In Calendar Form

July 1

0096 The Roman Army leader Vespasian is hailed as Roman Emperor by the Egyptian legions.

1097 The Crusaders defeat the Turks at Dorylaeum in the First Crusade.

1200 Sunglasses made of rock crystal are supposed to have been first demonstrated in China during the Ming Dynasty on this day.

1520 Death: Montezuma II, the last Aztec emperor, killed in Mexico City during the Spanish conquest of Mexico. "...Much speculation surrounds this subject: writers like Leon Portilla and Laurette Séjourné think that the Aztec upper classes were aware that they had betrayed the ideals of the religion of Quetzalcoatl. The levels of human sacrifice among the Aztecs were a result of the reforms of Tlacaelel.

Moctezuma was a scholar (tlatimine) and certainly knew all this. Moctezuma was not a coward — in Aztec society he would not have risen to the position of tlatoani had he not demonstrated bravery — yet he acted with fear in the presence of Cortés. He submitted willingly to all the Spaniard's requests. During Cortés's absence, deputy governor Pedro de Alvarado interrupted the Aztec celebration of Toxcatl, killing the most prominent people of the Aztec upper classes in what is known as "The Massacre in the Main Temple"; estimates of the death toll range from 350 to 1,000. The people rose up in revolt, and the Spanish seized Moctezuma as a captive.

On July 1, 1520, in an effort to assuage the raging mob, Moctezuma appeared on the balcony of his palace, appealing to his countrymen to retreat. The people were appalled by their emperor's complicity with the Spanish and pelted him with rocks and darts. He died a short time after the attack. But there are differing accounts of precisely how he died. According to Father Sahagun's Aztec informants, Alvarado 'garrotted all the nobles he had in power', Cortez reported he died wounded by a stone (in some history books, Cuautemoc was the culprit, but the source is not reported). In the Ramírez Codex, by an anonymous christianized Aztec, he criticizes the Spanish priests, because instead of administering the last sacraments to Moctezuma, they were occupied searching for gold.

Moctezuma was then succeeded by Cuitláhuac, who died shortly after from smallpox and was replaced by an adolescent, Cuauhtémoc. By the following year, the Aztec empire had entirely succumbed to the Spanish. During this time of conquest, Moctezuma's daughter, Techichpotzin, became the heiress to the king's wealth with the name "Isabel", and would eventually marry several Spanish men. The title Moctezuma still is the name of a Spanish house."

1535 English writer and statesman, Sir Thomas More, is tried and convicted under charges of treason. He will be executed five days later. As chancellor of England, he is accused of treason for refusing to accept King Henry VIII as head of the Church of England. More is famous for his book Utopia.

1543 England and Scotland sign the Peace of Greenwich, providing for the marriage of Prince Edward Tudor and Mary, Queen of Scots.

1569 The Union of Lublin merges Poland and Lithuania.

1596 An English fleet under the Earl of Essex, Lord Howard of Effingham and Francis Vere capture and sack Cadiz, Spain.

1646 Birth: Gottfried W. Leibniz, German mathematician, philosopher; will postulate monads.

1690 The French defeat the forces of the Grand Alliance at Fleurus in the Netherlands.

1690 Battle of the Boyne: In Ireland, the Army of England's Protestant King William III defeats the Roman Catholic King James II (the Jacobites). Now celebrated on July 12 as 'The Battle of the Orange.'

1751 The first volume of Diderot's Encyclopedie is published in paris.

1776 American Revolution: The first vote on the Declaration of Independence is held.

1788 Birth: Jean-Victor Poncelet, mathematician; will found projective geometry.

1795 John Rutledge becomes the second chief justice of the US Supreme Court.

1798 Napoleon Bonaparte takes Alexandria Egypt apart.

1810 Louis, king of Holland, abdicates after pressure from Napoleon Bonaparte.

1816 The French frigate Medusa is wrecked, forming the basis of Gricault's Raft of the Medusa.

1823 The United Provinces of Central America gain independence from Mexico.

1847 The US Post Office issues its first adhesive stamps. Ben Franklin graces the 5 cent stamp while George Washington is pictured on the 10 cent stamp. The cost of mailing a one ounce letter is 5 cents.

