July 30, 1864: The Battle of the Crater

On the morning of July 30, 1864, Union forces launched a bold yet catastrophically mishandled attempt to break the Confederate lines outside Petersburg, Virginia—an effort that would become known as the Battle of the Crater. As part of the larger Petersburg Campaign, the battle…

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July 28, 1794: The Fall of Robespierre

On July 28, 1794 (10 Thermidor, Year II in the insane French Revolution calendar), Maximilien Robespierre, the architect of the French Revolution’s most radical and blood-soaked phase, was executed by guillotine in Paris. Alongside him fell his loyal lieutenant Louis Antoine de Saint-Just and…

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July 25, 1976: NASA Sees A ‘Face’ On Mars

On July 25, 1976, during its thirty-sixth orbit around the red planet, NASA’s Viking 1 spacecraft snapped a black-and-white photograph that would ignite decades of speculation, myth-making, and scientific debate. The image—catalogued as frame 035A72—showed a portion of the Martian surface in the region…

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July 23, 1967: The Detroit Burns

On July 23, 1967, in the heart of Detroit’s predominantly African American inner city, a police raid on an unlicensed after-hours bar ignited one of the most violent and destructive civil disturbances in American history. Known as the Detroit Riots or the 12th Street…

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July 22, 1833: Slavery Is Abolished

On July 22, 1833, the British House of Commons passed the Slavery Abolition Act, marking a historic turning point in the British Empire’s long entanglement with slavery. Though imperfect and cautious in scope, the Act initiated the gradual dismantling of an institution that had…

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