31 July : Most Important Historic Events
Before 1600: Mark Antony briefly wins the Battle of Alexandria over Octavian, but his forces desert him shortly after, leading to his death.
Mount Fuji has an earliest recorded eruption (traditional Japanese date: sixth day of the seventh month of the first year of the Ten’s o period).
Installed as the 142nd pope after Pope John XVIII is Pope Sergius IV.
John Komnenos the Fat’s attempt to overthrow Alexios III Angelos falls short.
At the Battle of Cravant, close to the Yonne River, Anglo-Burgundian troops sound defeat for the Franco-Scottish forces.
**1451**: Charles VII of France commands Jacques Coeur to be captured.
**1492**: Enforced is the Alhambra Decree, which eliminates all Jews from Spain.
On his third expedition, Christopher Columbus arrives on Trinidad first among European explorers.
# 1601–1900
Among growing religious tensions, Maurice, Prince of Orange, orders the waardgelders militia to be disbanded in Utrecht.
During the Russo-Polish War, Russian forces capture Vilnius, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, retaining rule for six years.
Aurangzeb is formally Mughal emperor of India.
Daniel Defoe, condemned for seditious libel, is put in a pillory but gets flowers rather than mistreatment.
A Spanish treasure fleet of twelve ships sinks in a storm off Florida’s coast, and centuries later treasure recovery is underway.
Charles Albert of Bavaria raids Upper Austria and Bohemia **1741**.
At the Battle of Bloody Run, **1763** Chief Pontiac’s army beats British forces.
**1777**: Marquis de Lafayette’s services are recognized by the U.S. Second Continental Congress, which ranks him major-general.
Samuel Hopkins gets the first U.S. patent for a potash manufacturing method in **1790**.
Officially acknowledged as a city is Christchurch, New Zealand, **1856**.
Grandchester, Queensland, Australia has the first narrow-gauge mainline railway opening in 1865.
Patrick Francis Healy inaugurated as Georgetown University’s first African-American president, a largely white university.
### 1901–Present
At the Battle of Hsimucheng in the Russo-Japanese War, Japanese soldiers sound defeat over Russian forces in 1904.
Starting close to Ypres, Belgium, the Battle of Passchendaele marks World War I.
In German elections, the Nazi Party gets over 38% of the vote.
Bulgaria signed non-aggression agreements with Greece, Turkey, Romania, and Yugoslavia in 1938.
Discovering etched gold and silver plates from King Darius the Great in Persepolis, archaeologists **1938**
Hermann Göring commands the creation of a strategy for the “Final Solution” of the Jewish dilemma.
The Battle of Smolensk finishes with German forces capturing about 300,000 Soviet men.
Former Vichy France leader Pierre Laval turns himself in to Allied troops in Austria.
Idlewild Field is the dedication for New York International Airport, eventually JFK Airport in 1948.
USS Nevada survives atomic bomb tests and is then used for target practice, then sunk by an airborne torpedo.
Ranger 7 sends the first close-up pictures of the moon, far clearer than those from Earth-based observatories in **1964**.
With all 31 on board lost, the MV Darlwyne disappears off the coast of Cornwall.
The Royal Navy marks **Black Tot Day** by ending its custom of daily rum rations.
Astronauts from Apollo 15 operate the first lunar rover on the moon in 1971.
The biggest operation the British Army has undertaken since the Suez Crisis is reclaiming no-go areas in Northern Ireland. Nine residents of Claudy die in car bomb strikes the same day.
A Delta Air Lines flight crashes in fog at Logan International Airport, Boston, killing 89.
In Northern Ireland, a paramilitary attack results in two shooters and three band members dead.
– **1987**: A 27-dead tornado strikes Edmonton, Alberta.
Thirty-two people die and 1,674 are injured as a bridge collapses at Butterworth, Penang, Malaysia.
Signing the START I Treaty, the United States and the Soviet Union hope to lower nuclear arsenals.
Georgia joins the United Nations in **1992**.
All 113 on board Thai Airways Flight 311 dies as it crashes close to Kathmandu, Nepal.
On takeoff, China General Aviation Flight 7552 crashes killing 108.
Launching on mission STS-46 to carry scientific payloads, Space Shuttle Atlantis **1992**
Five are injured when a FedEx Express aircraft crashes at Newark International Airport in 1997.
NASA’s Lunar Prospector is purposefully flown into the moon to hunt water ice.
In **2006** Fidel Castro gives his brother Raúl authority.
**2007**: The longest British Army operation in Northern Ireland ends, **Operation Banner**
East Coast Jets Flight 81 crashes in Minnesota, killing all eight persons on board.
In **2012** Michael Phelps exceeds Larisa Latynina’s Olympic medal total.
At least 20 deaths and over 270 injuries are reported from gas explosions in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
