July 31

Thursday 31, 2003:

WON is shut down.

Saturday 31, 1999:

NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface.

Wednesday 31, 1996:

MIL-STD-1750A is declared inactive for use in new designs.

Friday 31, 1992:

A Thai Airways Airbus A300-310 crashes into mountain south of Kathmandu, Nepal killing 113.

Friday 31, 1987:

A rare, class F-4 tornado rips through Edmonton, Alberta, killing 27 people and causing $330 million in damage.

Saturday 31, 1976:

NASA releases the famous Face on Mars photo, taken by Viking 1

Thursday 31, 1975:

In Detroit, Michigan, Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa is reported missing.

Tuesday 31, 1973:

A Delta Air Lines jetliner crashes while landing in fog at Logan Airport, Boston, Massachusetts killing 89

Saturday 31, 1971:

Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover.

Friday 31, 1964:

Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes).

Monday 31, 1961:

At Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, the first All-Star Game tie in major league baseball history occurs when the game is stopped in the 9th inning due to rain.

Tuesday 31, 1956:

Jim Laker sets extraordinary record at Old Trafford in the fourth Test of taking nineteen wickets in a first-class match (the previous best was seventeen.

Saturday 31, 1954:

First ascent of K2, by an Italian expedition led by Ardito Desio.

Tuesday 31, 1951:

Japan Airlines is established.

Saturday 31, 1948:

At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) is dedicated.

Tuesday 31, 1945:

Pierre Laval, fugitive former leader of Vichy France, surrenders to Allied soldiers in Austria.

Thursday 31, 1941:

Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS general Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question."

Friday 31, 1936:

The International Olympic Committee announces that the 1940 Summer Olympics were to be held in Tokyo. However, the games were given back to the IOC after the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out, and were eventually cancelled altogether because of World War II.

Thursday 31, 1930:

The radio mystery program The Shadow airs for the first time.

Thursday 31, 1919:

German national assembly adopts the Weimar constitution (to enter into force August 14)

Tuesday 31, 1917:

The Third Battle of Ypres starts in Flanders.

Thursday 31, 1856:

Christchurch, New Zealand chartered as a city.

Saturday 31, 1790:

First US patent issued; granted to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.

Tuesday 31, 1703:

Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, but is pelted with flowers.

Sunday 31, 1667:

The Treaty of Breda ends the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

Sunday 31, 1588:

The Spanish Armada is spotted off the coast of England.

Sunday 31, 1498:

On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to discover the island of Trinidad.

Thursday 31, 1423:

The French army is defeated at Cravant on the banks of the river Yonne.

Monday 31, 1009:

Pietro Boccapecora becomes Pope Sergius IV

Friday 31, 781:

The oldest recorded eruption of Mt. Fuji (Traditional Japanese date: July 6, 781)

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