1850 After 12 months of Gold Rush fever, at least 626 ships lay abandoned at anchor around San Fransico Bay.

1858 Charles Darwin presents a paper on the theory on evolution and natural selection to the Linnean Society in London.

1862 US Civil War: The US Congress establishes the Bureau of Internal Revenue. President Abraham Lincoln signs the bill into law, making it possible for the feds to collect a three percent tax on incomes ranging from $600 to $10,000, and 5% on incomes over $10,000. Several precursors to this law will never be officially enacted or enforced. This law is just a temporary one. The Bureau will become the Internal Revenue Service in 1913 when the 16th amendment will be added to the US Constitution permitting the Federal Government to once again collect a tax on income.

1862 US Civil War: US Congress outlaws polygamy for the first time.

1862 US Civil War: Day 7 of the 7 Days Battle. "...Battle of Malvern Hill (July 1, 1862) - The final battle of the Seven Days consisted of reckless Confederate assaults against the impregnable Union defenses - buttressed by masterful artillery placements - on Malvern Hill. Lee's army suffered over 5,000 casualties in this wasted effort...The Seven Days Battles ended the Peninsula Campaign. McClellan withdrew to the safety of the James River, protected by fire from Union gunboats. The Army of the Potomac stayed there until August, when they were withdrawn by order of President Abraham Lincoln in the run-up to the Second Battle of Bull Run. The casualties to both sided were dreadful. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia suffered a total of 3,286 killed, 15,909 wounded, and 946 captured or missing out of a total of over 90,000 soldiers during the Seven Days. McClellan reported casualties of 1,734 killed, 8,062 wounded, and 6,053 captured or missing out of a total of 105,445. The effects of the Seven Days Battles were widespread. After a successful start on the Peninsula that foretold an early end to the war, Northern morale was crushed by McClellan's retreat. Despite heavy casualties and Lee's clumsy tactical performance, Confederate morale skyrocketed and Lee was emboldened to continue his aggressive strategy through Second Bull Run and the Battle of Antietam. McClellan was relieved as general-in-chief of all the Union armies on July 11, 1862, replaced by Henry W. Halleck, although he did retain command of the Army of the Potomac."

1863 US Civil War: The first Battle of Gettysburg begins in Pennsylvania, one of the Civil War's most crucial combats. In the battle Confederate troops led by General Robert E. Lee fight against Union troops led by General George Meade. The battle will end three days later when Confederate troops will be forced to retreat back to Virginia.

1867 British North America Act: The Confederation of Upper and Lower Canada and the Maritime Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec) become the Dominion of Canada. This Canadian national holiday is known as Canada Day, formerly Dominion Day.

1869 The US mint opens at Carson City, Nevada.

1872 Birth: Louis Bleriot, pioneer aviator, first man to fly an airplane across English Channel.

1873 Prince Edward Island becomes the seventh Canadian province.

1874 The first zoo chartered in the United States opens in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Over 3,000 visitors pay 25 cents (adults) or 10 cents (children) to see the 1,000 animals housed in the Philadelphia Zoological Society zoo.

1874 The first kidnapping in the US for a ransom takes place when 4-year-old Charles Ross is kidnapped. A ransom of $20,000 is demanded.

1879 Birth: L'on Jouhaux, in France, socialist; will cofound the UN ILO, Nobel 1951.

1893 President Grover Cleveland undergoes secret surgery to remove a cancerous growth in his mouth. The operation will not become public knowledge until a newspaper article about it is published on 22 September 1917, nine years after his death.

1899 San Francisco City Hall is finally handed over to the city after 29 years of building.

1904 The third modern Olympic games open in St Louis, Missouri.

1904 Death: Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, writer.

1907 The world's first air force is established with the formation of the Aeronautical Division of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer of the US Army.

