AD 64 – The Great Fire of Rome causes widespread devastation and rages on for six days, destroying half of the city.
484 – Leontius, Roman usurper, is crowned Eastern emperor at Tarsus (modern Turkey). He is recognized in Antioch and makes it his capital.
711 – Umayyad conquest of Hispania: Battle of Guadalete: Umayyad forces under Tariq ibn Ziyad defeat the Visigoths led by King Roderic.
939 – Battle of Simancas: King Ramiro II of León defeats the Moorish army under Caliph Abd-al-Rahman III near the city of Simancas.
998 – Arab–Byzantine wars: Battle of Apamea: Fatimids defeat a Byzantine army near Apamea.
1333 – Wars of Scottish Independence: Battle of Halidon Hill: The English win a decisive victory over the Scots.
1544 – Italian War of 1542–46: The first Siege of Boulogne begins.
1545 – The Tudor warship Mary Rose sinks off Portsmouth; in 1982 the wreck is salvaged in one of the most complex and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology.
1553 – Lady Jane Grey is replaced by Mary I of England as Queen of England after only nine days on the throne.
1588 – Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Gravelines: The Spanish Armada is sighted in the English Channel.
1701 – Representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy sign the Nanfan Treaty, ceding a large territory north of the Ohio River to England.
1702 – Great Northern War: A numerically superior Polish-Saxon army of Augustus II the Strong, operating from an advantageous defensive position, is defeated by a Swedish army half its size under the command of King Charles XII in the Battle of Klissow.
1817 – Unsuccessful in his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Hawaii for the Russian-American Company, Georg Anton Schäffer is forced to admit defeat and leave Kauai.
1821 – Coronation of George IV of the United Kingdom.
1832 – The British Medical Association is founded as the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association by Sir Charles Hastings at a meeting in the Board Room of the Worcester Infirmary.
1843 – Brunel’s steamship the SS Great Britain is launched, becoming the first ocean-going craft with an iron hull and screw propeller, becoming the largest vessel afloat in the world.
1845 – Great New York City Fire of 1845: The last great fire to affect Manhattan began early in the morning and was subdued that afternoon. The fire killed four firefighters, 26 civilians, and destroyed 345 buildings.
1848 – Women’s rights: A two-day Women’s Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York.
1863 – American Civil War: Morgan’s Raid: At Buffington Island in Ohio, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan’s raid into the north is mostly thwarted when a large group of his men are captured while trying to escape across the Ohio River.
1864 – Taiping Rebellion: Third Battle of Nanking: The Qing dynasty finally defeats the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
1870 – Franco-Prussian War: France declares war on Prussia.
1900 – The first line of the Paris Métro opens for operation.
1903 – Maurice Garin wins the first Tour de France.
1916 – World War I: Battle of Fromelles: British and Australian troops attack German trenches as part of the Battle of the Somme.
1936 – Spanish Civil War: The CNT and UGT call a general strike in Spain – mobilizing workers’ militias against the Nationalist forces.
1940 – World War II: Battle of Cape Spada: The Royal Navy and the Regia Marina clash; the Italian light cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni sinks, with 121 casualties.
1940 – Field Marshal Ceremony: First occasion in World War II, that Hitler appointed field marshals due to military achievements.
1940 – World War II: Army order 112 forms the Intelligence Corps of the British Army.
1942 – World War II: The Second Happy Time of Hitler’s submarines comes to an end, as the increasingly effective American convoy system compels them to return to the central Atlantic.
1943 – World War II: Rome is heavily bombed by more than 500 Allied aircraft, inflicting thousands of casualties.
1947 – Prime Minister of the shadow Burmese government, Bogyoke Aung San and eight others are assassinated.
1947 – Korean politician Lyuh Woon-hyung is assassinated.
1952 – Opening of the Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland.
1961 – Tunisia imposes a blockade on the French naval base at Bizerte; the French would capture the entire town four days later.
