July 29 in History

The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to ancient Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC and being firmly established through the fall of the Assyrian Empire in 612–609 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Achaemenid Persian Empire in 539 BC, less than a century after the founding of the Chaldean dynasty. The defeat of the Assyrian Empire and subsequent return of power to Babylon marked the first time that the city, and southern Mesopotamia in general, had risen to dominate the ancient Near East since the collapse of the Old Babylonian Empire nearly a thousand years earlier. The period of Neo-Babylonian rule thus saw unprecedented economic and population growth throughout Babylonia, as well as a renaissance of culture and artwork as Neo-Babylonian kings conducted massive building projects, especially in Babylon itself, bringing back many elements from the previous 2,000 years of Sumero-Akkadian culture.

Kʼinich Janaab Pakal I (Mayan pronunciation: [kʼihniʧ χanaːɓ pakal]), also known as Pacal or Pacal the Great (24 March 603 – 29 August 683), was ajaw of the Maya city-state of Palenque in the Late Classic period of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican chronology. He acceded to the throne in July 615 and ruled until his death. Pakal reigned 68 years—the fifth-longest verified regnal period of any sovereign monarch in history, the longest in world history for more than a millennium, and the second-longest reign of any monarch in the history of the Americas. He took the throne at age 12. During his long rule, Pakal was responsible for the construction or extension of some of Palenque's most notable surviving inscriptions and monumental architecture. He is perhaps best known in popular culture for his depiction on the carved lid of his sarcophagus, which has become the subject of pseudoarchaeological speculations.

The sack of Thessalonica was the capture and subsequent sack of the Byzantine city of Thessalonica by the Abbasid Caliphate and Tulunids in the year 904, led by Leo of Tripoli, a privateer and Muslim convert.

The Byzantine–Bulgarian wars were a series of conflicts fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Bulgarian Empire which began already in the late 5th century when the Bulgars defeated a 15.000 Roman army led by Magister Aristus (499 AD). The Bulgars permanently conquered parts of the Balkan Peninsula after 680 AD. The Byzantine and First Bulgarian Empire continued to clash over the next century with varying success, until the Bulgarians, led by Krum, inflicted a series of crushing defeats on the Byzantines. After Krum died in 814, his son Omurtag negotiated a thirty-year peace treaty. Simeon I had multiple successful campaigns against the Byzantines during his rule from 893 to 927. His son Peter I negotiated another long-lasting peace treaty. His rule was followed by a period of decline of the Bulgarian state. In 971 John I Tzimiskes, the Byzantine emperor, subjugated much of the weakening Bulgarian Empire by defeating Boris II and capturing Preslav, the Bulgarian capital. Samuel managed to stabilize the Bulgarian state with its center around the town of Prespa. Near the end of his rule, the Byzantines regained the upper hand, and under Basil II they won the Battle of Kleidion and completely conquered Bulgaria in 1018. There were rebellions against Byzantine rule from 1040 to 1041, and in the 1070s and the 1080s, but these failed. In 1185, however, Theodore Peter and Ivan Asen started a revolt, and the weakening Byzantine Empire, facing internal dynastic troubles of its own, was unable to quash the revolt. After the army of the Fourth Crusade conquered Constantinople in 1204, Kaloyan, the Bulgarian emperor, tried to establish friendly relations with the crusaders. However, the newly created Latin Empire spurned any offer of alliance with the Bulgarians. Because of his cold reception, Kaloyan allied with the Nicaeans, which reduced the crusaders' power in the area. Although his nephew Boril allied with the Latin Empire, Boril's successors sided with the Nicaeans, despite a few continuing attacks from them. After the Latin Empire collapsed, the Byzantines, took advantage of the Bulgarian civil war and captured portions of Thrace, however the Bulgarian emperor Theodore Svetoslav retook these lands. The Byzantine-Bulgarian relations continued to fluctuate until the Ottoman Turks captured the Bulgarian capital in 1393 and the Byzantine capital in 1453.

The Earls of Lade were a dynasty of Norse jarls who ruled what is now Trøndelag and Hålogaland from the 9th century to the 11th century. Lade is sometimes called Hlathðr or Hlathir by historians.

