[Prompted by the dismissal of Finance Minister Jacques Necker, demonstrators moved on from the armory at the Hôtel des Invalides to the Bastille, incensed at the tremendous expense of keeping just seven inmates (four forgers, two 'lunatics' and one 'deviant' aristocrat, the comte de Solages) imprisoned at a site which, for many, represented no less than the sum total of royal tyranny at its most arbitrary. Among the many who were killed that day only one - the governor Bernard-René de Launay, who had actually been born there - had to deal with the ignominy of being dragged through the streets in a torrent of abuse before being relieved of his head.]
1223 -
Louis VIII became King of France upon the death of his father,
Philip II.
1698 - The
Darien scheme began when five ships, bearing about 1,200 people, departed
Leith for the
Isthmus of Panama as part of the Kingdom of Scotland's attempt to establish a colony there known as New Caledonia.
1769 - Having established a base at the
Presidio of San Diego, the
de Portolá Expedition (led by
Gaspar de Portolà) set out with 64 men and more than 200 horses and mules to find the Port of Monterey (now
Monterey, California) in the first overland exploration by Europeans of the area then called
Alta California.
1771 - The
Mission San Antonio de Padua was founded by the Franciscan friar
Junípero Serra.
1789 - When French Revolutionaries famously stormed the Bastille prison in Paris there were a grand total of seven prisoners there for them to release, for which 98 attackers and 1 defender gave their lives; nevertheless, Bastille Day is now a national holiday in France.
1790 - The citizens of Paris celebrated the establishment of a constitutional monarchy and a mood of national reconciliation with the
Fête de la Fédération on the first anniversary of Bastille Day; potentially a happy ending (at least in monarchist terms) to the
French Revolution the patriotic ritual - held at the
Champ de Mars outside Paris, and presided over by
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand - would be but a passing fancy between bouts of frenetic guillotining.
1791 - The
Priestley Riots drove
Joseph Priestley, a supporter of the French Revolution, out of the English city of Birmingham.
1798 - The
Sedition Act became law, making it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false or malicious statements about the United States government; coincidentally, it may be the least obeyed law ever...
1865 - The first ascent of the
Matterhorn was made by
Edward Whymper and his climbing party of seven, four of whom -
Michel Croz,
Lord Francis Douglas,
Douglas Hadow and
Charles Hudson - died on the descent.
1902 - The
Campanile in Venice's
Piazza San Marco collapsed, also demolishing the loggetta; the only fatality was the caretaker's cat.
1933 - In keeping with the Nazi policy of
Gleichschaltung (or 'making the same'), all political parties were banned in Germany - except, of course, for the Nazi Party.
1943 - The
George Washington Carver National Monument was created by President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who signed an Act of Congress sponsored by then-Senator
Harry S. Truman of Missouri appropriating $30,000 towards its establishment; the first national monument in the United States dedicated to an African-American, among the many attractions at the site - located near
Diamond, Missouri - is Carver's boyhood home, built by his foster father
Moses Carver.
1948 -
Palmiro Togliatti, leader of the
Italian Communist Party, was shot near the
Italian Parliament.
1958 - Iraq's King
Faisal II was overthrown by Arab nationalists; six members of the royal family (including the King) were executed, their bodies later put on display. Power was seized by
Abd al-Karim Qasim and
Abdul Salam Arif and a republic was declared.
1965 - The
Mariner 4 spacecraft took the first-ever closeup photographs of another planet transmitted from deep space; in this case,
Mars.
1969 - The United States officially withdrew its
$500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills from circulation.
1991 - UK forces protecting the Kurdish population in northern Iraq as part of
Operation Provide Comfort withdrew from the region for fear of reprisal; all but 400 of the 3,300 British soldiers involved were returned to the UK, while those left behind were reassigned to a Rapid Reaction Force in southern Turkey, where nearly 450,000 Kurds had fled from the gas attacks of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
1995 - The
MP3 format was named.
1997 -
The White Stripes played their first gig.
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