July 19 - Events

Events

• 711 – Umayyad conquest of Hispania: Battle of Guadalete – Umayyad forces under Tariq ibn Ziyad defeat theVisigoths led by King Roderic.
• 1333 – Wars of Scottish Independence: Battle of Halidon Hill – The English win a decisive victory over theScots.
• 1544 – Italian War of 1542: the first Siege of Boulogne begins.
• 1545 – The Tudor warship Mary Rose sinks off Portsmouth.
• 1553 – Lady Jane Grey is replaced by Mary I of England as Queen of England after only nine days of reign.
• 1588 – Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Gravelines – The Spanish Armada is sighted in the English Channel.
• 1692 – Salem witch trials: five women are hanged for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts.
• 1701 – Representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy sign the Nanfan Treaty, ceding a large territory north of theOhio River to England.
• 1760 – A formal request to found what will become Mayagüez, Puerto Rico is filed.
• 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 SS Great Britain is launched, becoming the first ocean-going craft with an iron hull or screw propeller and also becoming the largest vessel afloat in the world.
• 1848 – Women's rights: a two-day Women's Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York; there the "Bloomers" are introduced.
• 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.
• 1879 – Doc Holliday kills for the first time after a man shoots up his New Mexico saloon.
• 1912 – A meteorite with an estimated mass of 190 kg explodes over the town of Holbrook in Navajo County, Arizona causing approximately 16,000 pieces of debris to rain down on the town.
• 1916 – World War I: Battle of Fromelles – British and Australian troops attack German trenches in a prelude to the Battle of the Somme.
• 1919 – Following Peace Day celebrations marking the end of World War I, ex-servicemen riot and burn down Luton Town Hall.
• 1940 – World War II: Battle of Cape Spada – The Royal Navy and the Regia Marina clash; the Italian light cruiser Bartolomeo Colleonisinks, with 121 casualties.
• 1940 – World War II: Army order 112 forms the Intelligence Corps of the British Army.
• 1942 – World War II: Battle of the Atlantic – German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions in response to the effective American convoy system.
• 1947 – The Prime Minister of the shadow Burmese government, Bogyoke Aung San and 6 of his cabinet and 2 non-cabinet members areassassinated by Galon U Saw.
• 1963 – Joe Walker flies a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 106,010 metres (347,800 feet) 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 Nguyen Khanh calls for expanding the war into North Vietnam.
• 1976 – Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal is created.
• 1979 – The Sandinista rebels overthrow the government of the Somoza family in Nicaragua.
• 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 112 of the 296 passengers.
• 1992 – Anti-Mafia Judge Paolo Borsellino is killed by a Mafia car bomb in Palermo, Italy together with five police officers.