leads 148 Mormon pioneers into Salt Lake Valley, resulting in the establishment of Salt Lake City.
1864  American Civil War: Battle of Kernstown – Confederate General Jubal Early defeats Union troops led by General George Crook in an effort to keep Yankees out of the Shenandoah Valley.
1866  Reconstruction: Tennessee becomes the first U.S. state to be readmitted to the Union following the American Civil War.

1901  1950 
1901  O. Henry is released from prison in Austin, Texas after serving three years for embezzlement from a bank.
1910  James MacGillivray publishes the first account of Paul Bunyan in the Detroit News.
1911  Hiram Bingham III re-discovers Machu Picchu "the Lost City of the Incas".
1915  Passenger ship Eastland capsizes in central Chicago, with the loss of 845 lives.
1922  The draft of the British Mandate for Palestine is officially confirmed by the Council of the League of Nations.
1923  The Treaty of Lausanne, settling the boundaries of modern Turkey, is signed in Switzerland by Greece, Bulgaria and other countries that fought in World War I.
1924  Archaeologist Themistoklis Sofoulis becomes Prime Minister of Greece.
1927  The Menin Gate war memorial is unveiled at Ypres.
1929  The Kellogg-Briand Pact, renouncing war as an instrument of foreign policy, goes into effect (it was first signed in Paris on August 27, 1928 by most leading world powers).
1931  A fire at a home for aged people in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania kills 48 people.
1935  The dust bowl heat wave reaches its peak, sending temperatures to 109 °F (44 °C) in Chicago and 104 °F (40 °C) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
1937  Alabama drops rape charges against the so-called "Scottsboro Boys."
1938  The first successful climb of the Eiger North Face is made.
1943  World War II: Operation Gomorrah begins: British and Canadian aeroplanes bomb Hamburg by night, those of the Americans by day. By the end of the operation in November, 9,000 tons of explosives will have killed more than 30,000 people and destroyed 280,000 buildings.
1950  Bumper 8 becomes the first aircraft to be launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

1951  2000 
1956  At New York City's Copacabana Club, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis perform their last comedy show together which started on July 25, 1946, almost exactly ten years earlier.
1959  At the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, US vice-president Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev have a "kitchen debate."
1965  Vietnam War:  Four F-4C Phantoms escorting a bombing raid at Kang Chi are the targets of anti-aircraft missiles in the first such attack against American planes in the war. One is shot down and the other three sustain damage.
1966  Michael Petkey makes the first BASE jump from El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, along with Brian Schubert. They both end up with broken bones.
1967  During an official state visit to Canada, French President Charles de Gaulle declares to a crowd of over 100,000 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.
1969  Apollo program: Apollo 11 splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean.
1974  Watergate scandal: The United States Supreme Court unanimously rule that President Richard Nixon did not have the authority to withhold subpoenaed White House tapes and they order him to surrender the tapes to the Watergate special prosecutor.
1974  Konstantinos Karamanlis arrives in Greece, following the collapse of the military junta.
1977  End of the four-day long Libyan-Egyptian War.
1983  George Brett, batting for the Kansas City Royals against the New York Yankees, has a game-winning home run nullified in the "Pine Tar Incident".
1990  Iraqi forces start massing on the Kuwaiti border, preparing for the invasion on August 2.
1998  Russel Eugene Weston Jr. bursts into the United States Capitol and opens fire killing two police officers. He is later ruled to be incompetent to stand trial.

From 2001 
2001  Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the last Tsar of Bulgaria when he was a child, is sworn in as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, and became the only monarch in history to regain political power through democratic election to a different office. He becomes Prime Minister under the name Simeon Saksburggotsky.
2001  The Taiwan Solidarity Union is established.
2002  James Traficant is expelled from the United States House of Representatives on a vote of 420 to 1.
2002  Alfred Moisiu becomes President of Albania.
2005  Lance Armstrong wins the Tour de France for seventh consecutive year. After being revealed to have taken illegal drugs to improve his performance during his career, all of his Tour de France titles are removed from the record in 2012.
2010  Love Parade disaster: At a stampede at a music festival in Duisburg, Germany, 19 people are crushed to death. 2 later die in hospital, as a result of their injuries.
2010  Over 80,000 people record their lives for the YouTube documentary A Life in a Day.
2012  President of Ghana John Atta Mills dies aged 68. His Vice President John Dramani Mahama is sworn in as President later the same day.
2013  A passenger train carrying over 218 people crashes just outside Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, northwest Spain, killing at least 80 people and injuring at least 130. It was travelling from Madrid to Ferrol on the Galician coast when it crashed. It occurred a day before the regional July 25 holiday in Galicia.
2014  Air Algerie Flight 5017 crashes in Mali on a flight between Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and Algiers, Algeria.
2014  Reuven Rivlin becomes the 10th President of Israel, succeeding Shimon Peres.
2015  Barack Obama makes the first visit by a US President to Kenya.
2016  The International Olympic Committee decides against banning the entire Russian team from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, after its track-and-field athletes had already been banned following a doping scandal.
2019  Boris Johnson becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, taking over from Theresa May. One of his first actions is a massive change of the jobs in the cabinet.

