TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: July 29
1588 The Battle of Gravelines – Spanish Armada damaged and scattered by the English fleet
1602 The Duke of Biron is executed in Paris for conspiring with Spain and Savoy against King Henry IV of France.
1603 Bartholomew Gilbert is killed in Virginia by Indians, during a search for the missing Roanoke colonists.
1609 Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs at Ticonderoga, New York setting the stage for French-Iroquois conflicts for the next 150 years
1715 10 Spanish treasure galleons sunk off Florida coast by hurricane
1786 “The Pittsburgh Gazette” became the first newspaper west of the Alleghenies to be published. The paper’s name was later changed to “The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.”
1830 Liberals led by the Marquis de Lafayette seize Paris in opposition to the king’s restrictions on citizens’ rights.
1836 The Arc de Triomphe is inaugurated in Paris, France. The famous monument honors those to dies while fighting for France during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. It was designed by Jean Chalgrin.
1848 Irish Potato Famine: Tipperary Revolt – an unsuccessful nationalist revolt against British rule put down by police
1858 Japan signs a treaty of commerce and friendship with the United States.
1905 US Secretary of War William Howard Taft makes secret agreement with Japanese Prime Minister Katsura agreeing to Japanese free rein in Korea in return for non-interference with the US in the Philippines
1921 Adolf Hitler becomes the president of the Nationalist Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis).
1945 After delivering parts of the first atomic bomb to the island of Tinian, the U.S.S. Indianapolis is sunk by a Japanese submarine. The survivors are adrift for two days before help arrives.
1957 The International Atomic Energy Agency is established
1967 Explosion & Fire aboard carrier USS Forrestal in Gulf of Tonkin kills 134, $100 million in damage
1968 In Humanae Vitae (of Human Life), Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s prohibition on artificial methods of birth control.
1975 OAS (Organization of American States) members voted to lift collective sanctions against Cuba. The U.S. government welcomed the action and announced its intention to open serious discussions with Cuba on normalization.
1978 Pioneer 11 transmits images of Saturn & its rings
1986 NY jury rules NFL violated antitrust laws, awards USFL $1 in damages
1993 The Israeli Supreme Court acquitted retired Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk of being Nazi death camp guard “Ivan the Terrible.” His death sentence was thrown out and he was set free.
1996 A US federal court strikes down the child protection portion of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, calling it too broad.
1998 The United Auto Workers union ended a 54-day strike against General Motors. The strike caused $2.8 billion in lost revenues.
2005 Astronomers announce the discovery of dwarf planet Eris, leading the International Astronomic Union to clarify the definition of a planet.
2008 United States Congress apologizes for slavery. The U.S. House of Representatives publicly apologized for the institution of slavery and Jim Crow laws that discriminated against African Americans.
REFERENCE: HISTORY.NET, ONTHISDAY.COM, TIMEANDDATE.COM, INFOPLEASE.COM, FACTMONSTER.COM, SCOPESYS.COM, ON-THIS-DAY.COM, THEPEOPLEHISTORY.COM
