July 10th: This Day in History

 

Once again, it should be reiterated, that this does not pretend to be a very extensive history of what happened on this day (nor is it the most original - the links can be found down below). If you know something that I am missing, by all means, shoot me an email or leave a comment, and let me know!

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history 

Julius Caesar barely managed to avoid defeat at Pompey in Macedonia. Today marked the origin of the Armenian calendar in 552. This also marks the day of what many often believe to be a legend, but is actually historical truth: Lady Godiva rode naked on this day, in order to pressure her husband to lower taxes. Catholic states in Germany set up a league under Maximillian of Bavaria. New Hampshire became a British colony. The statue of George III was pulled down on this day in history in New York City. King Louis XVI declared war on Great Britain, in hopes of helping the American colonies achieve independence. The United States took possession of Florida. Wyoming became the 44th state. The highest temperature ever recorded fell on this day in Death Valley, California. The United States began issuing modernized, smaller, paper currency. The epic Battle of Britain began. American, British, and Canadian forces invaded Sicily. The first parking meters were set up in Britain. Belgium sent troops to the Congo. Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested. The Beatles album VI reached number 1. The Bahamas gained it's independence from Great Britain. President George H. W. Bush lifted economic sanctions against South Africa.

Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:


• 48 BCE - Battle of Dyrrhachium: Julius Caesar barely avoids a catastrophic defeat to Pompey in Macedonia.

• 552 - Origin of Armenian calendar

• 988 - The city of Dublin is founded on the banks of the river Liffey.

• 1040 - Lady Godiva rode naked on horseback to force her husband, the Earl of Mercia, to lower taxes

1212 - The most severe of several early fires of London burns most of the city to the ground.

1460 - Wars of Roses: Richard of York defeats King Henry VI at Northampton

1520 - King Charles V & King Henry VIII signs treaty of Calais

1553 - Lady Jane Grey becomes queen of England

1568 - Battle on Eems: Dutch Water garrison beats Spanish

1584 - Spanish army leader Richebourg conquerors Liefkenshoek, Belgium

1584 - William I of Orange is assassinated in his home in Delft, Holland by Balthasar Gérard.

1598 - Spanish theater plays "Moros y Los Cristianos" in Rio Grande

1609 - The Catholic states in Germany set up a Catholic League under the leadership of Maximillian of Bavaria.

1627 - English fleet under George Villiers reach La Rochelle [NS=June 20]

1629 - 1st non-Separatist Congregational Church in US founded (Salem, MA)

English Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell

• 1645 - Battle at Langport Somerset: Cromwell's New Model-army beats Royalists

1652 - England declared war on Netherlands

• 1679 - The British crown claimed New Hampshire as a royal colony.

1690 - Battle of Beachy Head-French fleet defeat Anglo-Dutch fleet under Cornelis Evertsen

1746 - Bonnie Prince Charlie flees in disguise to Isle of Skye Composer George Friedrich Handel

1762 - Roubiliacs monument for Handel unveiled at Westminster Abbey

• 1775 - Horatio Gates, issues order excluding blacks from Continental Army

• 1776 - The statue of King George III was pulled down in New York City.

1778 - In support of the American Revolution, Louis XVI declared war on England.

1796 - Carl Friedrich Gauss discovers that every positive integer is representable as a sum of at most three triangular numbers.

1797 - 1st US frigate, the "United States," is launched in Phila

• 1800 - The British Indian Government establishes the Fort William College to promote Urdu, Hindi and other vernaculars of sub continent.

1806 - The Vellore Mutiny is the first instance of a mutiny by Indian sepoys against the British East India Company.

French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte

• 1810 - Emperor Napoleon corpse leaves Netherlands for France

1821 - U.S. troops took possession of Florida. The territory was sold by Spain.

1832 - U.S. President Andrew Jackson vetoed legislation to re-charter the Second Bank of the United States.

1832 - Pres Jackson vetoed legislation to re-charter 2nd Bank of US

1847 - Urbain J J Leverrier & John Couch Adams, codiscoverers of Neptune meet for 1st time at home of John Herschel

1850 - Millard Fillmore sworn-in as president of US (replacing Taylor)

Lincoln Memorial Sculpture by Daniel French i Washington, D.C.

