July 19

Events

Pre-1600

• 64 - The Great Fire of Rome causes widespread devastation and rages on for six days, destroying half of the city.
• 484 - Leontius, Roman usurper, is crowned Eastern emperor at Tarsus. He is recognized in Antioch and makes it his capital.
• 711 - Umayyad conquest of Hispania: Battle of Guadalete: Umayyad forces under Tariq ibn Ziyad defeat the Visigoths led by King Roderic.
• 939 - Battle of Simancas: King Ramiro II of León defeats the Moorish army under Caliph Abd-al-Rahman III near the city of Simancas.
• 998 - Arab–Byzantine wars: Battle of Apamea: Fatimids defeat a Byzantine army near Apamea.
• 1333 - Wars of Scottish Independence: Battle of Halidon Hill: The English win a decisive victory over the Scots.
• 1544 - Italian War of 1542–46: The first Siege of Boulogne begins.
• 1545 - The Tudor warship Mary Rose sinks off Portsmouth; in 1982 the wreck is salvaged in one of the most complex and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology.
• 1553 - The attempt to install Lady Jane Grey as Queen of England collapses after only nine days.
• 1588 - Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Gravelines: The Spanish Armada is sighted in the English Channel.

  1601–1900

• 1701 - Representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy sign the Nanfan Treaty, ceding a large territory north of the Ohio River to England.
• 1702 - Great Northern War: A numerically superior Polish-Saxon army of Augustus II the Strong, operating from an advantageous defensive position, is defeated by a Swedish army half its size under the command of King Charles XII in the Battle of Klissow.
• 1817 - Unsuccessful in his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi for the Russian-American Company, Georg Anton Schäffer is forced to admit defeat and leave Kauaʻi.
• 1821 - Coronation of George IV of the United Kingdom.
• 1832 - The British Medical Association is founded as the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association by Sir Charles Hastings at a meeting in the Board Room of the Worcester Infirmary.
• 1843 - Brunel's steamship the is launched, becoming the first ocean-going craft with an iron hull and screw propeller, becoming the largest vessel afloat in the world.
• 1845 - Great New York City Fire of 1845: The last great fire to affect Manhattan begins early in the morning and is subdued that afternoon. The fire kills four firefighters and 26 civilians and destroys 345 buildings.
• 1848 - Women's rights: A two-day Women's Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York.
• 1863 - American Civil War: Morgan's Raid: At Buffington Island in Ohio, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan's raid into the north is mostly thwarted when a large group of his men are captured while trying to escape across the Ohio River.
• 1864 - Taiping Rebellion: Third Battle of Nanking: The Qing dynasty finally defeats the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
• 1870 - Franco-Prussian War: France declares war on Prussia.
• 1900 - The first line of the Paris Métro opens for operation.

  1901–present

• 1903 - Maurice Garin wins the first Tour de France.
• 1916 - World War I: Battle of Fromelles: British and Australian troops attack German trenches as part of the Battle of the Somme.
• 1934 - The rigid airship surprised the near Clipperton Island with a mail delivery for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, demonstrating its potential for tracking ships at sea.
• 1936 - Spanish Civil War: The CNT and UGT call a general strike in Spain – mobilizing workers' militias against the Nationalist forces. People's Olympiad of Barcelona cancelled.
• 1940 - World War II: Battle of Cape Spada: The Royal Navy and the Regia Marina clash; the Italian light cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni sinks, with 121 casualties.
• 1940 - Field Marshal Ceremony: First occasion in World War II that Adolf Hitler appoints field marshals due to military achievements.
• 1940 - World War II: Army order 112 forms the Intelligence Corps of the British Army.
• 1942 - World War II: The Second Happy Time of Hitler's submarines comes to an end, as the increasingly effective American convoy system compels them to return to the central Atlantic.
• 1943 - World War II: Rome is heavily bombed by more than 500 Allied aircraft, inflicting thousands of casualties.
• 1947 - Prime Minister of the shadow Burmese government, Bogyoke Aung San and eight others are assassinated.
• 1947 - Korean politician Lyuh Woon-hyung is assassinated.
• 1952 - Opening of the Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland.
• 1957 - The largely autobiographical novel The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold by Evelyn Waugh was published.
• 1961 - Tunisia imposes a blockade on the French naval base at Bizerte; the French would capture the entire town four days later.
• 1963 - Joe Walker flies a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 106,010 meters on X-15 Flight 90. Exceeding an altitude of 100 km, this flight qualifies as a human spaceflight under international convention.
• 1964 - Vietnam War: At a rally in Saigon, South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Khánh calls for expanding the war into North Vietnam.
• 1967 - Piedmont Airlines Flight 22, a Piedmont Airlines Boeing 727-22 and a twin-engine Cessna 310 collided over Hendersonville, North Carolina, USA. Both aircraft were destroyed and all passengers and crew were killed, including John T. McNaughton, an advisor to Robert McNamara.
• 1969 - Chappaquiddick incident: U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy crashes his car into a tidal pond at Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, killing his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne.
• 1972 - Dhofar Rebellion: British SAS units help the Omani government against Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman rebels in the Battle of Mirbat.
• 1976 - Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal is created.
• 1977 - The world's first Global Positioning System signal was transmitted from Navigation Technology Satellite 2 and received at Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at 12:41 a.m. Eastern time.
• 1979 - The Sandinista rebels overthrow the government of the Somoza family in Nicaragua.
• 1979 - The oil tanker SS Atlantic Empress collides with another oil tanker, causing the largest ever ship-borne oil spill.
• 1980 - Opening of the Summer Olympics in Moscow.
• 1981 - In a private meeting with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, French President François Mitterrand reveals the existence of the Farewell Dossier, a collection of documents showing the Soviet Union had been stealing American technological research and development.
• 1982 - In one of the first militant attacks by Hezbollah, David S. Dodge, president of the American University of Beirut, is kidnapped.
• 1983 - The first three-dimensional reconstruction of a human head in a CT is published.
• 1985 - The Val di Stava dam collapses killing 268 people in Val di Stava, Italy.
• 1989 - United Airlines Flight 232 crashes in Sioux City, Iowa, killing 111.
• 1992 - A car bomb kills Judge Paolo Borsellino and five members of his escort.
• 1997 - The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army resumes a ceasefire to end their 25-year paramilitary campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland.
• 2011 - Guinean President Alpha Condé survives an attempted assassination and coup d'état at his residence in Conakry.
• 2012 - Syrian civil war: The People's Protection Units capture the city of Kobanî without resistance, starting the Rojava conflict in Northeast Syria.
• 2014 - Gunmen in Egypt's western desert province of New Valley Governorate attack a military checkpoint, killing at least 21 soldiers. Egypt reportedly declares a state of emergency on its border with Sudan.
• 2018 - The Knesset passes the controversial Nationality Bill, which defines the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
• 2024 ─ A faulty software update by CrowdStrike, an American cybersecurity company, causes global computer outages.
• 2024 ─ The International Court of Justice delivered a ruling stating that Israel should end its illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories. The ICJ identified that all member states of the UN are under an obligation not to recognize the occupation as legal nor "render aid or assistance" toward maintaining Israel's presence in the occupied territories.
• 2025 ─ The tourist boat Wonder Sea capsizes during a thunderstorm in Hạ Long Bay, Vietnam, leaving at least 36 people dead.