Births

Up to 1900 
923  Suzaku, Emperor of Japan (d. 952)
1468  Catherine of Saxony, Archduchess of Austria (d. 1524)
1574  Thomas Platter the Younger, Swiss physician (d. 1629)
1720  Louisa Ulrika of Prussia, Prussian princess and Queen of Sweden (d. 1782)
1725  John Newton, cleric and hymnist (d.  1807)
1737  Alexander Dalrymple, Scottish geographer (d. 1808)
1740  Juan Ignacio Molina, Chilean naturalist (d. 1829)
1757  Vladimir Borovikovski, Russian painter (d. 1825)
1759  King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia (d. 1824)
1783  Simón Bolívar, South American liberator (d. 1830)
1783  Frédéric de Lafresnaye, French ornithologist (d. 1861)
1786  Joseph Nicollet, mathematician and explorer (d. 1843)
1798  John Adams Dix, American general, senator and Governor of New York (d. 1879)
1802  Alexandre Dumas, père, French writer (d. 1870)
1803  Adolphe Charles Adam, French composer (d. 1956)
1817  Adolphe, Grand Duke of Luxembourg (d. 1905)
1823  Arthur I. Boreman, Governor of West Virginia (d. 1896)
1826  Ivan Bloch, Polish banker (d. 1902)
1828  Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Russian writer (d. 1889)
1832  John J. Bagley, 16th Governor of Michigan (d. 1881)
1841  Francisco da Veiga Beirao, Portuguese politician (d. 1916)
1847  Margarete Steiff, German seamstress, known for Steiff stuffed toys (d. 1909)
1851  Friedrich Schottky, German mathematician (d. 1935)
1853  William Gillette, actor and writer (d. 1937)
1857  Henrik Pontoppidan, Danish writer (d. 1943)
1857  Juan Vicente Gomez, Venezuelan officer, politician and dictator (d. 1935)
1858  Wolfgang Kapp, Prussian civil servant and journalist (d. 1922)
1860  Alphonse Mucha, Czech artist (d. 1939)
1860  Princess Charlotte of Prussia (d. 1919)
1864  Frank Wedekind, German writer (d. 1918)
1867  Vicente Acosta, El Salvadorean poet (d. 1908)
1874  Oswald Chambers, Scottish Baptist evangelist and teacher (d. 1917)
1878  Lord Dunsany, writer (d. 1957)
1880  Ernest Bloch, Swiss composer (d. 1959)
1883  Katia Mann, wife of Thomas Mann (d. 1980) 
1883  Nelle Wilson Reagan, mother of Ronald Reagan (d. 1962)
1884  Maria Caserini, Italian actress (d. 1969)
1886  Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, Japanese writer (d. 1965)
1888  Arthur Richardson, Australian cricketer and coach (d. 1973)
1895  Robert Graves, English writer (d. 1985)
1896  Hermann Kasack, writer (d. 1966)
1897  Amelia Earhart, American aviator (d. 1937) (disappeared)
1899  Chief Dan George, Native American actor (d. 1981)
1899  Bernice Madigan, American supercentenarian (d. 2015)
1900  Zelda Fitzgerald, American artist (d. 1948)

