July 9

July 9, 1868 – The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The Amendment defined U.S. citizenship and prohibited individual States from abridging the rights of any American citizen without due process and equal protection under the law. The Amendment also barred individuals involved in rebellion against the U.S. from holding public office.

July 10

July 10, 1943 – The Allied invasion of Italy began with an attack on the island of Sicily. The British entry into Syracuse was the first Allied success in Europe. General Dwight D. Eisenhower labeled the invasion “the first page in the liberation of the European Continent.”

July 10, 1973 – The Bahamas gained their independence after 250 years as a British Crown Colony.

July 10, 1991 – Boris Yeltsin took the oath of office, becoming the first popularly elected president in Russia‘s thousand-year history.

Birthday – Theologian and founder of Presbyterianism, John Calvin (1509-1564) was born in Noyon, France.

Birthday – American artist James Whistler (1834-1903) was born in Lowell, Mass. He is best remembered for his portrait Whistler’s Mother.

 

Birthday – French author Marcel Proust (1871-1922) was born near Paris. “Happiness,” he wrote in The Past Recaptured, “is beneficial for the body but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.”

Birthday

Tennis player Arthur Ashe (1943-1993) was born in Richmond, Virginia. He won a total of 33 titles including the U.S. men’s singles championship and U.S. Open in 1968 and the men’s singles at Wimbledon in 1975. As a pioneering African American athlete, he fought against racism and stereotyping and was arrested numerous times while protesting. In 1992, he announced he had likely contracted HIV through a transfusion during heart surgery. He then began a $5 million fundraising effort on behalf of the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS and campaigned for public awareness regarding the dreaded disease. He died from pneumonia in New York, February 6, 1993.

July 11

Birthday – John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) the 6th U.S. President, and son of the 2nd President, John Adams, was born in Braintree, Massachusetts. After serving just one term as President, he served 17 years as a member of Congress. He died in 1848 while in the House of Representatives in the same room in which he had taken the presidential Oath of Office. He was the first president whose father had also been president.

July 12

July 12, 1943 – During World War II, in the Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history took place outside the small village of Prohorovka, Russia. About nine hundred Russian tanks attacked an equal number of German tanks fighting at close range. When Hitler ordered a cease-fire, 300 German tanks remained strewn over the battlefield.

July 12, 1994 – Germany‘s Constitutional Court ended the ban on sending German troops to fight outside the country. The ban had been in effect since the end of World War II. The ruling allowed German troops to join in United Nations and NATO peace-keeping missions. On July 14, German military units marched in Bastille Day celebrations in Paris, the first appearance of German troops there since World War II.

Birthday – British pottery designer Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) was born in Burslem, Staffordshire, England.

Birthday

American philosopher Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was born in Concord, Massachusetts. At Walden Pond he wrote, “I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.”

July 13

July 13, 1787 – Congress enacted the Northwest Ordinance establishing formal procedures for transforming territories into states. It provided for the eventual establishment of three to five states in the area north of the Ohio River, to be considered equal with the original 13. The Ordinance included a Bill of Rights that guaranteed freedom of religion, the right to trial by jury, public education and a ban on slavery in the Northwest.

July 14

July 14, 1789 – The fall of the Bastille occurred at the beginning of the French Revolution.

July 14, 1791 – In England, the Birmingham riot occurred on the second anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. Mob rule lasted for three days, targeting controversial scientist and theologian Joseph Priestly’s home and laboratory as well as the homes of his friends. Priestly, who had expressed support for the American and French revolutions, fled to London with his family and later moved to America.

Birthday – American folk singer and social activist Woody Guthrie (1912-1967) was born in Okemah, Oklahoma. Best known for This Land Is Your Land, Union Maid, and Hard Traveling.

Birthday

Gerald R. Ford, the 38th U.S. President was born in Omaha, Nebraska, July 14, 1913 (as Leslie King). In 1973, he was appointed vice president following the resignation of Spiro T. Agnew. He became president on August 9, 1974, following the resignation of Richard M. Nixon. He was the first non-elected vice president and non-elected president of the U.S.

July 15

July 15, 1918 – During the Battle of the Marne in World War I, German General Erich Ludendorff launched Germany’s fifth, and last, offensive to break through the Chateau-Thierry salient. However, the Germans were stopped by American, British and Italian divisions. On July 18, General Foch, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied troops, launched a massive counter-offensive. The Germans began a retreat lasting four months until they requested an armistice in November.

Birthday – Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) was born in Leiden, Holland. Best known for The Night Watch and many portraits and self-portraits.

Birthday – The first American saint, Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917) was born in Lombardy, Italy. She was the founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and established Catholic schools, orphanages, convents and hospitals. She was canonized, July 7, 1946, by Pope Pius XII.