1181 – Supernova observed by Chinese & Japanese astronomers
1753 – Georg Wilhelm Richmann, Russian physicist (struck by lightning) (b. 1711)Dies of Irony!
1777 – American Revolutionary War: The bloody Battle of Oriskany prevents American relief of the Siege of Fort Stanwix.
1787 – Sixty proof sheets of the Constitution of the United States are delivered to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1809 – Alfred Lord Tennyson, Somersby, England, Poet Laureate of Great Britain. Born
1862 – American Civil War: the Confederate ironclad CSS Arkansas is scuttled on the Mississippi River after suffering catastrophic engine failure near Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
1881 – James White, co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (b. 1821)Dies
1911 – Lucille Ball, American actress, singer, and producer (d. 1989) was born.
1912 – The Bull Moose Party meets at the Chicago Coliseum.
1914 – Ellen Axson Wilson, US 1st Lady (1913-14), dies during Woodrow Wilson’s 1st term of Bright’s Disease at 54
1914 – World War I: First Battle of the Atlantic – two days after the United Kingdom had declared war on Germany over the German invasion of Belgium, ten German U-boats leave their base in Heligoland to attack Royal Navy warships in the North Sea.
1917 – Robert Mitchum, Bridgeport Ct, actor (Winds of War, North & South)Born
1924 – Samuel Bowers, American militant, co-founded White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (d. 2006) was birthed.
1926 – In New York, New York, the Warner Bros.’ Vitaphone system premieres with the movie Don Juan starring John Barrymore.
1928 – Andy Warhol, McKeesport PA, pop artist & film producer (Frankenstein, Bad), (d. 1987)Born
1930 – Judge Joseph Force Crater steps into a taxi in New York and disappears never to be seen again. (Crater Disappearance Possibly Solved Killed by Cop)
1940 – Estonia was illegally annexed by the Soviet Union.
1942 – Queen Wilhelmina (House of Orange) of the Netherlands becomes the first reigning queen to address a joint session of the United States Congress.
1944 – The Warsaw Uprising occurs on August 1. It is brutally suppressed and all able-bodied men in Krakow are detained afterwards to prevent a similar uprising–the Krakow Uprising (1944)– that was planned but never carried out.
1945 – World War II: Hiroshima, Japan is devastated when the atomic bomb “Little Boy” is dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay. Around 70,000 people are killed instantly, and some tens of thousands die in subsequent years from burns and radiation poisoning.
1952 – Vinnie Vincent, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Kiss and Vinnie Vincent Invasion) was born.
1960 – Cuban Revolution: Cuba nationalizes American and foreign-owned property in the nation.
1964 – Prometheus, a bristlecone pine and the world’s oldest tree, is cut down.
1965 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law.
1962 – Jamaica becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
1970 – M. Night Shyamalan, Indian-American director, producer, and screenwriter was born.
1973 – Fulgencio Batista y Zaldivar, Cuban Dictator (1940-58), dies at 72
1983 – Klaus Nomi, German singer (b. 1944)Dies
1988 – The Tompkins Square Park Riot in New York City spurs a reform of the NYPD, held responsible for the event.
1990 – Jon Benet Ramsey, little beauty queen (murdered in 1996) Born
1990 – Gulf War: the United Nations Security Council orders a global trade embargo against Iraq in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.
1991 – Harry Reasoner, newscaster (60 Minutes), dies at 68
1991 – Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. WWW debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet.
2004 – Rick James, American singer-songwriter and producer (The Mynah Birds) (b. 1948) died.
2011 – A march in protest of the death of Mark Duggan in Tottenham, London, ends in a riot, sparking off a wave of rioting throughout the country over the following four nights.
2012 – NASA’s Curiosity rover lands on the surface of Mars.