The siege of Damascus took place between 24 and 28 July 1148 O.S. during the Second Crusade. Two Crusader armies from Europe and the army of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem attempted to lay siege to the Seljuk Empire city of Damascus. The effort ended in a Crusader defeat. The battle occurred as the alliance between the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Mu'in ad-Din Unur, emir of the city of Damascus, was unraveling and the Crusader County of Edessa was falling to Imad al-Din Zengi, emir of the Seljuk city of Aleppo. Among the Christian armies from Western Europe which responded to the call for a crusade to retake Edessa were armies led Louis VII, King of France, and Conrad III, King of the Romans in the Holy Roman Empire. Both lost the majority of their forces crossing Anatolia. In May 1148, Conrad met privately in Jerusalem with Baldwin III, King of Jerusalem, and Fulcher of Angoulême, Patriarch of Jerusalem. The decision was made to forego the attempt to retake Edessa, and attack Damascus instead. Fulcher convinced Louis to join in the endeavor, and the decision was ratified at the Council of Acre. Damascus had extensive defenses, and was surrounded by densely planted orchards which made it difficult for an army to attack effectively. The Crusaders approached Damascus from the south, but made the decision to shift westward. They attacked on 24 July through the Shahura Valley and entered the orchards at the village of Dārayyā. They encountered stiff Muslim resistance at the villages of Mezzeh and al-Rabweh, then crossed the Barada River. A portion of the Crusader force marched along the north bank of the river, while the majority of it stayed on the south side. The Crusaders pillaged the northern suburbs of Damascus on 25 July, but a Muslim counter-attack swept nearly all the Crusader forces from the north side of the river. This allowed large numbers of Muslim reinforcements to enter Damascus. The main Crusader army began an attack on the city's western walls on 26 July, but a surprise Muslim counter-attack stopped it before it began. The Crusaders then became aware that two Muslim relief armies had gathered at Homs. Historians, medieval and modern, debate the reasons, but the Crusaders decided to move their camp from the west to the south side of the city on 27 July. This area was unconducive to supporting a siege, and the Crusaders abandoned the effort on 28 July. The Crusader retreat was disorganized and Muslim archers harassed it, killing many of those on foot. The failure of the siege of Damascus severely damaged the relationship between the Crusader states and Western European leaders, swung the balance of power in the region to the Muslims, and contributed to Mu'in ad-Din Unur losing control of Damascus to a new emir, Nur al-Din Zengi.

Mary, Queen of Scots (8 December 1542 – 8 February 1587), also known as Mary Stuart or Mary I of Scotland, was Queen of Scotland from 14 December 1542 until her forced abdication on 24 July 1567. The only surviving legitimate child of King James V of Scotland, Mary was six days old when her father died, and she inherited the throne. During her childhood, Scotland was governed by regents, first by the heir to the throne, James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, and then by her mother, Mary of Guise. In 1548, she was betrothed to Francis, the Dauphin of France, and was sent to be brought up in France, where she would be safe from invading English forces during the Rough Wooing. Mary married Francis in 1558, becoming queen consort of France from his accession in 1559 until his death in December 1560. Widowed, Mary returned to Scotland in August 1561. The tense religious and political climate following the Scottish Reformation that Mary encountered on her return to Scotland was further agitated by prominent Scots such as John Knox, who openly questioned whether her subjects had a duty to obey her. The early years of her personal rule were marked by pragmatism, tolerance, and moderation. She issued a proclamation accepting the religious settlement in Scotland as she had found it upon her return, retained advisers such as James Stewart, Earl of Moray (her illegitimate half-brother), and William Maitland of Lethington, and governed as the Catholic monarch of a Protestant kingdom. In 1565, Mary married her half-cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley; they had a son, James. Their marriage soured after Darnley orchestrated the murder of Mary's Italian secretary and close friend David Rizzio. In February 1567, Darnley's residence was destroyed by an explosion, and he was found murdered in the nearby garden. James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, was generally believed to have orchestrated Darnley's death, but he was acquitted of the charge in April 1567 and in the following month, he married Mary. Following an uprising against the couple, Mary was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle. In July 1567, she was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son James VI. After an unsuccessful attempt to regain the throne, she fled southward seeking the protection of her first cousin once removed, Elizabeth I of England. As a great-granddaughter of Henry VII of England, Mary had once claimed Elizabeth's throne as her own and was considered the legitimate sovereign of England by many English Catholics, including participants in a rebellion known as the Rising of the North. Perceiving Mary as a threat, Elizabeth had her confined in various castles and manor houses in the interior of England. After eighteen and a half years in captivity, Mary was found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth in 1586 and was beheaded the following year at Fotheringhay Castle. Mary's life and execution established her in popular culture as a romanticised historical figure.

