What Happened in July?

The Second Battle of the Marne starts during the First World War.  It was the last major German offensive on the Western Front lasting a year and ending on August 6, 1919.

Bolshevik troops executed Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, and their five children: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei. Bringing the Russian Romanov dynasty to an end.  Expand +

The Chicago race riot of 1919 begins. It was ignited after a young Black man was stoned and drowned in Lake Michigan for swimming in an area reserved for whites. it was a violent racial conflict between white Americans and black Americans that lasted eight days. During the riot, 38 people died, 537 were injured and between 1,000 and 2,000 residents, most of them black, lost their homes. The riot is considered the worst of the scores of riots and civil disturbances across the United States during the "Red Summer" of 1919. More

The independent republic of Lithuania, successfully expels invading Soviet troops and gains full recognition as an independent country from Soviet Russia.

The Insulin hormone is successfully isolated by Canadian doctor Frederick Banting and his assistant Charles Best, a Biochemist. The scientific work continued and two additional contributors entered the scene; Dr James R. Mcleod and James Bertram Collip, also a biochemist. The four participants had a difficult relationship.  Expand +

Hitler becomes Party Chairman and leader of the Nazis.

The Hollywood Sign is officially dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, Los Angeles. It originally read "Hollywoodland," the name of the Real Estate company which was developing the now Hollywood Hills. The last four letters of the sign were were dropped after its second renovation in 1949. More

The German psychiatrist Hans Berger records the first EEG (Electroencephalogram) reading from a human by placing electrodes on the brain of a 17-year-old boy to capture its electrical activity. This marked the advent of a new era for neuroscience. More

The "Scopes Monkey trial", formally The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, starts. The trial publicized the Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy, which set Modernists, who said evolution was not inconsistent with religion, against Fundamentalists. The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. On July 21 Scopes was found guilty and was fined $100 (equivalent to $1,700 in 2023), but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. More

Adolf Hitler publishes Volume I of Mein Kampf, (My Struggle) a political and autobiographical manifesto. The book outlines many of Hitler's political beliefs, his political ideology and future plans for Germany and the world. Volume 2 was published in 1926. Hitler began Mein Kampf while imprisoned following his failed coup in Munich in November 1923 and receiving in 1924, a sentence of five years in prison. Book sales were slow but it became a bestseller in Germany following Hitler's rise to power in 1933.

The "Scopes Monkey trial", formally The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, which had started on July 10. comes to an end. The trial publicized the Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy, which set Modernists, who said evolution was not inconsistent with religion, against Fundamentalists. The trial was deliberately staged in order to attract publicity to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where it was held. Scopes was found guilty and was fined $100 (equivalent to $1,700 in 2023), but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. More

Construction work for the Hoover Dam begins after the appropriations were approved; it was built during the Great Depression, between 1930 and 1937. The dam was dedicated in 1935, it started  providing electricity to Los Angeles on October 9 1936 and had all the hydroelectric generators online in 1937. Expand +

The Bonus Army, a group of 43,000 demonstrators – 17,000 veterans of U.S. involvement in World War I, their families, and affiliated groups gathered in Washington, D.C., to demand early cash redemption of their service bonus certificates. They were forcibly disbanded by the U.S. Army in Washington, D.C.

American Aviator Wiley Post completes a solo flight around the world in the Lockheed 5C Vega named Winnie Mae. His record breaking flight of 15,596 miles (25,099 km) was completed in 7 days, 18 hours and 49 minutes. More

The Spanish Civil War begins. A well-planned military uprising splits the country in half in just  a few days, with one zone controlled by the government (known as Republicans, Loyalists, or Reds), and the other by the rebels (also referred to as Nationalists, Fascists, or Whites) led by Franco. An estimated half million people perished during the civil war which lasted until 1939. Franco ruled Spain as a dictator for almost 40 years until his death in 1975. More

Amelia Earhart and Navigator Fred Noonan disappear on Round-the-World Flight. Earhart and Noonan never found Howland Island and they were declared lost at sea on July 19, 1937 following a massive sea and air search. More

The second Sino-Chinese war conflict begins with a clash at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing. Japan quickly captured major Chinese cities, including Nanjing, where the infamous Nanjing Massacre occurred. Despite Japan's initial successes, Chinese resistance persisted, supported by a united front of Nationalists and Communists. Many others consider the second Sino-Chinese war conflict to have started when Japan invaded Manchuria in September 1931. The conflict ended when Japan's surrender to the WWII Allies in 1945.

The Battle of Britain begins as Nazi Germany launches air attacks on southern England. More

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issues Executive Order 8832, freezing Japanese assets in the United States and eleven days later, on August 1, declares an embargo on oil and gasoline exports to Japan, bringing commercial relations between the nations to an effective end. On December 7 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. More at: WWII Museum and the The Independent Institute.

A B-25 Mitchell bomber of the United States Army Air Forces crashed into the north side of the Empire State Building in New York City while flying in thick fog. The crash, impacting the 79th floor killed the three crewmen and eleven people in the building and injured twenty-four others including Elevator operator Lou Oliver who plunged 75 stories in the elevator to the basement. She was injured but survived. The damage caused by the crash was estimated at US$1 million (equivalent to about $17 million in 2024), but the building's structural integrity was not compromised. More