1909 Thomas Edison begins commercially manufacturing his new "A" type alkaline storage batteries.

1910 The Union of South Africa became a dominion.

1915 WW1: The Warburg Bank sends a telegram to the Imperial Navy Cabinet warning of the mounting anti-German mood in America after the sinking of the Lusitania. (Warburgs)

1916 WW1: The British infantry, following the artillery barrage on the Somme, are mowed down by German machine guns as they attempt their assault. By nightfall the British have lost about 60,000 men, 19,000 of them dead -- the greatest single, 1-day loss in the history of the British army.

1916 The young Dwight D. Eisenhower has a very good day; he weds Mamie Geneva Doud, in Denver, Colorado, and is promoted to first lieutenant in the US Army.

1916 Birth: The Coca-Cola bottle.

1916 The first of several fatal shark attacks occur near the New Jersey shore. Charles Vansant is attacked while swimming in the sea at Beach Haven, New Jersey. Three others will die over the next few days, Charles Bruder on July 6th in Spring Lake, New Jersey, Lester Stilwell aged only 12, on 12th July, and Stanley Fisher also on the 12th, in Matawan Creek, while attempting to retrieve the body of Lester Stilwell.

1917 Race riots in East St Louis, Illinois leave between 40 and 200 dead.

1917 WW1: Russian Commander-in-Chief Brusilov attacks toward Lemberg with the few troops still capable of combat operations. After a few minor gains, the Russian supply system breaks down, and Russian enthusiasm and discipline quickly disappears as German resistance stiffens.

1917 June 25 - July 21 Dispatch Runner Lance Corporal Adolf Hitler serves at the front with 3 Company, 16 Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment during 'Phase 1' operations in Flanders. Reminiscence by Hitler: "There, in October and November, 1914, we had received our baptism of fire. With the love for the fatherland in our hearts and with songs on our lips, our young regiment had marched into battle as to a dance. Valuable blood gave itself up joyfully in the belief that the fatherland's independence and freedom would endure. In July, 1917 we stepped for the second time on that soil that was sacred to us. For under it there slumbered the best comrades, some little more than boys....The older soldiers among us, who had been with the regiment from the beginning, were deeply moved as we stood on this sacred spot where we had sworn 'Loyalty and Duty unto Death.' Three years before the regiment had taken this position by storm: now it was called upon to defend it in a grueling struggle."

1919 First class postage in the US drops from 3 cents to 2 cents; the only price reduction of this nature your humble chronicler can recall.

1920 Trading Mentors: Rudolf Hess joins the Nazi party. Hess is said to have failed to persuade Karl Haushofer, an early influence on Hess's life and the leading theorist of Geopolitics, to fall in behind the "tribune" (as he referred to Hitler during this period). When Haushofer was introduced to Hitler, the latter was apparently the more impressed, as Hitler incorporated many of the Professors theories into his own world view.

1927 Weimar: Goebbel's newspaper Der Angriff (The Attack) is first published in Berlin. (Goebbels's Propaganda Principles)

1932 The Democrats nominate Franklin Delano Roosevelt for president.

1933 Church and Reich: Hitler telephones von Papen in Rome with instructions. He authorizes Papen to tell Pacelli that after the conclusion of the Concordat he "would arrange for a thorough and full pacification between the Catholic portion of the people and the Reich government," and that he "would be willing to put a finish to the story of past political developments." (Lewy)

1933 Holocaust: Jewish student organizations are abolished in Germany.

1933 Dollfuss threatens to implement strong measures against Austrian Nazis if they don't cease their anti-Jewish campaign.

1933 Holocaust:: A conference of German housewives in Berlin excludes all Jewish women from its membership.

1933 Francois Coty, publisher of a chain of French newspapers, is found guilty by a French court for having committed libel against a number of Jewish war veteran organizations. (Edelheit)

1934 The Federal Communications Commission, as mandated in the "Communications Act of 1934", replaces the Federal Radio Commission as the regulator of broadcasting in the United States.

1934 Watch What You Wish For: Defense Minister General Werner von Blomberg thanks Hitler in the name of the Wehrmacht for curbing Roehm and the SA.