James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567, and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603, until his death in 1625. Though he long attempted to get both countries to adopt a closer political union, the kingdoms of Scotland and England remained sovereign states ruled by James in personal union, with their own parliaments, judiciaries and laws. James was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and a great-great-grandson of Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland, and thus a potential successor to all three thrones. He acceded to the Scottish throne at the age of thirteen months, after his mother was forced to abdicate. Although his mother was a Catholic, James was raised as a Protestant. Four regents governed during his minority, which ended officially in 1578, though he did not gain full control of his government until 1583. In 1589, he married Anne of Denmark. Three of their children survived to adulthood: Henry Frederick, Elizabeth, and Charles. In 1603, James succeeded his cousin Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch of England and Ireland, who had died childless. He reigned in all three kingdoms for 22 years, a period known as the Jacobean era, until he died in 1625. After the Union of the Crowns in 1603, he based himself in England, returning to Scotland only once in 1617, and styled himself King of Great Britain and Ireland. He advocated for a single parliament for England and Scotland. During his reign, the Plantation of Ulster and the English colonisation of the Americas began. At 57 years and 246 days, James's reign in Scotland was the longest of any Scottish monarch. He achieved most of his aims in Scotland but faced great difficulties in England, including the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 and conflicts with the English Parliament. Under James, the "Golden Age" of Elizabethan literature and drama continued, with writers such as William Shakespeare, John Donne, Ben Jonson, and Francis Bacon contributing to a flourishing literary culture. James was a prolific writer, authoring works such as Daemonologie (1597), The True Law of Free Monarchies (1598), and Basilikon Doron (1599). He sponsored an early translation of the Bible into English (later named for him as the Authorized King James Version), and the 1604 revision of the Book of Common Prayer. Contemporary courtier Anthony Weldon claimed that James had been termed "the wisest fool in Christendom" (wise in small things, foolish otherwise), an epithet associated with his character ever since. Since the latter half of the 20th century, historians have tended to revise James's reputation and treat him as a serious and thoughtful monarch. He was strongly committed to a peace policy and tried to avoid involvement in religious wars, especially the Thirty Years' War that devastated much of Central Europe. He tried but failed to prevent the rise of hawkish elements in the English Parliament who desired war with Catholic Spain. The first English king of the House of Stuart, he was succeeded by his second son, Charles I.

The Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) was an intermittent conflict between Habsburg Spain and the Kingdom of England that was never formally declared. It began with England's military expedition in 1585 to what was then the Spanish Netherlands under the command of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in support of the Dutch rebellion against Spanish Habsburg rule. In large-scale campaigns, the English repelled the Spanish Armada in 1588, while Spain repelled the English Armada in 1589. The war included much English privateering against Spanish ships, and several widely separated battles. The war dragged on towards the end of the sixteenth century; England and Spain intervened in France in the 1590s and in Ireland from 1601. The campaign in the Netherlands saw a Spanish veteran force defeated by the Anglo-Dutch at the Battle of Nieuwpoort in 1600. This was followed a year later by the costly three-year Siege of Ostend, which Spain eventually seized. The war was brought to an end in August 1604 with the Treaty of London between the new kings: Philip III of Spain and James I of England. In the treaty, England and Spain restored the status quo ante bellum, agreed to cease their military interventions in the Netherlands and Ireland respectively, and resumed trade; the English ended their high seas privateering and the Spanish recognized James as king.

Elizabeth I was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudor. Her eventful reign, and its effect on history and culture, gave name to the Elizabethan era.

The Nine Years' War was a European great power conflict from 1688 to 1697 between France and the Grand Alliance. Fought primarily in Europe, related conflicts include the Williamite war in Ireland, and King William's War in North America.

The Judge Advocate General's Corps of the United States Army, also known as the U.S. Army JAG Corps is the legal arm of the United States Army. It is composed of Army officers who are also lawyers ("judge advocates"), who provide legal services to the Army at all levels of command, and also includes legal administrator warrant officers, paralegal noncommissioned officers and junior enlisted personnel, and civilian employees. The Judge Advocate General of the United States Army (TJAG)—the commanding general of the Army JAG Corps—is a lieutenant general. All military officers are appointed by the U.S. president subject to the advice and consent of the Senate, but the Judge Advocate General is one of the few positions in the Army explicitly provided for by law in Title 10 of the United States Code, and requiring a distinct appointment. When officers who have already been appointed to another branch of the Army join the JAG Corps, rather than merely transferring branches, they are administratively dismissed and simultaneously recommissioned anew as judge advocates.

