National Day, Switzerland.
William Clark, American explorer, born 1770.
Francis Scott Key, American lawyer and author of "The Star-Spangled Banner," born 1779.
First United States census began, 1790.
John Tyndall, British physicist, born 1820.

Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, on his first voyage across the Atlantic, 1492.
Ernie Pyle, American newspaper columnist, born 1900.

German American publisher John Peter Zenger acquitted of libel in 1735, helping to establish American freedom of the press.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet, born 1792.

Independence Day, Jamaica.
Guy de Maupassant, French novelist and short-story writer, born 1850.
Union forces won the Battle of Mobile Bay in the American Civil War, 1864.
Daniel O'Connell, Irish patriot, born 1775.
The Holy Roman Empire came to an end, 1806.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, English poet, born 1809.
Louis S. B. Leakey, British anthropologist, born 1903.
Ralph J. Bunche, American statesman, born 1904.
United States troops landed on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in World War II, 1942.
English fleet attacked the Spanish Armada, 1588 (July 29 by the calendar then in use).
Sara Teasdale, American poet, born 1884.

Izaak Walton, English author, born 1593.
John Dryden, English poet and dramatist, born 1631.
Richard M. Nixon became the first U.S. president ever to resign from office, 1974.
The Columbia completed the first voyage around the world by an American ship, 1790.
Missouri became the 24th U.S. state, 1821.
Smithsonian Institution founded, 1846.
Gifford Pinchot, American conservationist and statesman, born 1865.


Julius Rosenwald, American philanthropist, born 1862.
George Bellows, American artist, born 1882.
The United States annexed Hawaii, 1898.
Spanish conquerors won Mexico City from the Aztec, 1521.
Lucy Stone, American women's rights leader, born 1818.
East Germans began building the Berlin Wall, 1961.
John Galsworthy, English novelist, born 1867.
U.S. Social Security Act approved, 1935.
The Atlantic Charter was made public, 1941.
Napoleon Bonaparte born 1769.
Sir Walter Scott, Scottish author, born 1771.
Panama Canal opened to traffic, 1914.
Patriots defeated the British in the Battle of Bennington in the American Revolution, 1777.


Davy Crockett, American frontiersman, born 1786.
United States and Canada arranged for joint defense of North America, 1940.
Indonesia declared its independence, 1945.
Virginia Dare, first English child born in America, born 1587.
Meriwether Lewis, American explorer, born 1774.
Marshall Field, American merchant, born 1835.
The British warship Guerriere surrendered to the U.S.S. Constitution in 1812, during the War of 1812.
Bernard Baruch, American financier and statesman, born 1870.
Orville Wright, pioneer American aviator and airplane designer, born 1871.
Bernardo O'Higgins, Chilean patriot, born 1778.
Benjamin Harrison, 23rd U.S. president, born 1833.

Lincoln-Douglas debates, between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, began in the United States, 1858.
Hawaii became the 50th U.S. state, 1959.

John Fitch successfully demonstrated his side-paddle steamboat, 1787.
The Savannah, first steamship to cross the Atlantic, launched in 1818.
Claude Debussy, French composer, born 1862.
Baron Cuvier, French naturalist, born 1769.
Oliver Hazard Perry, American naval officer, born 1785.
Edgar Lee Masters, American poet and biographer, born 1868.
Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day began in Paris, 1572.
William Wilberforce, British statesman and crusader against slavery, born 1759.
British troops captured Washington, D.C., and burned the Capitol and the White House in 1814, during the War of 1812.
Bret Harte, American author of stories about the Western United States, born 1836.
Leonard Bernstein, American composer, conductor, and pianist, born 1918."

Antoine Lavoisier, French chemist, born 1743.
Lee De Forest, American inventor, born 1873.
German-born inventor Ottmar Mergenthaler received a patent for his Linotype machine, 1884.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, German philosopher, born 1770.
Commercial petroleum production began in the United States when Edwin Laurentine Drake struck oil in Pennsylvania, 1859.
Theodore Dreiser, American novelist, born 1871.
Spanish explorers landed in Florida where St. Augustine now stands, 1565.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet and dramatist, born 1749.
The United Kingdom ended slavery in its colonies, 1833.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, American physician and man of letters, born 1809.
Charles F. Kettering, American inventor and automobile pioneer, born 1876.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, English author of Frankenstein, born 1797.
Second Battle of Bull Run, or Manassas, ended in Confederate victory, American Civil War, 1862.
Ernest Rutherford, British physicist, born 1871.
Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, born 1880.
Federation of Malaya (now part of Malaysia) became independent, 1957.
Byzantine Empress Theodora dies suddenly without children to succeed the throne, ending the Macedonian dynasty, 1056.