1935 Church and Reich: The Gestapo arrests Protestant pastor, Martin Niemoeller. Note: Niemoeller had been a U-boat captain in WW I prior to becoming a pastor. He supported Hitler prior to his taking power, but broke very early with the Nazis. In 1933 he organized the Pastors Emergency League to protect Lutheran pastors from the police, and in 1934, he was one of the leading organizers at the Barmen Synod, which produced the theological basis for the Confessing Church. Despite its persecution, it became an enduring symbol of German resistance to Hitler.

1935 Volkishness: Heinrich 'New Age' Himmler officially founds the Society for Research into the Spiritual Roots of Germany's Ancestral Heritage (Ahnenerbe) in Berlin. He soon turns the Ahnenerbe into an official organization attached to the SS. Its declared aims are: "To make researches into the localization, general characteristics, achievements and inheritance of the Indo-Germanic race, and to communicate to the people the results of this research. This mission must be accomplished through the use of strictly scientific methods." (Pauwels)

1937 Church and Reich: The Gestapo again arrests Pastor Martin Niemoeller, leader of the German Confessional Church in Berlin.

1940 Roosevelt signs another Navy bill providing $550 million dollars to build ships and other projects.

1940 In Washington, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is opened to traffic. (See Nov 7)

1940 WW2: Hitler tells Italian Ambassador Dino Alfieri that he "could not conceive of anyone in England still seriously believing in victory." Hitler was still waiting for word that the British were willing to settle. (Shirer I)

1941 Birth: Television Advertising. On station WBNT in New York, The Bulova Watch Company sponsors the first TV commercial as the camera focuses on one of their wristwatches with the announcer reading the time. The commercial cost 9 dollars.

1941 The Former Mentor Blues: Goebbels writes in his diary: "Haushofer (above) and his son have been forced out of public life. They are both responsible for peddling mystic rubbish and have the Hess affair (Hess' flight to England) on their consciences. (Goebbels)

1941 WW2: The first Canadian armored regiments arrive in Britain.

1942 WW2: The First Battle of El Alamein takes place in Egypt.

1942 WW2: German troops capture Sevestpol, Crimea, in the Soviet Union after an eight-month siege.

1943 The US Government, taking its cue from Hitler's Reich, begins automatically withholding federal income tax from paychecks.

1943 WW2: Michail 'Wet Feet' Antonescu, in Rome, again begs Mussolini the Statesman to begin immediate negotiations with the Allies.

1944 July 1-22 The Bretton Woods Conference, officially called the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, meets at Bretton Woods, N.H. It is attended by delegates from 44 states and nations. This conference provides the foundations for the postwar international monetary system and establishes both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

1945 New York establishes the New York State Commission Against Discrimination to prevent discrimination in employment because of race, creed or natural origin; the first such agency in the US.

1946 Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: On day 168 of deliberations, the Soviets continue their attempt to pin the Katyn Massacre on the Germans. "...MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV (Assistant Prosecutor for the USSR): ...Now, please tell me: Was the Katyn wood a real forest, or was it, rather, a park or a grove? AHRENS: Up to now I have only spoken about the wood of Katyn. This wood of Katyn is the fenced-in wooded area of about 1 square kilometer; which I drew in my sketch. This wood is of mixed growth, of older and younger trees. There were many birch trees in this little wood. However, there were clearings in this wood, and I should say that from 30 to 40 percent was cleared. One could see this from the stumps of newly felled trees. Under no circumstances could you describe this wood as a park; at any rate one could not come to such a conclusion. Fighting had taken place in this wood, as one could still see trenches and fox holes. MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, but anyway, you would not call Katyn wood a real forest since it was relatively a small grove in the immediate vicinity of the Smolensk-Vitebsk highway. Is that right? AHRENS: No, that is not right. It was a forest. The entire Katyn forest was a regular forest which began near our grove and extended far beyond that. Of this Katyn forest, which was a mixed forest, part of it had been fenced in, and this part, extending over 1 square kilometer, was what we called the little Katyn wood, but it did belong to this entire wooded region south of the highway. The forest began with our little wood and extended to the west. MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I am not interested in the general characteristics of the wood. I would like you to answer the following short question: Were the mass graves located in this grove? AHRENS: The mass graves were situated directly west of our entrance drive in a clearing in the wood, where there was a growth of young trees..."