Augustin-Jean Fresnel (10 May 1788 – 14 July 1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory of light, fully supplanting Newton's corpuscular theory, from the late 1830s until the end of the 19th century. He is perhaps better known for inventing the catadioptric (reflective/refractive) Fresnel lens and for pioneering the use of "stepped" lenses to extend the visibility of lighthouses, saving countless lives at sea. The simpler dioptric (purely refractive) stepped lens, first proposed by Count Buffon and independently reinvented by Fresnel, is used in screen magnifiers and in condenser lenses for overhead projectors. Fresnel gave the first satisfactory explanation of diffraction by straight edges, including the first satisfactory wave-based explanation of rectilinear propagation. By further supposing that light waves are purely transverse, Fresnel explained the nature of polarization. He then worked on double refraction. Fresnel had a lifelong battle with tuberculosis, to which he succumbed at the age of 39. He lived just long enough to receive recognition from his peers, including (on his deathbed) the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society, and his name is ubiquitous in the modern terminology of optics and waves. After the wave theory of light was subsumed by Maxwell's electromagnetic theory in the 1860s, some attention was diverted from the magnitude of Fresnel's contribution. In the period between Fresnel's unification of physical optics and Maxwell's wider unification, a contemporary authority, Humphrey Lloyd, described Fresnel's transverse-wave theory as "the noblest fabric which has ever adorned the domain of physical science, Newton's system of the universe alone excepted".

Ibrahim Pasha (Arabic: إبراهيم باشا Ibrāhīm Bāshā; 1789 – 10 November 1848) was an Egyptian general and politician; he was the commander of both the Egyptian and Ottoman armies and the eldest son of Muhammad Ali, the Ottoman Wāli and unrecognized Khedive of Egypt and Sudan. He was the second ruler of Egypt from the Muhammad Ali dynasty and ruled from 20 July 1848 to 10 November 1848. Ibrahim served as a general in the Egyptian army that his father established during his reign, taking his first command of Egyptian forces when he was merely a teenager. In the final year of his life, he was appointed Regent for his still-living father and became the effective ruler of Egypt and Sudan, owing to the latter's ill health. His rule also extended over the other dominions that his father had brought under Egyptian rule, namely Syria, Hejaz, Morea, Thasos, and Crete. Ibrahim pre-deceased his father, dying 10 November 1848, only four months after rising to power. He was succeeded as Regent by his nephew (son of Muhammad Ali's second oldest son), Abbas, who upon Muhammad Ali's death the following year inherited the Egyptian throne. Ibrahim remains one of the most celebrated members of the Muhammad Ali dynasty, particularly for his impressive military victories, including several crushing defeats of the Ottoman Empire, which placed him among the most outstanding commanders in military history. Among Egyptian historians, Ibrahim, his father Muhammad Ali, and his son Isma'il the Magnificent are held in far higher esteem than other rulers from the dynasty, who were largely viewed as indolent and corrupt; this is largely the result of efforts by his grandson Fuad I of Egypt to ensure the positive portrayal of his paternal ancestors in the Royal Archives that he created, which were the primary source for Egyptian history from the 1920s until the 1970s. Today, a statue of Ibrahim occupies a prominent position in Egypt's capital, Cairo.