1963 – Joe Walker flies a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 106,010 meters (347,800 feet) on X-15 Flight 90. Exceeding an altitude of 100 km, this flight qualifies as a human spaceflight under international convention.
1964 – Vietnam War: At a rally in Saigon, South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Khánh calls for expanding the war into North Vietnam.
1969 – Chappaquiddick incident: U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy crashes his car into a tidal pond at Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, killing his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne.
1972 – Dhofar Rebellion: British SAS units help the Omani government against Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman rebels in the Battle of Mirbat.
1976 – Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal is created.
1977 – The world’s first Global Positioning System (GPS) signal was transmitted from Navigation Technology Satellite 2 (NTS-2) and received at Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at 12:41 a.m. Eastern time (ET).
1979 – The Sandinista rebels overthrow the government of the Somoza family in Nicaragua.
1979 – The oil tanker SS Atlantic Empress collides with another oil tanker, causing the largest ever ship-borne oil spill.
1980 – Opening of the Summer Olympics in Moscow.
1981 – In a private meeting with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, French President François Mitterrand reveals the existence of the Farewell Dossier, a collection of documents showing the Soviet Union had been stealing American technological research and development.
1982 – In one of the first militant attacks by Hezbollah, David S. Dodge, president of the American University of Beirut, is kidnapped.
1983 – The first three-dimensional reconstruction of a human head in a CT is published.
1985 – The Val di Stava dam collapses killing 268 people in Val di Stava, Italy.
1989 – United Airlines Flight 232 crashes in Sioux City, Iowa killing 111.
1992 – A car bomb kills Judge Paolo Borsellino and five members of his escort.
1997 – The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army resumes a ceasefire to end their 25-year paramilitary campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland.
2014 – Gunmen in Egypt’s western desert province of New Valley Governorate attack a military checkpoint, killing at least 21 soldiers. Egypt reportedly declares a state of emergency on its border with Sudan.
Births on July 19
810 – Muhammad al-Bukhari, Persian scholar (d. 870)
1223 – Baibars, sultan of Egypt (d. 1277)
1420 – William VIII, Marquess of Montferrat (d. 1483)
1569 – Conrad Vorstius, Dutch theologian (d. 1622)
1670 – Richard Leveridge, English singer-songwriter (d. 1758)
1688 – Giuseppe Castiglione, Italian missionary and painter (d. 1766)
1744 – Heinrich Christian Boie, German author and poet (d. 1806)
1759 – Marianna Auenbrugger, Austrian pianist and composer (d. 1782)
1759 – Seraphim of Sarov, Russian monk and saint (d. 1833)
1771 – Thomas Talbot, Irish-Canadian colonel and politician (d. 1853)
1794 – José Justo Corro, Mexican politician and president, (1836-1837) (d. 1864)
1789 – John Martin, English painter, engraver, and illustrator (d. 1854)
1800 – Juan José Flores, Venezuelan general and politician, 1st President of Ecuador (d. 1864)
1814 – Samuel Colt, American businessman, founded the Colt’s Manufacturing Company (d. 1862)
1819 – Gottfried Keller, Swiss author, poet, and playwright (d. 1890)
1822 – Princess Augusta of Cambridge (d. 1916)
1827 – Mangal Pandey, Indian soldier (d. 1857)
1834 – Edgar Degas, French painter, sculptor, and illustrator (d. 1917)
1835 – Justo Rufino Barrios, Guatemalan president (d. 1885)
1842 – Frederic T. Greenhalge, English-American lawyer and politician, 38th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1896)
1846 – Edward Charles Pickering, American astronomer and physicist (d. 1919)
1849 – Ferdinand Brunetière, French scholar and critic (d. 1906)
1865 – Georges Friedel, French mineralogist and crystallographer (d. 1933)
