• 1540 - Thomas Cromwell is executed on order from Henry VIII of England on charges of treason. Henry marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, on the same day.
• 1586 - First potato arrives in Britain.
• 1609 - Bermuda is first settled, by survivors of the English Sea Venture, en route to Virginia.
• 1794 - Maximilien Robespierre is guillotined in Paris during the French Revolution.
• 1809 - Peninsular War: Battle of Talavera - Sir Arthur Wellesley's British, Portuguese and Spanish army defeats a French force under Joseph Bonaparte.
• 1821 - Peru: Jose de San Martin declares independence from Spain.
• 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Ezra Church - The battle begins on this day when Confederate troops make a third unsuccessful attempt to drive Union forces from Atlanta, Georgia.
• 1868 - The 14th Amendment to the Constitution is passed, establishing African American citizenship and guaranteeing due process of law.
• 1896 - The City of Miami is incorporated.
• 1914 - World War I - Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia after it failed to meet the conditions of an ultimatum it set on July 23 following the killing of Archduke Francis Ferdinand by a Serbian assassin. This event leads to the outbreak of the war.
• 1932 - US President Herbert Hoover orders the United States Army to forcibly evict the "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans gathered in Washington, DC.
• 1933 - The diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Spain were established.
• 1942 - World War II: USSR leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227 in response to alarming German advances into Russia. Under the order all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so will be immediately killed.
• 1943 - World War II: Operation Gomorrah - The British bomb Hamburg causing a firestorm that kills 42,000 German civilians.
• 1945 - A US Army B-25 bomber accidentally crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building killing 14 injuring 26.
• 1955 - The Union Mundial pro Interlingua is founded at the first Interlingua congress in Tours, France.
• 1957 - Heavy rain and mudslide occur at Isahaya, western Kyūshū, Japan, 992 killed.
• 1958 - Lord Jellicoe makes his maiden speech in the House of Lords.
• 1965 - Vietnam War: US President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his order to increase the number of United States troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000.
• 1976 - The Tangshan earthquake measuring between 7.8 and 8.2 magnitude flattens Tangshan, the People's Republic of China, killing 242,769 and injuring 164,851.
• 1996 - Kennewick Man, the remains of a prehistoric man, was discovered near Kennewick, Washington.
• 1997 - Guatemala becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
• 2002 - Nine coal miners trapped in the flooded Quecreek Mine in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, were rescued after 77 hours underground.
• 2005 - The Provisional Irish Republican Army (The PIRA) call an end to their thirty year long armed campaign in Northern Ireland.
• 2005 - A tornado touches down in a residential area in south Birmingham, England, causing £4,000,000 worth of damages and injuring 39 people.

Births