• 1861 - President Abraham Lincoln wrote to Kentucky's militia & says Union troops will not enter that state

1862 - US begins construction of Central Pacific Railroad 1863 - Battle of Charleston, SC (Morris Island) [->SEP 06]

1863 - Battle of Jackson, MS - captured by federals [->JUL 16] US1000 CS1339 13th US President Millard Fillmore

1866 - Indelible pencil patents by Edson P Clark, Northampton, Mass

1873 - French poet Paul Verlaine wounds Arthur Rimbaud with pistol

1877 - The then villa of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico formally receives its city charter from the Royal Crown of Spain.

1884 - 1st Test Cricket to be played at Old Trafford 1st day washed out

1886 - George Goldie gets charter for Royal Niger Company

1886 - Eruption of Tarawera volcano destroys famous pink & white calcium carbonate hot-spring terraces (North Island, New Zealand)

1890 - Wyoming became the 44th state of US (first with female suffrage)

1892 - First concrete-paved street built (Bellefountaine, Ohio)

1898 - Jean-Baptiste Marchands expedition reaches Fashoda at White Hippo

1900 - ‘His Master’s Voice’, was registered with the U.S. Patent Office. The logo of the Victor Recording Company, and later, RCA Victor, shows the dog, Nipper, looking into the horn of a gramophone machine.

1905 - Dutch Queen Wilhelmina opens Technical Hague court

1908 - H Kamerlingh Onnes makes helium liquid (-269°C)

1910 - Chicago White Sox Comiskey Park opens, visiting Browns win 2-0

1910 - W.R. Brookins became the first to fly an airplane at an altitude of one mile.

1911 - 105°F (41°C) at North Bridgton, Maine (state record)

1912 - Hannes Kolehmainen runs world record 5000m (14:36.6)

1913 - The highest temperature ever recorded in the U.S. was 134 degrees Fahrenheit (57 degrees Celcius), Greenland Ranch, Death Valley, California (US record)

1913 - Romania declares war on Bulgaria

1913 - Death Valley, California hits 134 °F (~56.7 °C), which is the highest temperature recorded in the United States. Baseball Great Babe Ruth

1914 - Boston Red Sox purchase Babe Ruth from Baltimore Orioles

• 1915 - British/South African troops march into German SW-Africa

1917 - Emma Goldman imprisoned for obstructing draft

1918 - Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic forms

1919 - Dutch 1st Chamber approves woman suffrage

1919 - Pres Wilson personally delivers Treaty of Versailles to Senate

1920 - Tris Speaker is stopped at 11 consecutive hits by Tom Zachary

1923 - 2-pound hailstones kill 23 & many cattle (Rostov, Russia)

1923 - All non-fascist parties dissolved in Italy

1924 - Denmark takes Greenland as Norway ends claim

1924 - Railroad worker strike ends in Amsterdam 

1925 - Jury selection took place in John T Scopes evolution trial

July 10, 1925: Monkey Trial begins

In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called "Monkey Trial" begins with John Thomas Scopes, a young high school science teacher, accused of teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee state law.  

The law, which had been passed in March, made it a misdemeanor punishable by fine to "teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." With local businessman George Rappalyea, Scopes had conspired to get charged with this violation, and after his arrest the pair enlisted the aid of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to organize a defense. Hearing of this coordinated attack on Christian fundamentalism, William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic presidential candidate and a fundamentalist hero, volunteered to assist the prosecution. Soon after, the great attorney Clarence Darrow agreed to join the ACLU in the defense, and the stage was set for one of the most famous trials in U.S. history.  

On July 10, the Monkey Trial got underway, and within a few days hordes of spectators and reporters had descended on Dayton as preachers set up revival tents along the city's main street to keep the faithful stirred up. Inside the Rhea County Courthouse, the defense suffered early setbacks when Judge John Raulston ruled against their attempt to prove the law unconstitutional and then refused to end his practice of opening each day's proceeding with prayer.  

Outside, Dayton took on a carnival-like atmosphere as an exhibit featuring two chimpanzees and a supposed "missing link" opened in town, and vendors sold Bibles, toy monkeys, hot dogs, and lemonade. The missing link was in fact Jo Viens of Burlington, Vermont, a 51-year-old man who was of short stature and possessed a receding forehead and a protruding jaw. One of the chimpanzees--named Joe Mendi--wore a plaid suit, a brown fedora, and white spats, and entertained Dayton's citizens by monkeying around on the courthouse lawn.  