1901  1950 
1908  Cootie Williams, trumpeter (d. 1985)
1914  Frances Oldham Kelsey, Canadian physician (d. 2015)
1914  Edwin Mirvish, retailer and impresario (d. 2007)
1916  John D. MacDonald, novelist (d. 1986)
1917  Robert Farnon, conductor, composer and arranger (d. 2005)
1918  Ruggiero Ricci, American violinist (d. 2012)
1920  Bella Abzug, American politician and activist (d. 1998)
1920  Constance Dowling, American actress (d. 1969)
1921  Giuseppe Di Stefano, Italian tenor (d. 2008)
1923  Warren E. Hearnes, 46th Governor of Missouri (d. 2009)
1925  Adele Addison, American soprano
1926  Hans Günter Winkler, German equestrian jumper (d. 2018)
1929  Peter Yates, British movie director (d. 2011)
1930  Keshubhai Patel, Indian politician, former Chief Minister of Gujarat
1931  Ermanno Olmi, Italian director (d. 2018)
1933  John Aniston, Greek-American actor
1933  Doug Sanders, American golfer
1934  Rudy Collins, American drummer (Dizzy Gillespie Quintet)
1935  Pat Oliphant, Australian political cartoonist
1936  Ruth Buzzi, comedienne
1936  Dan Inosanto, American martial artist and actor
1937  Manoj Kumar, Indian actor, director, producer and screenwriter
1939  Walt Bellamy, American basketball player (d. 2013)
1940  Stanley Hauerwas, Christian theologian
1942  Chris Sarandon, American actor
1944  Jan-Carl Raspe, German Red Army Faction militant (d. 1977)
1945  Azim Premji, Indian businessman
1947  Robert Hays, actor
1947  Peter Serkin, American pianist
1949  Michael Richards, American actor and comedian
1949  Joan Enric Vives Sicília, Catalan bishop and co-Prince of Andorra

1951  1975 
1951  Lynda Carter, American actress
1951  Chris Smith, British politician
1952  Carsten Jensen, Danish writer
1952  Gus Van Sant, American movie director
1953  Claire McCaskill, American politician, United States Senator for Missouri
1956  Charlie Crist, American politician, 44th Governor of Florida, 2007  2011
1956  Pat Finn, American game show host and producer
1957  Pam Tillis, American country music singer
1958  Konrad Graber, Swiss politician
1958  Jim Leighton, Scottish footballer
1960  Catherine Destivelle, Algerian-born French rock climber and mountaineer
1963  Karl Malone, American basketball player
1964  Pedro Passos Coelho, former Prime Minister of Portugal
1964  Barry Bonds, American Major League Baseball player
1964  Banana Yoshimoto, Japanese writer
1965  Andrew Gaze, Australian basketball player and broadcaster
1965  Kadeem Hardison, actor
1966  Martin Keown, English footballer
1966  Hilarion, Russian writer and theologian
1968  Kristin Chenoweth, American actress and singer
1968  Laura Leighton, American actress
1969  Rick Fox, American basketball player
1969  Jennifer Lopez, American actress, dancer, fashion designer and singer
1970  Julia Bradbury, English journalist and presenter
1971  Dino Baggio, Italian footballer
1971  John Partridge, English actor, singer and dancer
1974  Eugene Mirman, Russian-American actor, comedian and writer
1974  Boogie2988, American Internet personality (Francis)
1975  Tracey Crouch, English politician
1975  Eric Szmanda, American actor

From 1976 
1976  Rashida Tlaib, American politician
1977  Danny Dyer, British actor
1977  Mehdi Mahdavikia, Iranian footballer
1978  Andy Irons, American surfer (d. 2010)
1979  Rose Byrne, Australian actress
1979  Ryan Humphrey, American basketball player
1981  Gauge, actress
1981  Summer Glau, American actress
1982  Elisabeth Moss, American actress
1982  Anna Paquin, Canadian-born actress
1983  Daniele De Rossi, Italian footballer
1985  Lukas Rosol, Czech tennis player
1986  Andrei Lutai, Russian figure skater
1986  Vugar Gashimov, Azerbaijani chess player (d. 2014)
1986  Natalie Tran, Australian actress and writer
1987  Mara Wilson, American actress
1987  Jovan Belcher, American football player (d. 2012)
1989  Kim Tae-Hwan, South Korean footballer
1989  Felix Loch, German luger
1990  Daveigh Chase, American actress
1990  Jay McGuiness, English singer (The Wanted)
1991  Lin Yue, Chinese diver
1991  Emily Bett Rickards, Canadian actress
1992  Mitch Grassi, American singer
1992  Mikael Kingsbury, Canadian skier
1998  Bindi Irwin, daughter of Steve Irwin

