July 1Birthdays & History

On this day: July 1 in history

Oldest first. Tap a year to see it on the World Chronicle timeline.

1. 69Tiberius Julius Alexander orders his Roman legions in Alexandria to swear allegiance to Vespasian as Emperor.EuropeMiddle East
2. 552Battle of Taginae: Byzantine forces under Narses defeat the Ostrogoths in Italy, and the Ostrogoth king, Totila, is mortally wounded.Europe
3. 1097Battle of Dorylaeum: Crusaders led by prince Bohemond of Taranto defeat a Seljuk army led by sultan Kilij Arslan I.Middle East
4. 1431The Battle of La Higueruela takes place in Granada, leading to a modest advance of the Kingdom of Castile during the Reconquista.Europe
5. 1520Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés fight their way out of Tenochtitlan after nightfall.EuropeLatin America
6. 1523Jan van Essen and Hendrik Vos become the first Lutheran martyrs, burned at the stake by Roman Catholic authorities in Brussels.Europe
7. 1543Having been defeated in the Battle of Solway Moss in the previous year, the Scots conclude the peace Treaty of Greenwich with the Kingdom of England. In it, they also agree to a marriage between the infant Queen Mary and Prince Edward, son of Henry VIII.Europe
8. 1569Union of Lublin: The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania confirm a real union; the united country is called the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth or the Republic of Both Nations.Europe
9. 1643First meeting of the Westminster Assembly, a council of theologians ("divines") and members of the Parliament of England appointed to restructure the Church of England, at Westminster Abbey in London.Europe
10. 1690War of the Grand Alliance: Marshal de Luxembourg triumphs over an Anglo-Dutch army at the battle of Fleurus.Europe
11. 1690Glorious Revolution: Battle of the Boyne in Ireland (as reckoned under the Julian calendar).Europe
12. 1766François-Jean de la Barre, a young French nobleman, is tortured and beheaded before his body is burnt on a pyre along with a copy of Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique nailed to his torso for the crime of not saluting a Roman Catholic religious procession in Abbeville, France.Europe
13. 1770Lexell's Comet is seen closer to the Earth than any other comet in recorded history, approaching to a distance of 0.0146 astronomical units (2,180,000 km; 1,360,000 mi).World
14. 1782Raid on Lunenburg: American privateers attack the British settlement of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.North AmericaEurope
15. 1819Johann Georg Tralles discovers the Great Comet of 1819 (C/1819 N1). It is the first comet analyzed using polarimetry, by François Arago.Europe
16. 1823The five Central American nations of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica declare independence from the First Mexican Empire after being annexed the year prior.Latin AmericaNorth America
17. 1837A system of civil registration of births, marriages and deaths is established in England and Wales.Europe
18. 1841Thomas Lempriere and James Clark Ross carve a marker on the Isle of the Dead in Van Diemen's Land to measure tidal variations, one of the earliest surviving benchmarks for sea level rise.Oceania
19. 1855Signing of the Quinault Treaty: The Quinault and the Quileute cede their land to the United States.North America
20. 1858Joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's papers on evolution to the Linnean Society of London.Europe
21. 1862Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, second daughter of Queen Victoria, marries Prince Louis of Hesse, the future Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse.Europe
22. 1862The Russian State Library is founded as the Library of the Moscow Public Museum.Europe
23. 1862American Civil War: The Battle of Malvern Hill takes place. It is the last of the Seven Days Battles, part of George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign.North America
24. 1863American Civil War: The Battle of Gettysburg begins.North America
25. 1863Slavery is abolished in the Dutch colony of Surinam, a date subsequently celebrated as Ketikoti in independent Suriname.EuropeLatin America
26. 1867The British North America Act takes effect as the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia join into confederation to create the modern nation of Canada. John A. Macdonald is sworn in as the first Prime Minister of Canada. This date is commemorated annually in Canada as Canada Day, a national holiday.EuropeNorth America
27. 1870The United States Department of Justice formally comes into existence.North America
28. 1873Prince Edward Island joins into Canadian Confederation.North America
