July 31

July 31 is the 212th day (213th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian
Calendar, with 153 days remaining.

Events

   * 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.
   * 1667 - Second Anglo-Dutch War ends: The Treaty of Breda ends the war.
   * 1703 - Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious
     libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet.
   * 1790 - First US patent issued; granted to inventor Samuel Hopkins.
   * 1856 - Christchurch, New Zealand chartered as a city.
   * 1919 - German national assembly adopts Weimar constitution (to enter
     into force August 14)
   * 1930 - The radio mystery program The Shadow airs for the first time.
   * 1945 - Pierre Laval, fugitive former leader of Vichy France, surrenders
     to Allied soldiers in Austria.
   * 1941 - Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official
     Herman Goering, 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."
   * 1948 - At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport
     (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) is dedicated.
   * 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 (images are 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.
   * 1975 - In Detroit, Michigan, Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa is
     reported missing.
   * 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

   * 1596 - Philip III of Burgundy, duke of Burgundy (+ [[[1467]])
   * 1816 - George Henry Thomas, American general (+ 1870)
   * 1901 - Jean Dubuffet, painter and sculptor (+ 1985)
   * 1912 - Irv Kupcinet, newspaper columnist
   * 1912 - Milton Friedman, recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in economics
   * 1914 - Louis de Fun�s, actor and comedian (+ 1983)
   * 1919 - Curt Gowdy, sports announcer
   * 1919 - Primo Levi, author, chemist (+ 1987)
   * 1921 - Whitney Young, civil rights activist (+ 1971)
   * 1923 - Ahmet Ertegun, record company executive
   * 1928 - Kurt Sontheimer, politicial scientist
   * 1930 - Oleg Popov, clown
   * 1939 - France Nuyen, actress
   * 1943 - William Bennett, former Secretary of Education and "drug czar"
   * 1944 - Geraldine Chaplin, actress
   * 1946 - Gary Lewis, rock and roll musician
   * 1946 - Bob Welch, rock and roll musician
   * 1951 - Evonne Goolagong, tennis star
   * 1952 - Alan Autry, American football player, actor, mayor of Fresno,
     California
   * 1959 - Stanley Jordan, jazz guitarist
   * 1962 - Wesley Snipes, actor
   * 1965 - J. K. Rowling, novelist
   * 1966 - Dean Cain, actor

Deaths

   * 1099 - Rodrigo D�az de Vivar ("El Cid"), Spanish warrior
   * 1108 - King Philip I of France
   * 1556 - Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits
   * 1886 - Franz Liszt, composer
   * 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"
   * 1993 - Baudouin I of Belgium
   * 2001 - Poul Anderson, science fiction author

Holidays and observances

   * Republic of the Congo - Upswing of the Revolution

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