Today in History: July 29
1030
King Olaf the Second, the patron saint of Norway, was killed in the Battle of Stiklestad. Olaf Haraldsson was born a pagan and lived as a warrior for most of his years going on to become the patron saint of Norway. The son of Harald I, Olaf's early career was spent outside Norway fighting the Danes and English among others.
1565
Mary Queen of Scots married her cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.
1567
James VI is crowned King of Scots at Stirling.
1588
At midnight of July 28th the English set eight fireships (filled with pitch, gunpowder, and tar) alight and sent them downwind among the closely-anchored Spanish vessels. The English attacked the Spanish Armada in the Battle of Gravelines, resulting in an English victory.
1602
The Duke of Biron was executed in Paris for conspiring with Spain and Savoy against King Henry IV of France.
1603
Bartholomew Gilbert was killed in the colony of Virginia by Indians, during a search for the missing Roanoke colonists.
1609
Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs at Ticonderoga, New York setting the stage for French-Iroquois conflicts for the next 150 years
1693
The Army of the Grand Alliance was destroyed by the French at the Battle of Neerwinden in the Netherlands.
1975
President Gerald R. Ford became the first U.S. president to visit the site of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland.
1794
Seventy of Robespierre's followers were guillotined.
1830
Liberals led by the Marquis of Lafayette seized Paris in opposition to the king's restrictions on citizens' rights.
1836
The Arc de Triomphe, the largest triumphal arch in the world, was officially inaugurated in Paris.
1848
An Irish rebellion against British rule was put down in a cabbage patch in Tipperary, Ireland. Irish Nationalists under William Smith O'Brien were overcome and arrested.
1858
Townsend Harris persuaded the Japanese to sign the Harris Treaty, an agreement securing commercial and diplomatic privileges for the United States in Japan.
1905
US Secretary of War William Howard Taft makes secret agreement with Japanese Prime Minister Katsura agreeing to Japanese free rein in Korea in return for non-interference with the US in the Philippines
1913
Albania was formally recognized by the major European powers as an independent principality following the issuance of the Vlorë proclamation.
1914
Transcontinental telephone service in the U.S. became operational with the first test conversation between New York and San Francisco. Massachusetts’ Cape Cod Canal, offering a shortcut across the base of the peninsula, was officially opened to shipping traffic.
1921
Adolf Hitler became the leader (”fuehrer”) of the National Socialist German Workers Party.
1945
After delivering parts of the first atomic bomb to the island of Tinian, the U.S.S. Indianapolis is sunk by a Japanese submarine. The survivors are adrift for two days before help arrives.
1949
Moscow ends the blockade of West Berlin
1954
The first part of J.R.R. Tolkien"The Lord of the Rings—which became a sociocultural phenomenon and was adapted into a series of blockbuster films in the early 2000s—was published.
1957
The International Atomic Energy Agency is established. The independent agency aims to ban the use of nuclear energy for military purposes. American W. Sterling Cole served as the agency's first director general.
1958
National Aeronautics and Space Administration established. Criticized for allowing the Soviet Union to launch the first man-made satellite to orbit Earth (Sputnik 1, on October 4, 1957), U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation this day in 1958 that created NASA.
1967
An accidental rocket launch on the deck of the supercarrier USS Forrestal in the Gulf of Tonkin resulted in a fire and explosions that killed 134 servicemen. (Among the survivors was future Arizona senator John McCain, a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander who narrowly escaped with his life.)
1994
Abortion opponent Paul Hill shot and killed Dr. John Bayard Britton and Britton’s bodyguard, James H. Barrett, outside the Ladies Center clinic in Pensacola, Florida. (Hill was executed in Sept. 2003.)
2004
Sen. John Kerry accepted the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Boston with a military salute and the declaration: “I’m John Kerry and I’m reporting for duty.”
2005
Planetary scientists formally announced the discovery of what was believed to be the 10th planet; it was later designated a dwarf planet and given the name Eris.
Births On This Day – 29 July
1646 Johann Theile, German composer (Adam & Eve)1758 Antonius van Gils, Dutch RC theologist (opposed Enlightenment)
1796 Walter Hunt, American inventor (safety pin, sewing machine), born in Martinsburg, New York (d. 1859)
1805 Alexis de Tocqueville (d.1859), French historian who wrote "Democracy in America, was born. "America is a land of wonders, in which everything is in constant motion and every change seems an improvement."