Deaths

Up to 1900 
 811  Gao Yang, Chinese chancellor (b. 740)
 1115  Matilda, Countess of Tuscany (b. 1046)
 1129  Shirakawa, Emperor of Japan (b. 1053)
 1568  Carlos, Prince of Asturias, son of Philip II of Spain (b. 1545)
 1594  John Boste, English martyr and saint (b. 1544)
 1739  Benedetto Marcello, Italian composer (b. 1686)
 1768  Nathaniel Lardner, English theologian (b. 1684)
 1862  Martin Van Buren, 8th President of the United States (b. 1782)
 1883  Matthew Webb, British swimmer (b. 1848)
 1891  Hermann Raster, German-American journalist and politician (b. 1827)

1901 – 1950
 1906  Ferdinand von Saar, Austrian writer, dramatist and poet (b. 1833)
 1908  Vicente Acosta, El Salvadorean poet (b. 1867)
 1910  Arkhip Kuindzhi, Russian painter (b. 1841)
 1920  Ludwig Ganghofer, German writer (b. 1855)
 1922  Saint George Ashe, British rower (b. 1871)
 1927  Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Japanese writer (b. 1892)

1951  2000 
 1957  Sacha Guitry, French actor and director (b. 1885)
 1960  Hans Albers, German actor and singer (b. 1891)
 1962  Wilfrid Noyce, English mountaineer (b. 1917)
 1965  Constance Bennett, American actress (b. 1904)
 1969  Witold Gombrowicz, Polish novelist and dramatist (b. 1904)
 1970  Beatrice Roberts, American actress (b. 1901)
 1973  Konstantinos Dovas, Greek general and Prime Minister (b. 1898)
 1974  James Chadwick, British physicist (b. 1891)
 1976  Julius Döpfner, German cardinal (b. 1913)
 1980  Peter Sellers, British actor (b. 1925)
 1980  Uttam Kumar, Indian actor, director and producer (b. 1926)
 1985  Ezechiele Ramini, Italian missionary and martyr (b. 1953)
 1986  Fritz Albert Lipmann, American biochemist (b. 1899)
 1991  Isaac Bashevis Singer, writer, received Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978 (b. 1902)
 1992  Arletty, French singer and actress (b. 1898)
 1995  Marjorie Cameron, American writer, painter, actress and occultist (b. 1922)
 1996  Mohammed Farah Aidid, Somali warlord
 1997  William J. Brennan, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (b. 1906)
 1997  Saw Maung, Burmese dictator (b. 1928)

From 2001 
 2005  Richard Doll, British epidemiologist (b. 1912)
 2008  Norman Dello Joio, American composer (b. 1913)
 2010  Alex Higgins, Northern Irish snooker player (b. 1949)
 2010  Theo Albrecht, German businessman (Aldi Nord) (b. 1922)
 2011  Virgilio Noe, Italian cardinal (b. 1922)
 2011  Dan Peek, American singer (b. 1951)
 2012  Larry Hoppen, American singer-songwriter and musician (b. 1951)
 2012  John Atta Mills, President of Ghana (b. 1944)
 2012  Sherman Hemsley, American actor (b. 1938)
 2012  Chad Everett, American actor (b. 1936)
 2013  Fred Dretske, American philosopher (b. 1932)
 2013  Steve Berrios, American drummer (b. 1945)
 2013  Virginia E. Johnson, American sexologist (b. 1925)
 2014  Yoo Chae-yeong, South Korean singer (b. 1973)
 2014  Jaan Arder, Estonian singer (b. 1952)
 2014  Dale Schlueter, American basketball player (b. 1945)
 2015  Peg Lynch, American comedy writer and actress (b. 1916)
 2016  Marni Nixon, American singer and actress (b. 1930)
 2017  Michiko Inukai, Japanese writer (b. 1921)
 2017  Yash Pal, Indian scientist and educator (b. 1926)
 2017  Udupi Ramachandra Rao, Indian space scientist (b. 1932)
 2017  Niculae Nedeff, Romanian handball player and coach (b. 1928)
 2018  Mary Ellis, British World War II aviator (b. 1917)
 2018  Walter Hirrlinger, German politician (b. 1926)
 2018  Tony Cloninger, American baseball player (b. 1940)
 2019  Claes Andersson, Finnish psychiatrist, writer and politician (b. 1937)
 2019  Margaret Fulton, Scottish-born Australian chef and cookbook writer (b. 1924)
 2019  Cathy Inglese, American college basketball coach (b. 1958)

Holidays and observances
Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela – Simón Bolívar Day
Utah – Pioneer Day (1847)
Vanuatu – Children's Day
Venezuela – Birth of the Libertador (Simón Bolívar Day)
Ancient Latvia – Jekaupa Diena held

Days of the year