The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile (UK: , US: , French: [aʁk də tʁijɔ̃f də letwal] ; "Triumphal Arch of the Star"), often simply called the Arc de Triomphe, is one of the most famous monuments in Paris, France. It is located at the western end of the Champs-Élysées, at the centre of the Place Charles de Gaulle—formerly known as the "Place de l'Étoile"—named for the star-shaped configuration formed by the convergence of twelve radiating avenues. The monument is situated at the intersection of three arrondissements: the 16th (to the south and west), the 17th (to the north), and the 8th (to the east). Commissioned to honor those who fought and died for France during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the Arc bears the names of French victories and its generals engraved on its inner and outer surfaces. Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I, marked by an eternal flame commemorating unidentified fallen soldiers of the French Nation. The central cohesive element of the Axe historique ("historical axis", a sequence of monuments and grand thoroughfares on a route running from the courtyard of the Louvre Palace to the Grande Arche de la Défense), the Arc de Triomphe was designed by Jean-François Chalgrin in 1806; its iconographic programme depicts heroically nude warriors and set the tone for public monuments with triumphant patriotic messages. Inspired by the Arch of Titus in Rome, Italy, the Arc de Triomphe has an overall height of 49.54 m (162.5 ft), width of 44.82 m (147.0 ft) and depth of 22.21 m (72.9 ft), while its large vault is 29.19 m (95.8 ft) high and 14.62 m (48.0 ft) wide. The smaller transverse vaults are 18.68 m (61.3 ft) high and 8.44 m (27.7 ft) wide. Paris's Arc de Triomphe was the tallest triumphal arch until the completion of the Monument to the Revolution in Mexico City, Mexico in 1938, which is 67 m (220 ft) high. The Arch of Triumph in Pyongyang, North Korea, completed in 1982, is modeled on the Arc de Triomphe and is slightly taller at 60 m (197 ft). The Grande Arche in La Défense near Paris, France is 110 m (361 ft) high, and, if considered to be a triumphal arch, is the world's tallest.

The Great Famine, also known as the Great Hunger, the Famine and the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of mass starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1852. It constituted a major historical social crisis and had a significant impact on Irish society and history. The most severely affected areas were in western and southern Ireland—where the Irish language was dominant—hence, in Irish, the period was contemporaneously known as an Drochshaol, which translates to "the bad life" and loosely translates to "the hard times". Debate exists regarding nomenclature for the event, including whether to use the terms "Famine", "Potato Famine" or "Great Hunger".

Annibale de Gasparis was an Italian astronomer, known for discovering asteroids and his contributions to theoretical astronomy.

The Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Japan and the United States (日米修好通商条約, Nichibei Shūkō Tsūshō Jōyaku), also called the Harris Treaty was a treaty signed between the United States and Tokugawa Shogunate, which opened the ports of Kanagawa and four other Japanese cities to trade and granted extraterritoriality to foreigners, among a number of trading stipulations. It was signed on the deck of the USS Powhatan in Edo (now Tokyo) Bay on July 29, 1858.

The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States. The South saw slavery as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war ended with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans. Decades of controversy over slavery came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, a Republican who opposed slavery's expansion, won the 1860 presidential election. Seven slave states in the South responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and forming the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy seized US forts and other federal assets in the South. The war began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. A wave of enthusiasm for war swept over the North and South, as military recruitment soared. Four more Southern states seceded after the war began and, led by its president, Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy comprised eleven states, containing a third of the US population. Four years of intense combat, mostly in the South, ensued. During 1861–1862 in the western theater, the Union made permanent gains, though in the eastern theater the conflict was inconclusive. The abolition of slavery became a Union war goal on January 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in rebel states to be free, applying to more than 3.5 million of the 4 million enslaved people in the country. To the west, the Union first destroyed the Confederacy's river navy by the summer of 1862, then much of its western armies, and seized New Orleans. The successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River, while Confederate general Robert E. Lee's incursion north failed at the Battle of Gettysburg. General Ulysses S. Grant's western successes led Lincoln to promote him to command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions. This led to the fall of Atlanta in 1864 to Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, followed by his March to the Sea, which culminated in his taking Savannah. The last significant battles raged around the ten-month siege of Petersburg, gateway to the Confederate capital of Richmond. The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant following the Battle of Appomattox Court House, setting in motion the end of the war. Lincoln lived to see this victory but was shot by an assassin on April 14, dying the next day. By the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure had been destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, and four million enslaved black people were freed. The war-torn nation then entered the Reconstruction era in an attempt to rebuild the country, bring the former Confederate states back into the United States, and grant civil rights to freed slaves. The war is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in the history of the United States. It remains the subject of cultural and historiographical debate. Of continuing interest is the myth of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The war was among the first to use industrial warfare. Railroads, the electrical telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and mass-produced weapons were widely used. The war left an estimated 700,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of civilian deaths, making it the deadliest in American history. The technology and brutality of the Civil War foreshadowed the coming world wars.

The Valley Railroad, operating under the name Essex Steam Train and Riverboat, is a heritage railroad based in Essex, Connecticut on tracks of the Connecticut Valley Railroad, which was founded in 1868. The company began operations in 1971 between Deep River and Essex, and has since reopened additional parts of the former Connecticut Valley Railroad line. It operates the Essex Steam Train and the Essex Clipper Dinner Train.

