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657 - Battle of Siffin.

811 - Battle of Pliska; Byzantine emperor Nicephorus I is slain, his heir Stauracius is seriously wounded.

1139 - Afonso, then a count, is proclaimed first king of Portugal and declares independence from Castile.

1469 - Wars of the Roses: Battle of Edgecote Moor - Pitting the forces of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick against those of King Edward IV.

1581 - Plakkaat van Verlatinghe (Oath of Abjuration). The declaration of independence of the northern Low Countries from the Spanish king, Philip II.

1775 - The birth of what would later become the United States Post Office Department was established by the Second Continental Congress.

1788 - New York ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 11th state of the United States.

1803 - The Surrey Iron Railway, arguably the world's first public railway, opens in south London.

1822 - José de San Martín arrives in Guayaquil, Ecuador, to meet with Simón Bolívar.

1847 - Liberia gains independence.

1861 - American Civil War: George McClellan assumes command of the Army of the Potomac following a disastrous Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run.

1863 - American Civil War: Morgan's Raid ends - At Salineville, Ohio, Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and 360 of his volunteers are captured by Union forces.

1878 - In California, the poet and American West outlaw calling himself "Black Bart" makes his last clean getaway when he steals a safe box from a Wells Fargo stagecoach. The empty box will be found later with a taunting poem inside.

1887 - L. L. Zamenhof publishes "Dr. Esperanto's International Language".

1908 - United States Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte issues an order to immediately staff the Office of the Chief Examiner (later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation).

1936 - The Axis Powers decide to intervene in the Spanish Civil War.

1941 - World War II: In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the seizure of all Japanese assets in the United States.

1944 - World War II: Soviet army enters Lviv, major city of western Ukraine, liberating it from the Nazis. Only 300 Jewish survivors left, out of 160.000 Jews in Lviv prior to Nazi occupation.

1945 - The Labour Party wins the United Kingdom general election of July 5 by a landslide, removing Winston Churchill from power.

1945 - The Potsdam Declaration is signed in Potsdam, Germany.

1947 - Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act into United States law creating the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council.

1948 - U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9981 desegregating the military of the United States.

1948 - André Marie becomes Prime Minister of France

1953 - Fidel Castro leads an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks, thus beginning the Cuban Revolution.

1953 - Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle orders a law enforcement crackdown on Short Creek, Arizona, home to a polygamous sect of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

1956 - Following the World Bank's decline to fund building the Aswan High Dam, Egyptian leader Gamal Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal sparking international condemnation.

1957 - Carlos Castillo Armas, dictator of Guatemala, is assassinated

1958 - Explorer program: Explorer 4 is launched.

1963 - Syncom 2, the world's first geosynchronous satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta B booster.

1963 - Earthquake in Skopje, Yugoslavia - 1100 dead

1963 - The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development votes to admit Japan.

1966 - Lord Gardiner issues the Practice Statement in the House of Lords stating that the House is not bound to follow its own previous precedent.

1968 - Vietnam War: South Vietnamese opposition leader Truong Dinh Dzu is sentenced to five years hard labor for advocating the formation of a coalition government as a way to move toward an end to the war.

1971 - Apollo Program: Apollo 15 Mission - Launch of Apollo 15.

1989 - A federal grand jury indicts Cornell University student Robert T. Morris, Jr. for releasing the Morris worm, thus becoming the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

1990 - U.S. President George H.W. Bush signs the Americans with Disabilities Act, designed to protect disabled Americans from discrimination.

1991 - Paul Reubens, better known as Pee Wee Herman, is arrested for allegedly exposing himself at a Sarasota, Florida adult theatre.

2003 - New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg declares it Rock Steady Crew Day.

2005 - Space Shuttle program: STS-114 Mission - Launch of ''Discovery'', NASA's first scheduled flight mission after the ''Columbia'' Disaster in 2003.

2005 - Mumbai, India receives 99.5cm of rain within 24 hours, bringing the city to a halt for over 2 days. (See: 2005 Maharashtra floods.)

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1030 - Stanislaus of Szczepanów, St. Stanislaw (d. 1079)

1678 - Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1711)

1782 - John Field, Irish composer (d. 1837)

1802 - Mariano Arista, President of Mexico (d. 1855)

1829 - Auguste Marie Francois Beernaert, Belgian statesman, Nobel Prize Laureate (d. 1912)

1855 - Ferdinand Tönnies, German sociologist (d. 1936)

1856 - George Bernard Shaw, Irish writer, Nobel Prize Laureate (d. 1950)

1865 - Philipp Scheidemann, 1st Chancellors of the Weimar Republic (d. 1939)

1874 - Serge Koussevitsky, Russian conductor (d. 1951)

1875 - Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist (d. 1961)

1875 - Antonio Machado, Spanish poet (d. 1939)

1880 - Volodymyr Vynnychenko, Ukrainian statesman (d. 1951)

1886 - Lars Hanson, Swedish actor (d. 1965)

1892 - Sad Sam Jones, baseball player (d. 1966)

1894 - Aldous Huxley, English-born author (d. 1963)

1895 - Gracie Allen, American actress and comedian (d. 1964)

1897 - Paul Gallico, American author (d. 1976)

1903 - Estes Kefauver, U.S. Senator from Tennessee (d. 1963)

1908 - Salvador Allende, President of Chile (d. 1973)

1909 - Vivian Vance, American actress (d. 1979)

1914 - Ellis Kinder, baseball player (d. 1968)

