July 4, 1960: The 50-star United States flag makes its debut in Philadelphia.
July 5, 1816: The Raft of the *Medusa* tragedy unfolds.
The French frigate Medusa with almost 400 aboard had grounded thirty-one miles off the coast of Senegal. Because the ship was falling apart the decision was made to create a makeshift raft that would be towed ashore by the few available lifeboats. 147 people started out huddled together on that raft. Soon after departing the striken Medusa on July 5, those in the lifeboats decided it was too dangerous to continue to pull the raft and it was cut loose to fend for itself in the sea.
On July 17 the raft was spotted with 15 people still alive on board. After the rescue came the stories of the murders, suicides and cannibalism aboard that raft that make the wreck of the Medusa so infamous. The famous Gericault painting The Wreck of the Medusa depicts this terrible event. The artwork is just around the corner from the Mona Lisa at the Louvre.
July 5, 1950: American forces engage the North Koreans for the first time at Osan, South Korea.
July 6, 1988: The Piper Alpha Oil Rig Explosion in the North Sea kills 167. This is the deadliest oil rig disaster in history.
July 7, 2017: The Deadliest Airplane Disaster in History doesn’t happen in San Francisco. But oh boy it was close.
July 7, 1981: Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
July 7, 1940 - Richard Starkey, a/k/a Ringo Starr, was born in Dingle, Liverpool.
July 8, 1932: The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level of the Great Depression, closing at 41.22.
**July 8, 1905:**The mutinous crew of the battleship Potemkin surrenders to Romanian authorities.
July 8, 1776: Church bells (possibly including the Liberty Bell) are rung after John Nixon delivers the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence of the United States.
July 8, 1853: The Perry Expedition arrives in Edo Bay with a treaty requesting trade.
July 8, 1898: The death of crime boss Soapy Smith, killed in the Shootout on Juneau Wharf, releases Skagway, Alaska from his iron grip.
July 9, 1971: The United States turns over complete responsibility of the Demilitarized Zone to South Vietnamese units.
July 12, 1958 (sixty years ago today) - The Quarrymen (John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison) go into a recording studio for the first time and record a 78 single of Buddy Holly’s That’ll Be The Day b/w a song by Paul called In Spite Of All The Danger.
July 12, 1974: G. Gordon Liddy, John Ehrlichman, and two others are convicted of conspiracy and perjury in connection with Watergate.
July 12, 70 AD. The armies of Roman Emperor Titus breach the walls of Jerusalem, leading to the destruction of the Second Temple.
July 13, 1954: In Geneva, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, and France reach an accord on Indochina, dividing Vietnam into two countries, North and South, along the 17th parallel.
July 14, 2000: The Pine Lake tornado kills 12 and injures over 100 in Alberta, Canada.
July 14, 2016: A terrorist vehicular attack in Nice, France kills 86 civilians and injures over 400 others.
July 15, 1940: The Sonman Mine Explosion in Pennsylvania kills 63.
July 15, 1806: Lieutenant Zebulon Pike begins his western expedition from Fort Belle Fontaine.
July 15, 1099 – First Crusade: Christian soldiers take the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
July 15, 1149 – The reconstructed Church of the Holy Sepulchre is consecrated in Jerusalem.