In the courtroom, Judge Raulston destroyed the defense's strategy by ruling that expert scientific testimony on evolution was inadmissible--on the grounds that it was Scopes who was on trial, not the law he had violated. The next day, Raulston ordered the trial moved to the courthouse lawn, fearing that the weight of the crowd inside was in danger of collapsing the floor.  

In front of several thousand spectators in the open air, Darrow changed his tactics and as his sole witness called Bryan in an attempt to discredit his literal interpretation of the Bible. In a searching examination, Bryan was subjected to severe ridicule and forced to make ignorant and contradictory statements to the amusement of the crowd. On July 21, in his closing speech, Darrow asked the jury to return a verdict of guilty in order that the case might be appealed. Under Tennessee law, Bryan was thereby denied the opportunity to deliver the closing speech he had been preparing for weeks. After eight minutes of deliberation, the jury returned with a guilty verdict, and Raulston ordered Scopes to pay a fine of $100, the minimum the law allowed. Although Bryan had won the case, he had been publicly humiliated and his fundamentalist beliefs had been disgraced. Five days later, on July 26, he lay down for a Sunday afternoon nap and never woke up.  

In 1927, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the Monkey Trial verdict on a technicality but left the constitutional issues unresolved until 1968, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a similar Arkansas law on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment.

1925  Scopes Monkey Trial begins HISTORY.com Editors  Judge Raulston Reading Decision Bettmann Archive  Published: November 24, 2009  Last Updated: May 27, 2025:

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-10/monkey-trial-begins

1925 - Meher Baba begins his silence of 44 years. His followers still observe Silence Day on this date in commemoration.

1925 - The official news agency of the Soviet Union, TASS, was established.

1926 - Lake Denmark, NJ arsenal explodes, kills 21, $75m damage

1928 - Senator Milt Gaston hurls record tying 14-hit shutout

1928 - George Eastman first demonstrated color motion pictures.

1929 - The U.S. government began issuing paper money in newer, small size paper currency.

1929 - In game between Pirates & Phillies 9 HRs hit 1 in each inning

1932 - Jack Burnett gets 9 hits, Eddie Rommel relieves in 2nd 18-17 victory in 18 as his A's beats Indians in longest relief job

1933 - First police radio system operated, Eastchester Township, NY

1934 - First sitting US president to visit South America, FDR in Colombia

1934 - Second All Star Baseball Game: AL wins 9-7 at Polo Grounds, New York

1934 - Carl Hubbell strikes out Ruth, Gehrig & Foxx in All star game

1936 - 109°F (43°C) Cumberland & Frederick, Maryland (state record)

1936 - 110°F (43°C) at Runyon, New Jersey (state record

1936 - 111°F (44°C) Phoenixville, Pennsylvania (state record)

1936 - 112°F (44°C) at Martinsburg, West Virginia (state record

1936 - New Straits Convention allows Turkish rearmament of Dardanelles

1936 - Phillies Chuck Klein becomes 4th to hit 4 HRs in a game

1937 - Dutch Django Reinhardts "Quintette, premieres in du Hot Club"

1938 - "Yankee Clipper" completes first passenger flight over Atlantic

1938 - Howard Hughes completed a 91 hour flight around the world.

 

• 1940 - The Battle of Britain began as Nazi forces attacked by air. It would last 114 days.

Jul 10, 1940: The Battle of Britain begins

On this day in 1940, the Germans begin the first in a long series of bombing raids against Great Britain, as the Battle of Britain, which will last three and a half months, begins.  

After the occupation of France by Germany, Britain knew it was only a matter of time before the Axis power turned its sights across the Channel. And on July 10, 120 German bombers and fighters struck a British shipping convoy in that very Channel, while 70 more bombers attacked dockyard installations in South Wales. Although Britain had far fewer fighters than the Germans–600 to 1,300–it had a few advantages, such as an effective radar system, which made the prospects of a German sneak attack unlikely. Britain also produced superior quality aircraft. Its Spitfires could turn tighter than Germany's ME109s, enabling it to better elude pursuers; and its Hurricanes could carry 40mm cannon, and would shoot down, with its American Browning machine guns, over 1,500 Luftwaffe aircraft. The German single-engine fighters had a limited flight radius, and its bombers lacked the bomb-load capacity necessary to unleash permanent devastation on their targets. Britain also had the advantage of unified focus, while German infighting caused missteps in timing; they also suffered from poor intelligence.  