1920 - Bob Waterfield, American football player (d. 1983)

1921 - Jean Shepherd, American writer (d. 1999)

1922 - Blake Edwards, American film director

1922 - Jason Robards, American actor (d. 2000)

1923 - Hoyt Wilhelm, baseball player (d. 2002)

1926 - James Best, American actor

1928 - Ibn-e-Safi, Pakistani fiction writer and Urdu poet (d. 1980)

1928 - Francesco Cossiga, 8th President of the Italian Republic

1928 - Stanley Kubrick, American film director (d. 1999)

1929 - Alexis Weissenberg, French pianist--born in Bulgaria

1931 - Takashi Ono, Japanese gymnast

1938 - Bobby Hebb, American musician

1939 - John Howard, 25th Prime Minister of Australia

1939 - Bob Lilly, American football player

1940 - Mary Jo Kopechne, American aide to Robert F. Kennedy (d. 1969)

1941 - Brenton Wood, American singer-songwriter

1942 - Vladimír Mečiar, Slovak prime minister

1943 - Mick Jagger, English musician (The Rolling Stones)

1945 - Helen Mirren, English actress

1949 - Roger Taylor, English musician (Queen)

1949 - Thaksin Shinawatra-Prime Minister of Thailand

1950 - Nelinho, Brazilian football player

1953 - Robert Phillips, Classical guitarist

1956 - Dorothy Hamill, American figure skater

1957 - Nana Visitor, American actress

1959 - Rick Bragg, American writer

1959 - Kevin Spacey, American actor

1959 - Michael Ross, American serial killer (d. 2005)

1961 - Gary Cherone, American musician (Extreme)

1961 - Keiko Matsui, Japanese musician and composer

1964 - Sandra Bullock, American actress

1965 - Jeremy Piven, American actor

1969 - Jonty Rhodes, South African cricketer

1973 - Kate Beckinsale, British actress

1973 - Lenka Šarounová, Czech astronomer

1974 - Daniel Negreanu, Canadian poker player

1977 - Martin Laursen, Danish footballer

1977 - Rebecca St. James, Australian-born singer

1980 - Dave Baksh, Canadian guitarist (Sum41)

1983 - Delonte West, American NBA player

1983 - Roderick Strong, Wrestler

1985 - Gaël Clichy, French footballer

1993 - Taylor Momsen, American actress

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796 - Offa, King of Mercia

811 - Nicephorus I, Byzantine Emperor (killed in battle)

1380 - Emperor Komyo of Japan (b. 1322)

1471 - Pope Paul II (b. 1417)

1592 - Armand de Gontaut, baron de Biron, French soldier (b. 1524)

1611 - Horio Yoshiharu, Japanese warlord (b. 1542)

1680 - John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, English writer (b. 1647)

1712 - Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds, English statesman (b. 1631)

1723 - Robert Bertie, 1st Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven, English statesman (b. 1660)

1863 - Sam Houston, President of the Republic of Texas (b. 1793)

1867 - King Otto of Greece (b. 1815)

1919 - Sir Edward Poynter, British painter (b. 1836)

1925 - Gottlob Frege, German mathematician and logician (b. 1848)

1925 - William Jennings Bryan, American politician (b. 1860)

1932 - Frederick S. Duesenberg automotive pioneer (b. 1876)

1935 - Winsor McCay, American cartoonist (b. 1871)

1941 - Henri Lebesgue, French mathematician (b. 1875)

1942 - Roberto Arlt, Argentinian writer (b. 1900)

1952 - Eva Perón, wife of Argentine President Juan Perón (b. 1919)

1953 - Nikolaos Plastiras, Greek general and politician (b. 1883)

1969 - Frank Loesser, American composer (b. 1910)

1971 - Diane Arbus, American photographer (suicide) (b. 1923)

1977 - Karac Plant, Robert Plant's son, stomach infection (b. 1972)

1980 - Ibn-e-Safi, Pakistani fiction writer and Urdu poet (b. 1928)

1984 - Ed Gein, American serial killer (b. 1906)

1986 - Averell Harriman, American diplomat (b. 1891)

1988 - Fazlur Rahman, Pakistani scholar (b. 1919)

1992 - Mary Wells, American singer (b. 1943)

2001 - Peter von Zahn, German journalist (b. 1913)

2001 - Rex Barber, American WW II aviator (b. 1917)

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Cuba - Anniversary of the Moncada Barracks Attack (1953); Day of the National Rebellion

India - Vijay Divas (end of Kargil War)

Liberia - Independence Day

Maldives - Independence Day

U.S. - Aunt and Uncle's Day

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Liturgical feasts
Roman Catholicism

Saint Beatus, confessor (at Trier) GTZ: Trier
Saint Eobanus, (sometimes bishop), martyr GTZ: Mainz
Saint Etherius, bishop of Auxerre, confessor Sens
Saint Exuperius, bishop of Bayeux Bayeux only
Saint Germain=Germanus, bishop of Auxerre
Saint Hycinthus, martyr Osnabrück, Utrecht; HCC
Saint Jodocus, priest, confessor (Translation) Amiens
Saint Lupus, bishop of Troyes, confessor Sens only
Saint Marcellus, bishop of Paris, confessor (Translation) Paris
Saint Pastor, priest, confessor Orden
Saint Rheticius, bishop of Autun, confessor Autun
Saint Symphronius and companions, martyrs Meaux, Senlis
Saint Anne (mother of St. Mary) common; MR, with Joachim