29. 1874The Sholes and Glidden typewriter, the first commercially successful typewriter, goes on sale.North America
30. 1878Canada joins the Universal Postal Union.North America
31. 1879Charles Taze Russell publishes the first edition of the religious magazine The Watchtower.North America
32. 1881The world's first international telephone call is made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine, United States.North America
33. 1881General Order 70, the culmination of the Cardwell and Childers reforms of the British Army, comes into effect.Europe
34. 1885The Congo Free State is established by King Leopold II of Belgium.AfricaEurope
35. 1885The United States terminates reciprocity and fishery agreement with Canada.North America
36. 1890Canada and Bermuda are linked by telegraph cable.North America
37. 1898Spanish–American War: The Battle of San Juan Hill is fought in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba.EuropeNorth AmericaLatin America
38. 1901The French government enacts its anti-clerical legislation Law of Association prohibiting the formation of new monastic orders without governmental approval.Europe
39. 1903Start of first Tour de France bicycle race.Europe
40. 1908SOS is adopted as the international distress signal.World
41. 1911Germany dispatches the gunboat SMS Panther to Morocco, sparking the Agadir Crisis.EuropeAfrica
42. 1915World War I: Leutnant Kurt Wintgens of the then-named German Deutsches Heer's Fliegertruppe army air service achieves the first known aerial victory with a synchronized machine-gun armed fighter plane, the Fokker M.5K/MG Eindecker.Europe
43. 1916World War I: First day on the Somme: On the first day of the Battle of the Somme 19,000 soldiers of the British Army are killed and 40,000 wounded.Europe
44. 1917World War I: Russia launches the "Kerensky offensive" against Austria-Hungary to capture Galicia, its final offensive of the war.Europe
45. 1917Chinese General Zhang Xun seizes control of Beijing and restores the monarchy, installing Puyi, last emperor of the Qing dynasty, to the throne. The restoration is reversed just shy of two weeks later, when Republican troops regain control of the capital.Asia
46. 1921The Chinese Communist Party is founded by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, with the help of the Far Eastern Bureau of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks), who seized power in Russia after the 1917 October Revolution, and the Far Eastern Secretariat of the Communist International.AsiaEurope
47. 1922The Great Railroad Strike of 1922 begins in the United States.North America
48. 1923The Parliament of Canada suspends all Chinese immigration.North AmericaAsia
49. 1924The National War Memorial for the Dominion of Newfoundland is inaugurated by Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig in St. John's, Newfoundland. The date commemorates the first day of the Battle of the Somme, where at Beaumont-Hamel, 86 percent of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment was wiped out.North America
50. 1931United Airlines begins service (as Boeing Air Transport).North America
51. 1931Wiley Post and Harold Gatty become the first people to circumnavigate the globe in a single-engined monoplane aircraft (a Lockheed Vega).North America
52. 1932Australia's national broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, is formed.Oceania
53. 1935In Regina, Saskatchewan, police and Royal Canadian Mounted Police ambush strikers participating in the On-to-Ottawa Trek.North America
54. 1942World War II: start of the First Battle of El Alamein.Middle East
55. 1942The Australian Federal Government becomes the sole collector of income tax in Australia as State Income Tax is abolished.Oceania
56. 1943The City of Tokyo and the Prefecture of Tokyo are both replaced by the Tokyo Metropolis.Asia
57. 1946Crossroads Able is the first postwar nuclear weapon test.Oceania
58. 1947The Philippine Air Force is established.Asia
59. 1948Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Quaid-i-Azam) inaugurates Pakistan's central bank, the State Bank of Pakistan.Asia
60. 1949The merger of two princely states of India, Cochin and Travancore, into the state of Thiru-Kochi (later re-organized as Kerala) in the Indian Union ends more than 1,000 years of princely rule by the Cochin royal family.Asia
61. 1957The International Geophysical Year begins.World
62. 1958Flooding of Canada's Saint Lawrence Seaway begins.North America
63. 1958The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation links television broadcasting across Canada via microwave.North America
64. 1959Specific values for the international yard, avoirdupois pound and derived units (e.g. inch, mile and ounce) are adopted after agreement between the US, the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries.North AmericaEurope