The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 are a series of international treaties and declarations negotiated at two international peace conferences at The Hague in the Netherlands, the First Hague Conference of 1899 and the Second Hague Conference of 1907. Along with the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions were among the first formal statements of the laws of war and war crimes in the body of secular international law. A third conference was planned for 1914 and later rescheduled for 1915, but it did not take place because of the start of World War I.

Umberto I (Italian: Umberto Ranieri Carlo Emanuele Giovanni Maria Ferdinando Eugenio di Savoia; 14 March 1844 – 29 July 1900) was King of Italy from 9 January 1878 until his assassination in 1900. His reign saw the creation of the Italian colonial empire and the formation of the Triple Alliance among Italy, Germany, and Austria-Hungary. The son of Victor Emmanuel II and Adelaide of Austria, Umberto took part in the Italian Wars of Independence as a commander of the Royal Sardinian Army. He assumed the Italian throne in 1878 on the death of his father. A strong militarist, Umberto approved the alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, which was formalised in 1882. He also encouraged Italy's colonial efforts and oversaw the incorporation of Eritrea and Somalia into the emerging Italian Empire, while the First Italo-Ethiopian War resulted in defeat at the Battle of Adwa. In the last years of his reign, Umberto faced increasing social unrest and serious economic difficulties. Tensions mounted as a result of growing opposition to new colonial campaigns, the spread of socialism, and crackdowns on civil liberties. Umberto was contested by left-wing circles for his conservatism and particularly for the decorations he gave in 1898 to Bava Beccaris, a general who bloodily suppressed demonstrations over rising food prices in Milan. He was deeply hated by Italian anarchists, who had already attempted to assassinate him during the first year of his reign. In 1900, two years after the Bava Beccaris massacre, Umberto was killed in Monza by anarchist Gaetano Bresci. He was succeeded by his son, Victor Emmanuel III. Before his killing, he was also one of the recipients of one of Friedrich Nietzsche's Wahnbriefe notes. The Umbertino architecture style was named after him.

Oklahoma, is a landlocked state in the South Central, Southern, and Southwestern regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the southwest, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northeast, Arkansas to the southeast, New Mexico to the west, and Colorado to the northwest. Partially in the western extreme of the Upland South, it is the 20th-most extensive and the 28th-most populous of the 50 United States. Its residents are known as Oklahomans, and its capital and largest city is Oklahoma City.

Lieutenant-General Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, was a British Army officer, writer, founder of The Boy Scouts Association and its first Chief Scout, and founder, with his sister Agnes, of The Girl Guides Association. Baden-Powell wrote Scouting for Boys, which with his previous books – such as his 1884 Reconnaissance and Scouting and his 1899 Aids to Scouting for N.-C.Os and Men, which was intended for the military, and The Scout magazine – helped the rapid growth of the Scout Movement.

The Slocum massacre was a mass killing of black residents by whites on July 29–30, 1910, in Slocum, an unincorporated community in Anderson County near Palestine in East Texas. The death toll reported by major newspapers ranged between eight and 22, but evidence suggests as many as 200 African Americans were killed. Historians have offered several explanations for the sparking of the riot and massacre by whites. At the time, rumors placed responsibility on the blacks, saying that whites had armed in response to accounts of blacks planning a race war. The whites from the mob did their best to destroy any local evidence against them. African Americans appealed to higher levels of government for a fair investigation, but little to nothing was done on their behalf. As a result, the African-American population in Slocum declined drastically, as many left in fear for their lives.

The Cape Cod Canal is an artificial waterway in Massachusetts connecting Cape Cod Bay in the north to Buzzards Bay in the south, and is part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The approximately 7.4-mile-long (11.9 km) canal traverses the neck of land joining Cape Cod to the state's mainland. It mostly follows tidal rivers widened to 480 feet (150 m) and deepened to 32 feet (9.8 m) at mean low water, shaving up to 135 miles (217 km) off the journey around the cape for its approximately 14,000 annual users. Most of the canal is located in the town of Bourne, but its northeastern terminus is in Sandwich. Scusset Beach State Reservation lies near the canal's north entrance, and the Massachusetts Maritime Academy is near its south. A swift-running current changes direction every six hours and can reach 5.2 miles per hour (8.4 km/h) during the receding ebb tide. The waterway is maintained by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and has no toll fees. It is spanned by the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge, the Bourne Bridge, and the Sagamore Bridge. Traffic lights at either end govern the approach of vessels over 65 feet (20 m). The canal is occasionally used by whales and dolphins, including endangered North Atlantic right whales, which can cause closure of the canal.

