On July 31, 1790, the fledgling United States took a decisive step toward promoting innovation and industrial progress: it issued its first patent. The recipient was Samuel Hopkins of Philadelphia, who secured legal recognition for a novel process of making potash—an essential ingredient in…
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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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On July 29, 587 BC, after months of siege, the Neo-Babylonian Empire broke through the walls of Jerusalem and destroyed the First Temple—marking the violent end of the Kingdom of Judah and the beginning of the Babylonian Exile. The conquest, led by King Nebuchadnezzar…
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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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On July 27, 1299, a frontier chieftain named Osman I led his warriors across the Byzantine border and launched a raid into the territory of Nicomedia, a strategic outpost in northwestern Anatolia. According to Edward Gibbon, the English historian best known for The History…
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In a landmark moment for civil rights in the United States, President George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) into law on July 25, 1990, heralding a new era of legal protection and inclusion for millions of Americans with physical…
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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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On July 24, 1304, Stirling Castle—the last major Scottish stronghold resisting English occupation—surrendered to the forces of King Edward I after a prolonged siege. The fall of the fortress marked a significant moment in the Wars of Scottish Independence, not merely for its military…
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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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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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