But in the opening days of battle, Britain was in immediate need of two things: a collective stiff upper lip–and aluminum. A plea was made by the government to turn in all available aluminum to the Ministry of Aircraft Production. "We will turn your pots and pans into Spitfires and Hurricanes," the ministry declared. And they did.

1940  The Battle of Britain begins HISTORY.com Editors  Published: November 16, 2009  Last Updated: May 28, 2025

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-10/the-battle-of-britain-begins

1940 - German planes attack British ships in the Canal

1941 - Jedwabne Pogrom is a massacre of Jewish people living in and near the village of Jedwabne in Poland.

1942 - Himmler orders sterilization of all Jewish woman in Ravensbruck Camp

1942 - Netherland's government in exile (London) recognizes Soviet Union

1943 - 6th day of battle at Kursk

1943 - US, British and Canadian forces invade Sicily in WW II (Operation Husky)

1944 - U-821 sinks

1945 - Lt-adm Marc Mitscher named chief of US Navy staff

1946 - Belgian government of Acker, resigns

1947 - 200 die when train derails & fell into a river in Canton, China

1947 - Cleveland Indian Don Black no-hits Phila A's, 3-0

1947 - Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah is recommended as the first Governor General of Pakistan by then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Clement Attlee.

1948 - "Allegro" closes at Majestic Theater NYC after 318 performances

1948 - "Ballet Ballads" closes at Music Box Theater NYC after 62 performances

1948 - "Look Ma, I'm Dancin'" closes at Adelphi Theater NYC after 188 perfs

1948 - Lydda Airfield captured by Israeli army

1949 - WJAR TV channel 10 in Providence, RI (NBC) begins broadcasting

1949 - The first practical rectangular television was presented in Toledo, Ohio.. The picture tube measured 12 by 16 and sold for $12.

1950 - "Your Hit Parade" premieres on NBC (later CBS) TV

1951 - 18th All Star Baseball Game: NL wins 8-3 at Briggs Stadium, Detroit

1951 - Armistice talks aimed at ending the Korean conflict began at Kaesong.

1951 - Sugar Ray Robinson was defeated for only the second time in 133 fights as Randy Turpin took the middleweight crown.

1953 - Pravda reports arrest of Beria [affiliate of imperialist]

1953 - American forces withdraw from Pork Chop Hill in Korea after heavy fighting.

1956 - 23rd All Star Baseball Game: NL wins 7-3 at Griffith Stadium, Wash DC

1956 - 650,000 US steel workers go on strike

1956 - US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Bikini Island

1958 - First parking meter installed in England (625 installed)

• 1958 - Ex-king Norodom Sihanoek appointed premier of Cambodia

1960 - Belgium sent troops to Congo

1962 - 32nd All Star Baseball Game: NL wins 3-1 at D.C. Stadium, Washington

1962 - All star MVP: Maury Wills (LA Dodgers)

Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, DC (picture taken during visit in 2013)

Statue of Martin Luther King Jr in Denver, Colorado

• 1962 - Martin Luther King Jr arrested during demonstration in Georgia

1962 - Telstar, 1st geosynchronous communications satellite, launched

1962 - US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Christmas Island

1962 - The Telstar Communications satellite,  the first geosynchronous communications satellite,was launched. The satellite relayed TV and telephone signals between Europe and the U.S.

1962 - Fred Baldasare swam the English Channel underwater. It was a 42 miles and took 18 hours.

1964 - Jesus Alou is 1st Giant in 40 years to get 6 hits in a game

1964 - Moise Tsjombe becomes premier of Congo

• 1965 - Beatles' "Beatles' "VI," album goes #1 & stays #1 for 6 weeks

• 1965 - Rolling Stones score their 1st #1, "I Can't Get No Satisfaction"

1966 - US launches Orbiter 1 to the Moon

1967 - Bobbie Gentry records "Ode to Billie Joe"

• 1967 - Uruguay becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.

1968 - NL announces break into 2 divisions for 1969 1968 - NL votes to split into 2 divisions

1969 - Chilean Association of Librarians created

1969 - The National League was divided up into two baseball divisions.

1971 - Failed attempt on King Hassan II Shirat Morocco, 101 killed

1972 - Democratic convention opens in Miami Beach Florida (McGovern)

1972 - Herd of stampeding elephants kills 24, Chandka Forest India

1973 - Britain granted the Bahamas their independence after three centuries of British colonial rule. Bahamas adopted it's constitution.

