July 31 holidays in 2020

Historical Events on July 31

• 1777: The services of Gilbert du Motier are accepted by the Second Continental Congress and he is given a commission of major-general of the U.S.
• 1790: Samuel Hopkins receives the first ever U.S patent. It’s for a potash process.
• 1856: The city of Christchurch in New Zealand receives its charter.
• 1874: Patrick Francis Healy becomes president of Georgetown University. He’s the first African-American to be inaugurated as the president for a predominantly white university.
• 1917: In West Flanders, Belgium, the Battle of Passchendaele starts during World War I.
• 1919: The Weimar Constitution is adopted by the German National Assembly. It will officially go into effect on the 14^th of August.
• 1932: The Nationalist Socialist German Worker’s Party (the Nazi Party) wins thirty-eight percent of the vote in the German elections.
• 1941: Hermann Göring – under instructions from Adolf Hitler – orders SS General Reinhard Heydrich to submit plans for carrying out a “Final Solution for the Jewish Question.”
• 1948: After surviving two hits from atomic bombs during post-war tests, the USS Nevada is finally sunk by an aerial torpedo.
• 1964: The first close-up pictures of the Moon are sent back by Ranger 7.
• 1973: Delta Airlines flight DL 723 crashes at Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. 89 people are killed as a result.
• 1987: In Edmonton, Canada, a tornado touches down.
• 1992: Thai Airways Flight 311 crashes into a mountain just north of Kathmandu in Nepal. All 113 people who were on board are killed.
• 1999: NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector into the Moon.
• 2012: Michael Phelps breaks the record for the most medals won at the Olympics.

Famous Birthdays on July 31

• Swedish-American engineer, John Ericsson is born in 1803.
• American General George Henry Thomas is born in 1816.
• French painter Jacques Villon is born in 1875.
• American actor and screenwriter, Ted Cassidy is born in 1932.
• American actress Susan Flannery is born in 1939.
• American economist and Nobel Prize laureate, Robert C. Merton is born in 1944.
• American actor, screenwriter, director and producer, Michael Biehn is born in 1956.