July 31 is

Avocado Day – new!

National Mutt Day *

Raspberry Cake Day

World Ranger Day *

Jump for Jelly Beans Day

Uncommon Musical Instruments Day

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MORE! Daniel Defoe, J.K. Rowling and Michael Phelps, click

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WORLD FESTIVALS AND NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

India – Punjab:
Martyrdom of Shahid Udham Singh

Peru – Día de San Ignacio de Loyola

Republic of the Congo:
Upswing of the Revolution Day

St. Eustatius – Carnival Monday

United States – Hawaii:
La Hae Hawai’i (Hawaiian flag day)

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On This Day in HISTORY

30 BC – Mark Anthony’s army deserts after the Battle of Alexandria

781 – The oldest recorded eruption of Mount Fuji in Japan

1492 – Alhambra decree takes effect and the Jews are expelled from Spain

1703 – Daniel Defoe, in pillory for a ‘seditious’ pamphlet, pelted by crowd with flowers

1777 – The Marquis de Lafayette, a 19-year-old French nobleman, is made a major-general in the American Continental Army

1790 – The first U.S. patent is issued to Samuel Hopkins for a potash process; it is signed by President George Washington, Attorney General Edmund Randolph, and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson  

1792 – Cornerstone for the U.S. Mint laid in Philadelphia PA

1804 – George Baxter born, English engraver and printer, pioneer in color printing

New York Crystal Palace, color print by George Baxter – 1853

1811 – Jane Currie Blaikie Hoge born, American nurse, welfare worker; fundraiser for the Union war effort; Chicago Home for the Friendless founder; Chicago Sanitary Commission co-administrator during U.S. Civil War; her Civil War memoir is The Boys in Blue

1816 – Lydia Moss Bradley born, American businesswoman and philanthropist, managed her own fortune after her husband’s death, successful in real estate, first woman member of a national banking board; endowed the Bradley Polytechnic Institute: first American woman known to draw up a prenuptial agreement to protect her assets

1828 – François-Auguste Gevaert born, Belgian composer and musicologist; Chef de Chant at the Académie Royale de Musique (Paris Opera)

1831 – Sarah J. Thompson Garnet, American suffragist and educator, first African American woman school principal in the New York City public schools, founder of the Equal Suffrage League in Brooklyn

1833 – Amelia Stone Quinton born, American social activist, advocate for Native American rights, helped found the Women’s National Indian Association

1845 – French Army adds the saxophone, invented by Adolphe Sax, to its military band

Early saxophone made by Adolphe Sax

1847 – Ignacio Cervantes born, Cuban pianist and composer

1856 – Christchurch, New Zealand, is chartered as a city

1858 – Marion Talbot born, Dean of Women at the University of Chicago (1895-1925), co-founder of the American Association of University Women

1858 – Richard Dixon Oldham born, English geologist; discoverer of evidence of the Earth’s Core

1860 – Mary Vaux Walcott born, American painter and naturalist, known for her watercolors of wildflowers, president of the Society of Women Geographers; her illustrations often published by the Smithsonian

Delphiniums – Mary Vaux Walcott, 1914 – Monkeyflower

1865 – World’s first narrow-gauge mainline railway opens in Queensland, Australia

1874 – Dr. Patrick Francis Healy becomes president of Georgetown University, the first mixed-race male president of a mostly white U.S. university

1900 – Elmo Roper born, American developer of political forecasting by polls

1913 – The Balkan States sign an armistice in Bucharest, ending the first Balkan War

1914 – The New York Stock Exchange closes at the outbreak of WWI; trading doesn’t resume until December

1919 – Weimar Constitution adopted by German national assembly

1919 – Primo Levi born, Italian chemist and author whose writings drew on his experiences as an Auschwitz survivor

1921 – Whitney Young born, American civil rights leader; National Urban League head

1928 – First roar of the MGM Lion for talking picture White Shadows on the South Seas

1929 – Lynne Reid Banks born, British author, known for books for both children and adults; The Indian in the Cupboard and The L-Shaped Room

1930 – First radio broadcast of mystery program The Shadow

1938 – Archaeologists in Persepolis discover gold and silver plates of Darius the Great

1940 – Carol J. Clover born, American academic and author, authority on gender in films; author of Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film

1954 – First ascent of K2, by an Italian expedition led by Ardito Desio

1964 –JPL conference displays the first of space probe Ranger 7’s transmissions of 4,000 pictures of the moon’s surface, hundreds of times clearer than any views through earth-bound telescopes

1965 – J.K. Rowling born, British future Harry Potter author

1969 – Soviet thieves steal phone parts from thousands of Moscow phone booths to convert acoustic guitars to electric, causing a city-wide communication snafu

1970 – Black Tot Day in the British Royal Navy, the final ration of rum issued

1971 – Apollo 15 astronauts get first ride on the moon’s surface in a lunar rover vehicle

1972 – Democratic vice-presidential candidate Thomas Eagleton withdraws from the ticket with George McGovern following disclosures that Eagleton had once undergone psychiatric treatment

1975 – U.S. labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa disappears, still not found

1976 – Blue Oyster Cult releases “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper”

1981 – Arnette Hybbard is the first woman president of U.S. National Bar Association

1981 – Debbie Harry releases her solo album Koo Koo in the UK

1991 – U.S. and Soviet Union leaders sign Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty

1995 – Selena’s debut English album, “Dreaming of You” hits #1, a first for Latin artists

2005 – The first National Mutt Day * is launched by animal welfare advocate Colleen Paige to encourage adoption of mixed-breed dogs – also celebrated in December

2006 – In Cuba, Fidel Castro hands over power to his brother, Raúl

2007 – The U.N. Security Council unanimously approves a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force for Sudan’s Darfur region

2007 – The first World Ranger Day * to honor park rangers killed or injured protecting the world’s cultural and natural treasures, promoted by the 63 member associations of the International Ranger Federation, which was founded on this day in 1992

World Ranger Conference 2016

2008 – Principal Investigator Peter Smith announces confirmation of the NASA Phoenix Mars Lander’s detection of frozen water in Martian soil

2012 – U.S. Swimmer Michael Phelps breaks Larisa Latynina’s 1964 record for the most medals won at the Olympics, winning the most medals at four consecutive Olympics

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