1817 James Blair Steedman, American Major General (Union Army), born in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania (d. 1883)
1853 Esther de Boer-van Rijk, Dutch actress (Kniertje-Hope of Blessing), born in Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands (d. 1937)
1870 George Dixon, Canadian boxer (World Bantamweight title 1892; World Featherweight champion 1891-97, 98-1901; first black athlete to win a World C'ship in any sport), born in Halifax, Nova Scotia (d. 1908)
1876 Maria Ouspenskaya, Russian actress (The Wolf Man, Waterloo Bridge), born in Tula, Russian Empire (d. 1949)
1883 Benito Mussolini [Il Duce], Fascist Italian dictator (1922-43), born in Predappio, Forlì, Italy (d. 1945)
1885 Theda Bara, American film actress (Cleopatra, The Unchastened Woman), born in Avondale, Ohio (d. 1955)
1888 Vladimir K. Zworykin, Russian-American inventor (development of television, cathode ray tube), born in Murom, Russian Empire (d. 1982)
1900 Don Redman, American jazz musician and orchestra leader (Sugar Hill Times), born in Piedmont, West Virginia (d. 1964)
1905 Clara Bow, American silent screen actress (It, Saturday Night Kid), born in Brooklyn, New York (d. 1965)
1905 Dag Hammarskjöld, Swedish public servant, 2nd Secretary-General of the United Nations (1953-61) and posthumous Nobel Peace Prize winner (1961), born in Jönköping, Sweden (d. 1961)
1907 Melvin Belli, American lawyer known as "The King of Torts" and "Melvin Bellicose", born in Sonora, California (d. 1996)
1911 Stephen McNally, American attorney and actor (Split Second, 30 Seconds over Tokyo), born in NYC, New York (d. 1994)
1920 Rodolfo Acosta, Mexican-American character actor (Salón México, The Fugitive, Littlest Outlaw), born in Chamizal, Texas (d. 1974)
1924 Elizabeth Short, American victim in the Black Dahlia case, born in Boston, Massachusetts (d. 1947)
1925 Ted Lindsay, Canadian Hockey Hall of Fame left wing (Art Ross Trophy 1950, NHL Players Association pioneer), born in Renfrew, Ontario (d. 2019)
1932 Marguerite Empey, [Diane Webber], American model and Playboy playmate (May 1955, Feb 1956), born in Los Angelas, California (d. 2008)
1937 Charles Schwab, American investor and entrepreneur (Charles Schwab Corporation), born in Sacramento, California
1938 Peter Jennings, Canadian-American news anchor (ABC Evening News), born in Toronto, Ontario (d. 2005)
1947 Dick Harmon, American golf instructor (Fred Couples, Jay Haas, Craig Stadler, Lanny Wadkins, Steve Elkington), born in New Rochelle, NY (d. 2006)
1949 Leslie Easterbrook, American actress (The Devil's Rejects, Police Academy), born in Los Angeles, California
1953 Geddy Lee, lead vocalist/bassist (Rush-Tom Sawyer), born in Toronto, Ontario
1959 Gary Springer, American actor (Bernice Bobs Her Hair), born in NYC, New York
1959 John Sykes, English rock guitarist and singer (Thin Lizzy; Blue Murder), born in Reading, Berkshire,England
1966 Martina McBride, American country singer and songwriter (Evolution), born in Sharon, Kansas
Deaths On This Day – 29 July
1030 Olaf Haraldsson, King of Norway, dies in battle of Stiklestad
1108 King Philip I, King of the Franks (1059, 1060-1108), dies at 56
1164 Olaf, King of Norway, dies
1507 Martin Behaim, German navigator and geographer, dies at 47
1573 Spanish prince of Eboli, dies
1573 John Caius, English physician, dies at 62
1596 Jacobus Latomus, Flemish poet (Psalms/Jeremias) dies at about 84
1612 Jacques Bongars, French scholar and diplomat (b. 1554)
1632 Samuel Ampzing, Dutch poet (Biblical Treasures), dies at 42
1644 Urban VIII, [Maffeo Barberini], Pope (1623-44), dies
1649 David Teniers I, Flemish painter (altaar stukken), dies
1669 Christopher Simpson, composer, dies
1792 René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou, Chancellor of France (b. 1714)
1797 Christoph Rheineck, German composer, dies at 48
1808 Selam III, poet/composer/sultan of Turkey (1789-1808), dies
1813 Jean-Andoche Junot, French general (b. 1771)
1833 Jul 29, William Wilberforce (b.1759), English abolitionist, died. He was best known for his efforts relating to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. A politician and philanthropist, Wilberforce was prominent from 1787 in the struggle to abolish the slave trade and slavery itself in British overseas possessions. He was an ardent and eloquent sponsor of anti-slavery legislation in the House of Commons until his retirement in 1825. Wilberforce University in Ohio, an African Methodist Episcopal Church institution (f.1856), was named for William Wilberforce. In 2008 William Hague authored “William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner." In 2010 Stephen Tomkins authored “The Clapham Sect: How Wilberforce’s Circle Transformed Britain."
1844 Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, Austrian composer and 6th child of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, dies at 53
1856 Robert Schumann, German composer (Humoresque, Neue Zeitschrift fuer Musik), dies at 46
1857 Charles Lucien Bonaparte, French prince of Canino and Musignano, dies at 54
1857 Thomas Dick, Scottish scientific teacher and writer (b. 1774)
1859 Auguste Mathieu Panseron, French composer, dies at 63
1890 Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, one of the greatest of the Post-Impressionists, died in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, two days after shooting himself.
1982 Vladimir K. Zworykin, Russian-American inventor (development of television, cathode ray tube), dies at 94
1983 David Niven, British actor (Around the World in 80 Days, Rugues), dies in Switzerland of Lou Gehrig's disease at 73
1897 Joost Gerard Kist, Dutch lawyer and president of High Council (1885-97), dies at 74
1900 Umberto I, Italian King (1878-1900) assassinated by Gaetano Bresci
1906 Alexandre Luigini, French composer (Ballet égyptien), dies at 56
1913 Tobias Asser, Dutch advocate of world law (Nobel 1911), dies at 75
1918 Ernest William Christmas, Australian painter (b. 1863)
1922 Edward Gailliard, Flemish linguist and archaeologist, dies at 81
1930 Alexander von Fielitz, composer, dies at 69
1994 Dorothy Hodgkin, British chemist who developed protein crystallography, 3rd woman to win a Nobel Prize (1964), dies of a stroke at 84
0 Comments