1974 - OPEC ends oil boycott against Netherlands

1974 - USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR

1975 - Gladys Knight & Pips Summer Series premieres on NBC-TV

1975 - Test Cricket debut of Graham Gooch, v Australia, out for a pair

1976 - Chemical factory in Milan explodes (dioxane cloud)

1976 - The Seveso disaster occurs in Italy.

1976 - One American and three British mercenaries are executed in Angola following the Luanda Trial.

1977 - "Happy End" closes at Martin Beck Theater NYC after 75 performances

• 1978 - Bloodless military coup in Mauritania

1978 - Military coup in Mauritania, president Moktar flees

1978 - World News Tonight premieres on ABC.

1979 - Chuck Berry sentenced to 4 months for $200,000 in tax evasion

1980 - Ayatollah Khomeini releases Iran hostage Richard I Queen

1980 - Willie Jones hospitalized for heat stroke with record 46.5°C temp

1980 - Alexandra Palace burnt down for a second time.

1981 - CERN achieves first proton-antiproton beam collision (570 GeV)

1981 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

1982 - Miguel Vasquez makes 1st public quadruple somersault on trapeze

1982 - Rangers Larry Parrish hits his 3rd grand slam of the week Inventor Samuel Morse

1982 - Samuel Morse's "Gallery of the Louvre" sells for $3,250,000

1982 - Zimbabwe defeated Bermuda by 5 wickets to win ICC Trophy

1984 - Dwight ‘Doc’ Gooden, of the New York Mets, became the youngest player to appear in an All-Star Game as a pitcher. He was 19 years, 7 months, and 24 days old.

1985 - Coca-Cola resumed selling the old formula of Coke, it was renamed "Coca-Cola Classic." It was also announced that they would continue to sell "New" Coke.

• 1985 - French agents sink Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior in NZ


1985 - Playboy publishes full frontal nude pictures of Madonna

1988 - Terry-Jo Myers wins LPGA Mayflower Golf Classic

1989 - Paula Ivan runs female world record 1 mile (4:15.61)

1989 - Mel Blanc, the “man of a thousand voices,” including such cartoon characters as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig, died in Los Angeles.

The flag of the USSR (Soviet Union)

• 1990 - Mikhail Gorbachev won re-election as the leader of the Soviet Communist Party.

Jul 10, 1990: Gorbachev re-elected as head of Communist Party     

In a vindication of his sweeping economic and political reforms, Mikhail Gorbachev withstands severe criticisms from his opponents and is re-elected head of the Soviet Communist Party by an overwhelming margin. Gorbachev's victory was short-lived, however, as the Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991.  

Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union in 1985 and immediately began to push forward with reforms in both Russia's domestic and foreign policies. On the domestic front, he argued for greater economic freedom and a gradual movement toward free market economics in certain fields. He also demanded more political freedom, and released a number of political prisoners. In his foreign policy, Gorbachev sought to thaw Cold War relations with the United States. He indicated his desire to work for substantive arms control measures, and began to curtail Soviet military and political involvement in nations such as Afghanistan and Angola. By 1990, many people celebrated Gorbachev as a savior for bringing true reform to the Soviet Union.  

At home, however, Gorbachev was reviled by many Russian hard-liners that castigated him for weakening the hold of the Communist Party and for weakening its military power. During a Communist Party congress in July 1990, Gorbachev fired back at his critics. "There is no way to bring back the past, and no dictatorship--if someone still entertains this crazy idea--will solve anything," he declared. As for his domestic reforms, Gorbachev noted, "This is already a different society" that needed different policies. In response to the charge that he had been "soft" in dealing with anticommunist movements in Russia's eastern European allies, he shouted, "Well, do you want tanks again? Shall we teach them again how to live?" With Gorbachev's words ringing in their ears, the delegates to the congress re-elected him as head of the Soviet Communist Party.  