1946 The US explodes a 20-kiloton atomic bomb, code named Able, near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific, its first postwar test of the atomic bomb.

1946 The Rajah cedes Sarawak to the British crown.

1948 The Berlin airlift begins; it will end on 12 May 1949.

1949 Bao Dai's Republic of Vietnam gains independence from France.

1950 Korea: American ground troops arrive in South Korea to stem the tide of the advancing North Korean army.

1951

1960 Ghana becomes a republic, with Kwame Nkrumah as its first president.

1961 British troops land in Kuwait to aid against Iraqi threats against Kuwait.

1961 Seven Years Of Pure Profit: The first community air-raid shelter is built. The shelter in Boise, ID, has a capacity of 1,000 people and family memberships sell for $100.

1963 The British government admits that Kim Philby is the third man in the Burgess-Maclean spy ring.

1963 The US Postal Service introduces Zip codes. Mr. Zip is also introduced to help educate American people to use the 5-digit ZIP (Zone Instant Post) code.

1968 Cold War: The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is signed by 60 countries. It limits the spreading of nuclear material for military purposes and is arguably JFK's most significant achievement. On May 11, 1995 the treaty is extended indefinitely.

1974 In West Germany, Walther Scheel succeeds Gustav Heinemann as president.

1974 Death: Argentine president Juan Perón. He is succeeded by his wife and vice president, Isabel, who becomes the first woman president in the Western Hemisphere.

1977 In Argentina, Maria Estela (Isabel) Peron, widow of the late president Juan Peron, is charged with a one million charity fraud.

1978 Former US President Richard Nixon, delivers his first public speech since resigning in disgrace in 1974.

1979 Susan B. Anthony, an activist for the cause of women's suffrage, is commemorated on a US coin, the Susan B. Anthony dollar. The coin, roughly the size of a quarter, is confused by many with the same, and the US Treasury Department will eventually stop producing the unpopular coins.

1980 O Canada is proclaimed Canada's national anthem.

1980 US President Jimmy Carter signs legislation that provides for 2 acres of land near the Lincoln Memorial for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

1981 The US Supreme Court rules that candidates for federal office have an affirmative right to go on national television. The ruling limits a TV network's right to determine when political campaigns begin and who may buy time.

1982 Kosmos 1383, the first search and rescue satellite, is launched.

1985 The US Supreme Court rules that public school teachers may not enter parochial school classrooms to provide remedial or enrichment instruction.

1990 The German Democratic Republic accepts the Deutsche Mark as its currency and East Germans line up to obtain West German deutsche marks as a state treaty unifying the monetary and economic systems of the two Germanys goes into effect.

1991 The last vestige of the Cold War-era Soviet Bloc is formally disbanded as East European leaders meet in Prague and announce the end of the Warsaw Pact.

1993 President Clinton unveils a plan for logging in federal old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest that will also protect the northern spotted owl.

1993 New limits on political asylum rights go into effect in Germany, a move aimed at stemming the flow of hundreds of thousands of refugees into the country.

1994 For 33 years, Yasir Arafat has been regarded by Israelis as a terrorist and sworn enemy of the State of Israel, never to be permitted on Israeli soil. The leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization visits the Gaza Strip this day, the result of a signed agreement between Israel and the PLO. The treaty gives the PLO ruling power of the territory and the city of Jericho.

1994 The UN Security Council authorizes a commission to investigate acts of genocide in Rwanda.

1996 A dozen members of a paramilitary organization are arrested in Arizona and charged with plotting to bomb government buildings.

1997 Sovereignty over Hong Kong is transferred from Great Britain to China. Britain has controlled Hong Kong as a colony for 156 years.

1999 Exactly six months before the year 2000, US Congress passes legislation to shield businesses from a potential flood of Y2K computer-related lawsuits.

2001

2002

2002 Cannon fire and bombs from a US Air Force AC-130 strike a town in southern Afghanistan, killing about 50 people, including members of a wedding party. US officials claim the plane had been fired on.

2003 In a Hong Kong Chinese at least in fact, thousands of protesters march to show their opposition to anti-subversion legislation.

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