The Link River Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the Link River in the city of Klamath Falls, Oregon, United States. It was built in 1921 by the California Oregon Power Company (COPCO), the predecessor of PacifiCorp, which continues to operate the dam. The dam is owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany in the Nazi era from 1933 until his suicide in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor of Germany in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 under his leadership marked the outbreak of the Second World War. Throughout the ensuing conflict, Hitler was closely involved in the direction of German military operations and was central to the perpetration of the genocide of about six million Jews in the Holocaust as well as the deaths of millions of other victims.

The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was marked by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and business failures around the world. The economic contagion began in 1929 in the United States, the largest economy in the world, with the devastating Wall Street crash of 1929 often considered the beginning of the Depression. Among the countries with the most unemployed were the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Germany.

The Tongzhou mutiny, sometimes referred to as the Tongzhou Massacre, was an assault on Japanese civilians and troops by the security forces of East Hebei Autonomous Government in Tongzhou, China, on 29 July 1937, shortly after the Marco Polo Bridge incident, which triggered the outbreak of Second Sino-Japanese War. Approximately 260 Japanese and Korean residents were brutally killed in the assault. This event escalated tensions between China and Japan, contributing to the further deterioration of relations following the Marco Polo Bridge incident.

The BBC Light Programme was a national radio station which broadcast chiefly mainstream light entertainment and light music from 1945 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2. It opened on 29 July 1945, taking over the long wave frequency which had earlier been used – prior to the outbreak of the Second World War on 1 September 1939 – by the BBC National Programme.

The modern Olympic Games are a series of international multi-sport events. Considered among the biggest sporting events in the world, the Olympics are organised into distinct Summer and Winter Games, each featuring different sports. The Olympic Games, open to both amateur and professional athletes, involve thousands of athletes and more than 200 teams, each team representing a sovereign state or territory. The Games often, but not always, substitute for any world championships during the year in which they take place. The Summer and Winter Olympics are each held every four years, and themselves occur two years apart within the four-year Olympiad. This arrangement has been in place since the 1994 Winter Olympics, prior to which the Summer and Winter Games were held in the same year.

The Korean War was an armed conflict fought on the Korean Peninsula between North Korea and South Korea and their allies. North Korea was supported by China and the Soviet Union, while South Korea was supported by the United Nations led by the United States under the auspices of the United Nations Command (UNC).

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. It was established in 1957 as an autonomous organization within the United Nations System; though governed by its own founding treaty, the organization reports to both the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations, and is headquartered at the UN Office at Vienna, Austria.

Tonight Starring Jack Paar is an American television talk show broadcast by NBC. The show is the second installment of The Tonight Show. Hosted by Jack Paar, it aired from July 29, 1957, to March 30, 1962, replacing Tonight Starring Steve Allen and was replaced by The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. In his previous military career, he commanded the Allied Expeditionary Force during World War II, including in Operation Torch in North Africa and Operation Overlord on D-Day in Normandy. For his distinguished service in the U.S. Army, Eisenhower was honored with the five-star rank of General of the Army.

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam was a country in Southeast Asia from 1945 to 1976, with sovereignty recognized in July 1954, after which it became commonly known as North Vietnam. A member of the communist Eastern Bloc, it opposed the anti-communist, French-associated State of Vietnam and later its successor state the Western-allied Republic of Vietnam. North Vietnam launched a successful military offensive against South Vietnam in 1975 and was formally reunified with the South the following year to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Caracas, officially Santiago de León de Caracas (CCS), is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas. It is located along the Guaire River in the northern part of Venezuela, within the Caracas Valley of the Venezuelan coastal mountain range. The valley is close to the Caribbean Sea, separated from the shore by a steep 2,200-meter-high (7,200-foot) mountain range, Cerro El Ávila. To the south there are more hills and mountains that form the valley. The Metropolitan Region of Caracas has an estimated population of over 5 million inhabitants.