Gorbachev's success, however, was extremely short-lived. While many applauded his reforms, by 1990 the Soviet Union was suffering from terrible economic problems, increasingly angry internal political squabbling, and a general feeling of uneasiness among the Russian people. In December 1991, with most of its eastern European allies already having overthrown their communist governments and with the Soviet republics seceding from the USSR, Gorbachev resigned as head of the Party and as president. With his action, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

Jul 10, 1990: Gorbachev re-elected as head of Communist Party by HISTORY.com Editors  Published: November 13, 2009  Last Updated: January 31, 2025

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history 

1990 - 61st All Star Baseball Game: AL wins 2-0 at Wrigley Field, Chicago

1990 - All star MVP: Julio Franco (Texas Rangers)

1990 - Andrew Dice Clay cries on Arsenio Hall Show

1990 - Last day of Test Cricket for Richard Hadlee

• 1991 - Boris Yeltsin took the oath of office as the first elected president of the Russian republic.

Flag of South Africa during the apartheid era

• 1991 - U.S. President Bush lifted economic sanctions against South Africa, citing its "profound transformation" toward racial equality.

1991 - L'Express Airlines Beechcraft C-99 crashes in Alabama, killing 13

1992 - John Ellis becomes CEO of Seattle Mariners

1992 - Spaceship Giotto (Halley 1986) approaches comet Grigg-Skjellerup Russian President Boris Yeltsin

1992 - SuriPop VII, Suriname Popular Song Festival

1992 - US Major Soccer League folds after 14 seasons

1993 - Melchior Ndadaye becomes 1st Hutu Burundi pres/Sylvie Kinigi, PM

1993 - Yobes Ondieki runs world record 10km (26:58.38)

1993 - Kenyan runner Yobes Ondieki became the first man to run 10,000 meters in less than 27 minutes.

1994 - "Hedda Gabler" opens at Criterion Theater NYC for 33 performances

1994 - Nepal premier Girija Prasadkoirala resigns

1994 - Sonia O'Sullivan runs female world record 2K (5:25.36)

1995 - Myanmar activist Aung San Suu Kyi was released after six years of house arrest.

1997 - Hideki Irabu makes his debut as a NY Yankee, he beats Tigers 10-3

1997 - Louise Woodward's trial begins in Mass, Nanny murder trial

1997 - RJR Nabisco announces it will replace Joe Camel in new ads

1997 - Spain, Partido Popular member Miguel Ángel Blanco is kidnapped in the Basque city of Ermua by ETA members, sparking widespread protests.

1997 - Scientists in London said DNA from a Neanderthal skeleton supported a theory that all humanity descended from an "African Eve" 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.

1998 - The World Bank approved a $700 million loan to Thailand.

1998 - The U.S. military delivered the remains of Air Force 1st Lt. Michael Blassie to his family in St. Louis. He had been placed in Arlington Cemetery's Tomb of the Unknown in 1984. His identity had been confirmed with DNA tests.

1998 - Roman Catholic sex abuse cases: The Diocese of Dallas agrees to pay $23.4 million to nine former altar boys who claimed they were sexually abused by former priest Rudolph Kos.

• 1999 - The heads of six African nations that had troops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo signed a cease-fire agreement that would end the civil war in that nation.

2000 - EADS, the world's second largest aerospace group is formed by the merger of Aérospatiale-Matra, DASA, and CASA.

2000 - A leaking southern Nigerian petroleum pipeline explodes, killing about 250 villagers scavenging gasoline.

2002 - At a Sotheby's auction, Peter Paul Rubens' painting The Massacre of the Innocents is sold for £49.5million (US$76.2 million) to Kenneth, Lord Thomson.

2002 - Peter Paul Rubens' painting "The Massacre of the Innocents" sold for $76.2 million at Sotheby's.

2003 - A Neoplan bus, owned by Kowloon Motor Bus, collides with a truck, falls off a bridge on Tuen Mun Road, Hong Kong, and plunges into the underlying valley, killing 21 people. This is the deadliest traffic accident to date in Hong Kong.

• 2003 - Spain opened its first mosque (in Granada) since the Moors were expelled in 1492

2005 - Hurricane Dennis slams into the Florida Panhandle causing billions of dollars in damage.

2006 - Pakistan International Flight PK-688 crashes in Multan, Pakistan shortly after takeoff, killing all 45 people on board.

2008 - Former Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boškoski is acquitted of all charges by a UN Tribunal accusing him of war crimes.

2011 - British tabloid News of the World publishes its last edition after 168 years in the wake of a phone hacking scandal.

2012 - The American Episcopal Church becomes the first to approve a rite for blessing gay marriages






The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:

http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php

http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/jul10.htm

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory