July 141223 - In France, Louis VIII succeeded his father, Philip Augustus. 1430 - Joan of Arc, taken prisoner by the Burgundians in May, was handed over to Pierre Cauchon, the bishop of Beauvais. 1456 - Hungarians defeated the Ottomans at the Battle of Belgrade. 1536 - France and Portugal signed the naval treaty of Lyons, which aligned them against Spain. 1789 - French Revolution began with Parisians stormed the Bastille prison and released the seven prisoners inside. 1798 - The U.S. Congress passed the Sedition Act. The act made it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false or malicious statements about the U.S. government. 1868 - Alvin J. Fellows patented the tape measure. 1891 - The primacy of Thomas Edison's lamp patents was upheld in the court decision Electric Light Company vs. U.S. Electric Lighting Company. 1900 - European Allies retook Tientsin, China, from the rebelling Boxers. 1908 - "The Adventures of Dolly" opened at the Union Square Theatre in New York City. 1911 - Harry N. Atwood landed an airplane on the lawn of the White House to accept an award from U.S. President William Taft. 1914 - Robert H. Goddard patented liquid rocket-fuel. 1933 - All German political parties except the Nazi Party were outlawed. 1940 - A force of German Ju-88 bombers attacked Suez, Egypt, from bases in Crete. 1941 - Vichy French Foreign Legionaries signed an armistice in Damascus, which allowed them to join the Free French Foreign Legion. 1945 - American battleships and cruisers bombarded the Japanese home islands for the first time. 1946 - Dr. Benjamin Spock’s "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care" was first published. 1951 - The first sports event to be shown in color, on CBS-TV, was the Molly Pitcher Handicap at Oceanport, NJ. 1951 - The George Washington Carver National Monument in Joplin, MO, became the first national park to honor an African American. 1958 - The army of Iraq overthrew the monarchy. 1965 - The American space probe Mariner 4 flew by Mars, and sent back photographs of the planet. 1967 - Eddie Mathews (Houston Astros) hit his 500th career home run. 1968 - Hank Aaron (Atlanta Braves) hit his 500th career home run. 1981 - The All-Star Game was postponed because of a 33-day-old baseball players strike. The game was held on August 9. 1998 - Los Angeles sued 15 tobacco companies for $2.5 billion over the dangers of secondhand smoke. 2001 - Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympics. It was the first time that the China had been awarded the games. 2003 - Jerry Springer officially filed papers to run for the U.S. Senate from Ohio. 2008 - The iTunes Music Store reached 10 million applications downloaded. 2008 - In Japan, construction began on the Tokyo Skytree tower. 2009 - The iTunes Music Store reached 1.5 billion applications downloaded. 2015 - NASA's New Horizons spacecraft became the first space mission to explore Pluto. |