Avianca S.A., stylized as avianca since October 2023, is the largest airline in Colombia. It has been the flag carrier of Colombia since December 5, 1919, when it was initially registered under the name SCADTA. It is headquartered in Colombia, with its registered office in Barranquilla and its global headquarters in Bogotá and main hub at El Dorado International Airport. Avianca is the flagship of a group of airlines of the Americas, which operates as one airline using a codesharing system. Avianca is the largest airline in Colombia and second largest in South America, after LATAM of Chile. Avianca and its subsidiaries have the most extensive network of destinations in the Americas. Before the merger with TACA in 2010, it was wholly owned by Synergy Group, a South American holding company established by Germán Efromovich and specializing in air transport. It is listed on the Colombia Stock Exchange.

Roger Williamson was a British racing driver and a two time British Formula 3 champion, who died during his second Formula One race, the 1973 Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort Circuit in the Netherlands.

David Richard Berkowitz, also known as the Son of Sam, the .44 Caliber Killer and the Phantom of the Bronx, is an American serial killer, serial arsonist, and former United States Army soldier who committed a stabbing and a series of shootings in New York City between 1975 and 1977, killing six people and wounding eleven others. Armed with a .44 caliber Bulldog revolver during most of his crimes, Berkowitz terrorized New York City with letters mocking police and promising further crimes, leading to possibly the biggest manhunt in the city's history.

The national flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran is a tricolour of equal horizontal bands of green, white, and red, featuring the Islamic emblem in red centred on the white band, and the Takbir written 11 times each in white Kufic script along the edges of the green and red bands.

The wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer took place on Wednesday, 29 July 1981, at St Paul's Cathedral in London, England. The groom was the heir apparent to the British throne, and the bride was a member of the Spencer family.

Abolhassan Banisadr was an Iranian politician, writer, and political dissident who served as the first president of Iran following the Iranian Revolution, holding office from 1980 until his impeachment in 1981. Prior to his presidency, he was served as minister of foreign affairs in the Interim Government of Iran.

Space Shuttle Challenger (OV-099) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA. Named after the commanding ship of a nineteenth-century scientific expedition that traveled the world, Challenger was the second Space Shuttle orbiter to fly into space after Columbia, and launched on its maiden flight in April 1983. It was destroyed in January 1986 soon after launch in a disaster that killed all seven crewmembers aboard.

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to hold the office. As prime minister, she implemented policies that came to be known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style.

Rajiv Ratna Gandhi was an Indian aircraft pilot and politician who served as the prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989 for two terms. He took office after the assassination of his mother, then–prime minister Indira Gandhi, to become the youngest Indian prime minister at the age of 40. He served until his defeat at the 1989 election, and then became Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, resigning in December 1990, six months before his own assassination.

The Supreme Court of Israel is the highest court in Israel. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all other courts, and in some cases original jurisdiction.

Eris is the most massive and second-largest-known dwarf planet in the Solar System. It is a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) in the scattered disk and has a high-eccentricity orbit. Eris was discovered in January 2005 by a Palomar Observatory–based team led by Mike Brown and verified later that year. It was named in September 2006 after the Greco-Roman goddess of strife and discord. Eris is the ninth-most massive known object orbiting the Sun and the sixteenth-most massive in the Solar System. It is also the largest-known object in the Solar System that has not been visited by a spacecraft. Eris has been measured at 2,326 ± 12 kilometres (1,445 ± 7 mi) in diameter; its mass is 0.28% that of the Earth and 27% greater than that of Pluto, although Pluto is slightly larger by volume. Both Eris and Pluto have a surface area that is comparable to that of Russia or South America.

On 29 July 2013, two passenger trains were involved in a head-on collision at Granges-près-Marnand, Switzerland, killing one person and injuring 25 others.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was an international passenger flight operated by Malaysia Airlines that disappeared from radar on 8 March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia to its planned destination, Beijing Capital International Airport in China, with the 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board. The cause of its disappearance has not been determined. It is widely regarded as the greatest mystery in aviation history.

The International Space Station (ISS) is a space station in low Earth orbit (LEO). It is the product of the International Space Station program and is operated by five partner space agencies: NASA, Roscosmos (Russia), ESA (Europe), JAXA (Japan), and CSA (Canada). It is the first space station built, maintained and crewed through international cooperation and the largest human spacecraft ever constructed. It is an orbital research station, where scientific experiments in microgravity are conducted and the space environment is studied. Since 2 November 2000, it has hosted the longest continuous human presence in space. Alongside China's Tiangong, it is one of two currently operational space stations.