July 250326 - Constantine refused to carry out the traditional pagan sacrifices. 1394 - Charles VI of France issued a decree for the general expulsion of Jews from France. 1564 - Maximillian II became emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. 1587 - Japanese strong-man Hideyoshi banned Christianity in Japan and ordered all Christians to leave. 1593 - France's King Henry IV converted from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism. 1759 - British forces defeated a French army at Fort Niagara in Canada. 1799 - Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the Ottomans at Aboukir, Egypt. 1805 - Aaron Burr visited New Orleans with plans to establish a new country, with New Orleans as the capital city. 1845 - China granted Belgium equal trading rights with Britain, France and the United States. 1850 - In Worcester, MA, Harvard and Yale University freshmen met in the first intercollegiate billiards match. 1850 - Gold was discovered in the Rogue River in OR. 1854 - The paper collar was patented by Walter Hunt. 1861 - The Crittenden Resolution, which called for the American Civil War to be fought to preserve the Union and not for slavery, was passed by the U.S. Congress. 1866 - Ulysses S. Grant was named General of the Army. He was the first American officer to hold the rank. 1868 - The U.S. Congress passed an act creating the Wyoming Territory. 1871 - Seth Wheeler patented perforated wrapping paper. 1907 - Korea became a protectorate of Japan. 1909 - French aviator Louis Bleriot flew across the English Channel in a monoplane. He traveled from Calais to Dover in 37 minutes. He was the first man to fly across the channel. 1914 - Russia declared that it would act to protect Serbian sovereignty. 1924 - Greece announced the deportation of 50,000 Armenians. 1939 - W2XBS TV in New York City presented the first musical comedy seen on TV. The show was "Topsy and Eva." 1941 - The U.S. government froze all Japanese and Chinese assets. 1943 - Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was overthrown in a coup. 1946 - The U.S. detonated an atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. It was the first underwater test of the device. 1946 - Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis staged their first show as a team at Club 500 in Atlantic City, NJ. 1947 - Fortune Gordien of Oslo, Norway set a world record discus throw of 178.47 feet. 1952 - Puerto Rico became a self-governing commonwealth of the U.S. 1978 - Louise Joy Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born in Oldham, England. She had been conceived through in-vitro fertilization. 1978 - Pete Rose (Cincinnati Red) broke the National League record for consecutive base hits as he got a hit in 38 straight games. 1984 - Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to walk in space. She was aboard the orbiting space station Salyut 7. 1987 - The Salt Lake City Trappers set a professional baseball record as the team won its 29th game in a row. (Utah) 1994 - Israel and Jordan formally ended the state of war that had existed between them since 1948. 1997 - K.R. Narayanan became India's president. He was the first member of the Dalits caste to do so. 1998 - The USS Harry S. Truman was commissioned and put into service by the U.S. Navy. 1999 - Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France. He was only the second American to win the race. 2010 - WikiLeaks leaked to the public more than 90,000 internal reports involving the U.S.-led War in Afghanistan from 2004-2010. 2016 - Verizon Communications agreed to purchase Yahoo!'s operating business for $4.83 billion with the intention to merge it with AOL. |