  Births

Pre-1600

• 810 - Muhammad al-Bukhari, Persian scholar
• 1223 - Baibars, sultan of Egypt
• 1420 - William VIII, Marquis of Montferrat
• 1569 - Conrad Vorstius, Dutch theologian

  1601–1900

• 1670 - Richard Leveridge, English singer-songwriter
• 1688 - Giuseppe Castiglione, Italian missionary and painter
• 1744 - Heinrich Christian Boie, German author and poet
• 1759 - Marianna Auenbrugger, Austrian pianist and composer
• 1759 - Seraphim of Sarov, Russian monk and saint
• 1771 - Thomas Talbot, Irish-Canadian colonel and politician
• 1794 - José Justo Corro, Mexican politician and president
• 1789 - John Martin, English painter, engraver, and illustrator
• 1800 - Juan José Flores, Venezuelan general and politician, 1st President of Ecuador
• 1814 - Samuel Colt, American businessman, founded the Colt's Manufacturing Company
• 1819 - Gottfried Keller, Swiss author, poet, and playwright
• 1822 - Princess Augusta of Cambridge
• 1827 - Mangal Pandey, Indian soldier
• 1834 - Edgar Degas, French painter, sculptor, and illustrator
• 1835 - Justo Rufino Barrios, Guatemalan president
• 1842 - Frederic T. Greenhalge, English-American lawyer and politician, 38th Governor of Massachusetts
• 1846 - Edward Charles Pickering, American astronomer and physicist
• 1849 - Ferdinand Brunetière, French scholar and critic
• 1860 - Lizzie Borden, American woman, tried and acquitted for the murders of her father and step-mother in 1892
• 1864 - Fiammetta Wilson, English astronomer
• 1865 - Georges Friedel, French mineralogist and crystallographer
• 1865 - Charles Horace Mayo, American surgeon, co-founder of the Mayo Clinic
• 1868 - Florence Foster Jenkins, American soprano and educator
• 1869 - Xenophon Stratigos, Greek general and politician, Greek Minister of Transport
• 1875 - Alice Dunbar Nelson, American poet and activist
• 1876 - Joseph Fielding Smith, American religious leader, 10th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• 1877 - Arthur Fielder, English cricketer
• 1881 - Friedrich Dessauer, German physicist and philosopher
• 1883 - Max Fleischer, Austrian-American animator and producer
• 1884 - Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, British-born German nobleman and Nazi politician
• 1886 - Michael Fekete, Hungarian-Israeli mathematician and academic
• 1888 - Enno Lolling, German physician
• 1890 - George II of Greece
• 1892 - Dick Irvin, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
• 1893 - Vladimir Mayakovsky, Russian actor, playwright, and poet
• 1894 - Aleksandr Khinchin, Russian mathematician and academic
• 1894 - Khawaja Nazimuddin, Bangladeshi-Pakistani politician, 2nd Prime Minister of Pakistan
• 1894 - Percy Spencer, American physicist and inventor of the microwave oven
• 1895 - Xu Beihong, Chinese painter and academic
• 1896 - Reginald Baker, English film producer
• 1896 - A. J. Cronin, Scottish physician and novelist
• 1896 - Bob Meusel, American baseball player and sailor
• 1898 - Herbert Marcuse, German-American sociologist and philosopher
• 1899 - Balai Chand Mukhopadhyay, Indian physician, author, poet, and playwright