31 Tir 1497

Events

• 1598 (428 years ago) William Shakespeare's play, The Merchant of Venice, is entered on the Stationers' Register. By decree of Queen Elizabeth, the Stationers' Register licensed printed works, giving the Crown tight control over all published material.
• 1802 (224 years ago) Emperor Gia Long conquers Hanoi and unified Viet Nam, which had experienced centuries of feudal warfare.
• 1937 (89 years ago) New Deal: The United States Senate votes down President Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court of the United States.
• 1943 (83 years ago) World War II: Allied forces capture Palermo during the Allied invasion of Sicily.
• 1943 (83 years ago) World War II: Axis occupation forces violently disperse a massive protest in Athens, killing 22.
• 1946 (80 years ago) King David Hotel bombing: A Zionist underground organisation, the Irgun, bombs the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, site of the civil administration and military headquarters for Mandatory Palestine, resulting in 91 deaths.
• 1976 (50 years ago) Japan completes its last reparation to the Philippines for war crimes committed during imperial Japan's conquest of the country in the Second World War.
• 2003 (23 years ago) Iraq War: Members of 101st Airborne of the United States, aided by Special Forces, attack a compound in Iraq, killing Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay, along with Mustapha Hussein, Qusay's 14-year-old son, and a bodyguard.

Births

• 1784 (242 years ago) Friedrich Bessel, German mathematician and astronomer (died 1846)
• 1878 (148 years ago) Janusz Korczak, Polish pediatrician and author (died 1942)
• 1887 (139 years ago) Gustav Ludwig Hertz, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1975)
• 1888 (138 years ago) Selman Waksman, Jewish-American biochemist and microbiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1973)
• 1955 (71 years ago) Willem Dafoe, American actor
• 1960 (66 years ago) John Leguizamo, Colombian-American actor, producer, and screenwriter
• 1992 (34 years ago) Selena Gomez, American singer and actress
• 2013 (13 years ago) Prince George of Wales,

Deaths

• 1461 (565 years ago) Charles VII of France,
• 1676 (350 years ago) Pope Clement X,
• 1826 (200 years ago) Giuseppe Piazzi, Italian mathematician and astronomer (born 1746)
• 1832 (194 years ago) Napoleon II, French emperor (born 1811)
• 1908 (118 years ago) Randal Cremer, English politician, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1828)
• 1967 (59 years ago) Carl Sandburg, American poet and historian (born 1878)
• 1979 (47 years ago) Sándor Kocsis, Hungarian footballer and manager (born 1929)
• 2025 (a year ago) Ozzy Osbourne, English musician and media personality (born 1948)

All 384 events, births and deaths of July 22