65. 1960Ghana becomes a republic and Kwame Nkrumah becomes its first President as Queen Elizabeth II ceases to be its head of state.Africa
66. 1960The Trust Territory of Somaliland (the former Italian Somaliland) gains its independence from Italy. Concurrently, it unites as scheduled with the five-day-old State of Somaliland (the former British Somaliland) to form the Somali Republic.AfricaEurope
67. 1962Independence of Rwanda and Burundi.Africa
68. 1963ZIP codes are introduced for United States mail.North America
69. 1963The British Government admits that former diplomat Kim Philby had worked as a Soviet agent.Europe
70. 1966The People's Liberation Army Rocket Force (first known as the 2nd Artillery Corps) is founded.Asia
71. 1966The first color television transmission in Canada takes place from Toronto.North America
72. 1967Merger Treaty: The European Community is formally created out of a merger between the Common Market, the European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Atomic Energy Commission.Europe
73. 1968The United States Central Intelligence Agency's Phoenix Program is officially established.North America
74. 1968Formal separation of the United Auto Workers from the AFL–CIO in the United States.North America
75. 1968The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is signed in Washington, D.C., London and Moscow by sixty-two countries.North AmericaEurope
76. 1972The first Gay pride march in England takes place.Europe
77. 1976Portugal grants autonomy to Madeira.Europe
78. 1978The Northern Territory in Australia is granted self-government.Oceania
79. 1979Sony introduces the Walkman.Asia
80. 1980"O Canada" officially becomes the national anthem of Canada.North America
81. 1983The Ministry of State Security is established as China's principal intelligence agencyAsia
82. 1983A North Korean Ilyushin Il-62M jet en route to Conakry Airport in Guinea crashes into the Fouta Djallon mountains in Guinea-Bissau, killing all 23 people on board.AsiaAfrica
83. 1984The PG-13 rating is introduced by the MPAA.North America
84. 1987The American radio station WFAN in New York City is launched as the world's first all-sports radio station.North America
85. 1990German reunification: East Germany accepts the Deutsche Mark as its currency, thus uniting the economies of East and West Germany.Europe
86. 1991Cold War: The Warsaw Pact is officially dissolved at a meeting in Prague.Europe
87. 1991The Finnish operator Radiolinja is launched as the world's first GSM network.Europe
88. 1997Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on STS-94, a re-flight of the prematurely-ended STS-83 mission with the same crew.World
89. 1997China resumes sovereignty over the city-state of Hong Kong, ending 156 years of British colonial rule. The handover ceremony is attended by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Charles, Prince of Wales, Chinese President Jiang Zemin and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.AsiaEuropeNorth America
90. 1999The Scottish Parliament is officially opened by Elizabeth II on the day that legislative powers are officially transferred from the old Scottish Office in London to the new devolved Scottish Executive in Edinburgh. In Wales, the powers of the Welsh Secretary are transferred to the National Assembly.Europe
91. 2002Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937, a Tupolev Tu-154, and DHL Flight 611, a Boeing 757, collide in mid-air over Überlingen, southern Germany, killing all 71 on board both planes.Europe
92. 2002The International Criminal Court is established to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression.World
93. 2003Over 500,000 people protest against efforts to pass anti-sedition legislation in Hong Kong.Asia
94. 2004Saturn orbit insertion of Cassini–Huygens begins at 01:12 UTC and ends at 02:48 UTC.World
95. 2006The Qinghai–Tibet railway first operates in China.Asia
96. 2007Smoking bans in the United Kingdom culminate in a prohibition on smoking in all public indoor spaces in England.Europe
97. 2008Riots erupt in Mongolia in response to allegations of fraud surrounding the 2008 legislative elections.Asia
98. 2013Croatia becomes the 28th member of the European Union.Europe
99. 2020The United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement replaces NAFTA.North AmericaLatin America
100. 2024At the centennial ceremony of the Dominion of Newfoundland National War Memorial, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission allows an unprecedented second Canadian Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment soldier is entombed in the memorial at this ceremony.North America

Source: Wikipedia "July 1" / CC BY-SA 4.0