Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index July 31 is the 212th day (213th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 153 days remaining. Table of contents 1 Events 2 Births 3 Deaths 4 Holidays and observances Events 1423 - Hundred Years War: Battle of Cravant - The French army is defeated at Cravant on the banks of the river Yonne. 1498 - On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to discover the island of Trinidad. 1667 - Second Anglo-Dutch War ends: The Treaty of Breda ends the war. 1703 - Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet. 1790 - First US patent issued; granted to inventor Samuel Hopkins. 1856 - Christchurch, New Zealand chartered as a city. 1919 - German national assembly adopts Weimar constitution (to enter into force August 14) 1930 - The radio mystery program The Shadow airs for the first time. 1945 - Pierre Laval, fugitive former leader of Vichy France, surrenders to Allied soldiers in Austria. 1941 - Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS general Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question." 1948 - At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) is dedicated. 1961 - At Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, the first All-Star Game tie in major league baseball history occurs when the game is stopped in the 9th inning due to rain. 1964 - Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon (images are 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes). 1971 - Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover. 1973 - A Delta Airlines jetliner crashed while landing in fog at Logan Airport, Boston, Massachusetts killing 89 1975 - In Detroit, Michigan, Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa is reported missing. 1976 - NASA releases the famous Face on Mars photo, taken by Viking 1 1992 - A Thai Airways Airbus A300-310 crashes into mountain south of Kathmandu, Nepal killing 113 1999 - NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface. Births 1396 - Philip III of Burgundy, duke of Burgundy (+ 1467) 1816 - George Henry Thomas, American general (+ 1870) 1901 - Jean Dubuffet, painter and sculptor (+ 1985) 1912 - Irv Kupcinet, newspaper columnist 1912 - Milton Friedman, recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in economics 1914 - Louis de Funès, actor and comedian (+ 1983) 1916 - Bill Todman, game show producer (+ 1979) 1919 - Curt Gowdy, sports announcer 1919 - Primo Levi, author, chemist (+ 1987) 1921 - Whitney Young, civil rights activist (+ 1971) 1923 - Ahmet Ertegun, record company executive 1928 - Kurt Sontheimer, political scientist 1930 - Oleg Popov, clown 1939 - France Nuyen, actress 1943 - William Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education and "drug czar" 1944 - Geraldine Chaplin, actress 1946 - Gary Lewis, rock and roll musician 1946 - Bob Welch, rock and roll musician 1951 - Evonne Goolagong, tennis star 1952 - Alan Autry, American football player, actor, mayor of Fresno, California 1958 - Bill Berry, rock and roll musician (of the band R.E.M. (band)) 1959 - Stanley Jordan, jazz guitarist 1962 - Wesley Snipes, actor 1965 - J. K. Rowling, novelist 1966 - Dean Cain, actor Deaths 1099 - Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar ("El Cid"), Spanish warrior 1108 - King Philip I of France 1556 - Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits 1886 - Franz Liszt, composer 1937 - Charles Martine, Apache scout 1944 - Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French pilot and writer 1953 - Robert Taft, Senator from Ohio, former candidate for President of the United States, son of William Howard Taft, "Mr. Republican" 1993 - Baudouin I of Belgium 2001 - Poul Anderson, science fiction author Holidays and observances Republic of the Congo - Upswing of the Revolution Feast day of Saint Ignatius of Loyola See Also: July 30 - August 1 - June 30 - August 31 -- listing of all days January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.