1865 – Charles Horace Mayo, American surgeon, founded the Mayo Clinic (d. 1939)
1860 – Lizzie Borden, American woman, tried and acquitted for the murders of her parents in 1892 (d. 1927)
1868 – Florence Foster Jenkins, American soprano and educator (d. 1944)
1869 – Xenophon Stratigos, Greek general and politician, Greek Minister of Transport (d. 1927)
1875 – Alice Dunbar Nelson, African-American poet and activist (d. 1935)
1876 – Joseph Fielding Smith, American religious leader, 10th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1972)
1877 – Arthur Fielder, English cricketer (d. 1949)
1881 – Friedrich Dessauer, German physicist and philosopher (d. 1963)
1883 – Max Fleischer, Austrian-American animator and producer (d. 1972)
1886 – Michael Fekete, Hungarian-Israeli mathematician and academic (d. 1957)
1888 – Enno Lolling, German physician (d. 1945)
1890 – George II of Greece (d. 1947)
1892 – Dick Irvin, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (d. 1957)
1893 – Vladimir Mayakovsky, Russian actor, playwright, and poet (d. 1930)
1894 – Aleksandr Khinchin, Russian mathematician and academic (d. 1959)
1894 – Khawaja Nazimuddin, Bangladeshi-Pakistani politician, 2nd Prime Minister of Pakistan (d. 1965)
1894 – Percy Spencer, American physicist and inventor of the microwave oven (d. 1969)
1895 – Xu Beihong, Chinese painter and academic (d. 1953)
1896 – Reginald Baker, English film producer (d. 1985)
1896 – A. J. Cronin, Scottish physician and novelist (d. 1981)
1896 – Bob Meusel, American baseball player and sailor (d. 1977)
1898 – Herbert Marcuse, German-American sociologist and philosopher (d. 1979)
1899 – Balai Chand Mukhopadhyay, Indian physician, author, poet, and playwright (d. 1979)
1902 – Samudrala Raghavacharya, Indian singer, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1968)
1904 – Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, American lawyer and farmer (d. 1985)
1907 – Isabel Jewell, American actress (d. 1972)
1908 – Daniel Fry, American contactee (d. 1992)
1909 – Balamani Amma, Indian poet and author (d. 2004)
1912 – Peter Leo Gerety, American prelate (d. 2016)
1914 – Marius Russo, American baseball player (d. 2005)
1915 – Åke Hellman, Finnish painter (d. 2017)
1916 – Phil Cavarretta, American baseball player and manager (d. 2010)
1917 – William Scranton, American captain and politician, 13th United States Ambassador to the United Nations (d. 2013)
1919 – Patricia Medina, English-American actress (d. 2012)
1919 – Miltos Sachtouris, Greek poet and author (d. 2005)
1919 – Ron Searle, English-Canadian soldier, publisher, and politician, 4th Mayor of Mississauga (d. 2015)
1920 – Robert Mann, American violinist, composer, and conductor (d. 2018)
1920 – Richard Oriani, Salvadoran-American metallurgist and engineer (d. 2015)
1921 – Harold Camping, American evangelist, author, radio host (d. 2013)
1921 – André Moynet, French soldier, race car driver, and politician (d. 1993)
1921 – Elizabeth Spencer, American novelist, short story writer, and playwright (d. 2019)
1921 – Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2011)
1922 – George McGovern, American lieutenant, historian, and politician (d. 2012)
1922 – Rachel Robinson, American professor, registered nurse, and the widow of baseball player Jackie Robinson
1923 – Theo Barker, English historian (d. 2001)
1923 – Alex Hannum, American basketball player and coach (d. 2002)
1923 – Joseph Hansen, American author and poet (d. 2004)
1923 – William A. Rusher, American lawyer and journalist (d. 2011)
1923 – Lon Simmons, American baseball player and sportscaster (d. 2015)
1924 – Stanley K. Hathaway, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 40th United States Secretary of the Interior (d. 2005)
1924 – Pat Hingle, American actor and producer (d. 2009)
1924 – Arthur Rankin Jr., American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2014)
1925 – Sue Thompson, American singer
1926 – Helen Gallagher, American actress, singer, and dancer
1928 – Samuel John Hazo, American author
1928 – Choi Yun-chil, South Korean long-distance runner and a two-time national champion in the marathon.