July 31 in History

Historical Events on July 31

30 BC

Battle of Alexandria: Mark Antony achieves a minor victory over Octavian's forces, but most of his army subsequently deserts, leading to his suicide.
781

The oldest recorded eruption of Mount Fuji (Traditional Japanese date: July 6, 781).
1009

Pope Sergius IV becomes the 142nd pope, succeeding Pope John XVIII.
1201

Attempted usurpation by John Komnenos the Fat for the throne of Alexios III Angelos.
1423

Hundred Years' War: Battle of Cravant: The French army is defeated by the English at Cravant on the banks of the river Yonne.
1451

Jacques Cœur is arrested by order of Charles VII of France.
1492

The Jews are expelled from Spain when the Alhambra Decree takes effect.
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.
1618

Maurice, Prince of Orange disbands the waardgelders militia in Utrecht, a pivotal event in the Remonstrant/Counter-Remonstrant tensions.
1655

Russo-Polish War (1654-67): The Russian army enters the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Vilnius, which it holds for six years.
1658

Aurangzeb is proclaimed Mughal emperor of India.
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.
1712

Action of 31 July 1712 (Great Northern War): Danish and Swedish ships clash in the Baltic Sea; the result is inconclusive.
1715

Seven days after a Spanish treasure fleet of 12 ships left Havana, Cuba for Spain, 11 of them sink in a storm off the coast of Florida. A few centuries later, treasure is salvaged from these wrecks.
1741

Charles Albert of Bavaria invades Upper Austria and Bohemia.
1763

Odawa Chief Pontiac's forces defeat British troops at the Battle of Bloody Run during Pontiac's War.
1777

The U.S. Second Continental Congress passes a resolution that the services of Gilbert du Motier "be accepted, and that, in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family and connexions, he have the rank and commission of major-general of the United States."
1790

The first U.S. patent is issued, to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.
1856

Christchurch, New Zealand is chartered as a city.
1865

The first narrow-gauge mainline railway in the world opens at Grandchester, Queensland, Australia.
1874

Dr. Patrick Francis Healy became the first African-American inaugurated as president of a predominantly white university, Georgetown University.
1904

Russo-Japanese War: Battle of Hsimucheng: Units of the Imperial Japanese Army defeat units of the Imperial Russian Army in a strategic confrontation.
1913

The Balkan States sign an armistice in Bucharest.
1917

World War I: The Battle of Passchendaele begins near Ypres in West Flanders, Belgium.
1919

German national assembly adopts the Weimar Constitution, which comes into force on August 14.
1932

The NSDAP (Nazi Party) wins more than 38% of the vote in German elections.
1938

Bulgaria signs a non-aggression pact with Greece and other states of Balkan Antanti (Turkey, Romania, Yugoslavia).
1938

Archaeologists discover engraved gold and silver plates from King Darius the Great in Persepolis.
1941

The 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, the 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.
1948

USS Nevada is sunk by an aerial torpedo after surviving hits from two atomic bombs (as part of post-war tests) and being used for target practice by three other ships.
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.
1970

Black Tot Day: The last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy.
1971

Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover.
1972

The Troubles: In Operation Motorman, the British Army re-takes the urban no-go areas of Northern Ireland. It is the biggest British military operation since the Suez Crisis of 1956, and the biggest in Ireland since the Irish War of Independence. Later that day, nine civilians are killed by car bombs in the village of Claudy.
1973

A Delta Air Lines jetliner, flight DL 723 crashes while landing in fog at Logan International Airport, Boston, Massachusetts killing 89.
1975

The Troubles: three members of a popular cabaret band and two gunmen are killed during a botched paramilitary attack in Northern Ireland.
1987

A tornado occurs in Edmonton, Canada.
1988

Thirty-two people are killed and 1,674 injured when a bridge at the Sultan Abdul Halim ferry terminal collapses in Butterworth, Penang, Malaysia.
1991

The United States and Soviet Union both sign the START I Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the first to reduce (with verification) both countries' stockpiles.
1992

The nation of Georgia joins the United Nations.
1992

Thai Airways International Flight 311 crashes into a mountain north of Kathmandu, Nepal killing all 113 people on board.
1999

Discovery Program: Lunar Prospector: NASA intentionally crashes the spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface.
2006

Fidel Castro hands over power to his brother, Raúl.
2007

Operation Banner, the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland, and the longest-running British Army operation ever, comes to an end.
2012

Michael Phelps breaks the record set in 1964 by Larisa Latynina for the most medals won at the Olympics.
2014

Gas explosions in the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung kill at least 20 people and injure more than 270.

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