- 634 – Siege of Damascus: The Rashidun Arabs under Khalid ibn al-Walid capture Damascus from the Byzantine Empire.
- 1356 – Battle of Poitiers: An English army under the command of Edward, the Black Prince defeats a French army and captures King John II.
- 1676 – Jamestown is burned to the ground by the forces of Nathaniel Bacon during Bacon’s Rebellion.
- 1777 – American Revolutionary War: British forces win a tactically expensive victory over the Continental Army in the First Battle of Saratoga.
- 1778 – The Continental Congress passes the first United States federal budget.
- 1796 – George Washington’s Farewell Address is printed across America as an open letter to the public.
- 1799 – French Revolutionary Wars: French-Dutch victory against the Russians and British in the Battle of Bergen.
- 1846 – Two French shepherd children, Mélanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud, experience a Marian apparition on a mountaintop near La Salette, France, now known as Our Lady of La Salette.[1]
- 1852 – Annibale de Gasparis discovers the asteroid Massalia from the north dome of the Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte.[2]
- 1862 – American Civil War: Union troops under William Rosecrans defeat a Confederate force commanded by Sterling Price.[3]
- 1863 – American Civil War: The first day of the Battle of Chickamauga, in northwestern Georgia, the bloodiest two-day battle of the conflict, and the only significant Confederate victory in the war’s Western Theater.
- 1864 – American Civil War: Union troops under Philip Sheridan defeat a Confederate force commanded by Jubal Early. With over 50,000 troops engaged, it was the largest battle fought in the Shenandoah Valley.
- 1868 – La Gloriosa begins in Spain.
- 1870 – Franco-Prussian War: The siege of Paris begins. The city will hold out for over four months before surrendering.
- 1881 – U.S. President James A. Garfield dies of wounds suffered in a July 2 shooting. Vice President Chester A. Arthur becomes President upon Garfield’s death.
- 1893 – In New Zealand, the Electoral Act of 1893 is consented to by the governor, giving all women in New Zealand the right to vote.
- 1916 – World War I: During the East African Campaign, colonial forces of the Belgian Congo (Force Publique) under the command of Charles Tombeur capture the town of Tabora after heavy fighting.
- 1939 – World War II: The Battle of Kępa Oksywska concludes, with Polish losses reaching roughly 14% of all the forces engaged.
- 1940 – World War II: Witold Pilecki is voluntarily captured and sent to Auschwitz concentration camp to gather and smuggle out information for the resistance movement.[4][5]
- 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Hürtgen Forest begins. It will become the longest individual battle that the U.S. Army has ever fought.
- 1944 – World War II: The Moscow Armistice between Finland and the Soviet Union is signed.
- 1946 – The Council of Europe is founded following a speech by Winston Churchill at the University of Zurich.
- 1952 – The United States bars Charlie Chaplin from re-entering the country after a trip to England.
- 1957 – Plumbbob Rainier becomes the first nuclear explosion to be entirely contained underground, producing no fallout.
- 1970 – Michael Eavis hosts the first Glastonbury Festival.
- 1970 – Kostas Georgakis, a Greek student of geology, sets himself ablaze in Matteotti Square in Genoa, Italy, as a protest against the dictatorial regime of Georgios Papadopoulos.
- 1973 – King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden has his investiture.
- 1976 – Turkish Airlines Flight 452 hits the Taurus Mountains, outskirt of Karatepe, Turkey, killing all 154 passengers and crew.
- 1976 – Two Imperial Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantom II jets fly out to investigate an unidentified flying object, when both independently lose instrumentation and communications as they approach, only to have them restored upon withdrawal.
- 1978 – The Solomon Islands join the United Nations.
- 1982 – Scott Fahlman posts the first documented emoticons 🙂 and 🙁 on the Carnegie Mellon University bulletin board system.
- 1983 – Saint Kitts and Nevis gains its independence.
- 1985 – A strong earthquake kills thousands and destroys about 400 buildings in Mexico City.
- 1985 – Tipper Gore and other political wives form the Parents Music Resource Center as Frank Zappa and other musicians testify at U.S. Congressional hearings on obscenity in rock music.
- 1989 – A bomb destroys UTA Flight 772 in mid-air above the Tùnùrù Desert, Niger, killing all 170 passengers and crew.
- 1991 – Ötzi the Iceman is discovered in the Alps on the border between Italy and Austria.
- 1995 – The Washington Post and The New York Times publish the Unabomber‘s manifesto.
- 1997 – The Guelb El-Kebir massacre in Algeria kills 53 people.
- 2006 – The Thai army stages a coup. The Constitution is revoked and martial law is declared.
- 2010 – The leaking oil well in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is sealed.
- 2011 – Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees surpasses Trevor Hoffman to become Major League Baseball’s all-time saves leader with 602.
- 2016 – In the wake of a manhunt, the suspect in a series of bombings in New York and New Jersey is apprehended after a shootout with police.
- 2017 – The 2017 Puebla earthquake strikes Mexico, causing 370 deaths and over 6,000 injuries, as well as extensive damage.
- 2019 – A drone strike by the United States kills 30 civilian farmers in Afghanistan.[6]
-Source: wikipedia
