1527: Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor

1763: Author and jurist James Kent

1803: John Ericsson US, invented screw propeller, built USS Monitor

1837: Confederate Army guerrilla leader William Quantrill, whose wartime raid on Lawrence, Kansas, left some 150 people dead.

1841: George Melville polar explorer, naval engineer

1867: S.S. (Sebastian Spering) Kresge (merchant: S.S. Kresge's five & dime stores)

1894: Roy Bargy Mich, orchestra leader (Jimmy Durante Show)

1904: Arthur Daley sportswriter (NY Times-Pulitzer 1956)

1900: Elmo Roper pollster (Roper Poll)

1911: George Liberace Menasha Wisc, violinist (Liberace Show)

1912: Economist Milton Friedman

1913: William Todman (game show producer: Goodson-Todman Productions: The Price is Right, To Tell the Truth, Beat the Clock, I've Got a Secret, What's My Line)

1919: Sportscaster Curt Gowdy

1929: Actor Don Murray (Bus Stop, Knots Landing, Peggy Sue Got Married)

1931: Jazz composer-musician Kenny Burrell

1935: Actor Geoffrey Lewis

1939: Actress France Nuyen

1943: Actress Susan Flannery

1943: Singer Lobo

1944: Actress Geraldine Chaplin

1944: Movie studio executive Sherry Lansing

1946: Singer Gary Lewis

1946: Rock singer Bob Welch (formerly of Fleetwood Mac)

1950: Actor Barry Van Dyke

1951: Tennis player Evonne Goolagong Cawley

1953: Actor James Read

1956: Actor Michael Biehn

1957: Rock singer-musician Daniel Ash (Love and Rockets)

1958: Rock musician Bill Berry (R.E.M.)

1962: Actor Wesley Snipes

1966: Actor Dean Cain

1969: Actor Loren Dean

1977: Actor Robert Telfer ("Saved by the Bell")

1985: Singer Shannon Curfman

0432: Election of Sixtus III as Pope

0448: Death of St, Germanus of Auxerre

0904: Moslems sack Thessalonica

1192: Richard I takes Jaffa back from Saladin (3rd Crusade)

1219: William de Chartres, Master of the Templars, wounded in battle before Damietta (5th
Crusade)

1291: The Mameluks take Beirut - end of Latin presence in Palestine & Syria

1315: Gates of Paris treacherously opened for Charles, King of Navarre

1358: Death of Etienne Marcel, Provost of Paris

1367: Death of Giovanni Colombini

1401: Thomas Barton, procurator of Glastonbury Abbey, reasserts the Abbey's rights in the King's Court

1498: On his third voyage to the New World, Columbus discovered the island of Trinidad.

1547: John Knox captured by Royalists

1556: St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus -- the Jesuit order of Catholic priests and brothers -- died in Rome.

1614: Countess Elizabeth Bathory writes her last Will and Testament

1750: Johann Sebastian Bach's funeral. It would be two centuries before his remains would be rediscovered during excavations to extend the foundations of the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. He would then be reburied inside the church, Westminster Abbey-style.

1777: The Marquis de Lafayette, a 19-year-old French nobleman, was made a major-general in the American Continental Army.

1790 : The first U.S. patent was issued to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont on this day. Mr. Hopkins did not get Patent #1 as thousands of patents were issued before someone came up with the bright idea to number them. The inventor patented a process for making potash and pearl ashes.

1792: Director David Rittenhouse laid the cornerstone in Philadelphia for the United States Mint, the first building of the federal government.

1845: The French Army introduced the saxophone to its military band this day. The musical instrument was the invention of Adolphe Sax of Belgium.

1875: The 17th president of the United States, Andrew Johnson, died in Carter Station, Tennessee, at age 66.

1914: The words of Richard Strauss, from this day, tell us much about the origins of World War One. He said: "Poets should be permitted to stay home. There is plenty of cannon fodder available critics, stage producers who have their own ideas, Moliere actors, etcetera."

1919: Germany's Weimar Constitution was adopted.

1928: MGM's Leo, the lion, roared for the first time on this day. HE introduced MGM's first talking picture, White Shadows on the South Seas. Leo's dialogue was more extensive that the film's, whose only spoken word was, Hello.

1942:11:27 PM 7/29/97 Harry James and his band recorded the classic, I've Heard That Song Before, for Columbia Records this day. Helen Forrest sang on the million-seller.

1945: Pierre Laval, premier of the pro-Nazi Vichy government, surrendered to U.S. authorities in Austria; he was turned over to France, which later tried and executed him.

1948: President Truman helped dedicate New York International Airport (later John F. Kennedy International Airport) at Idlewild Field.

1953: Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, known as "Mr. Republican," died in New York at age 63.

1955: 17 year old Marilyn Bell of Toronto, Canada, became the youngest person to swim the English Channel.

1964: The American space probe "Ranger Seven" transmitted pictures of the moon's surface.

1964: Country Music Hall of Famer, Jim Reeves, died when his single-engine Beechcraft crashed near Nashville, TN on this day.

1970: Chet Huntley retires from NBC, ending 'Huntley-Brinkley Report' (No more "Goodnight, David" "Goodnight, Chet")

1971: The first men to ride in a vehicle on the moon did so on this day in the LRV (lunar rover vehicle). The sort of lunar dune buggy carried Apollo 15 astronauts, David R. Scott and James B. Irwin for five miles on the lunar surface.

1972: Democratic vice-presidential candidate Thomas Eagleton withdrew from the ticket with George McGovern following disclosures Eagleton had once undergone psychiatric treatment.

1974: Watergate figure John Ehrlichman was sentenced to 20 months in prison for his role in the break-in at the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist. Ellsburg was the Pentagon consultant who leaked the "Pentagon Papers," documents about the war in Vietnam.

1981: The seven-week-old major league baseball players strike ended as the players and owners agreed on the issue of free agent compensation.

1981: The leader of Panama, Gen. Omar Torrijos, was killed in a plane crash.

1984: The U.S. men's gymnastics team won the team gold medal at the Los Angeles Summer Olympics in a major upset over the Chinese that included perfect performances by Mitch Gaylord, Bart Conner and Tim Daggett.

1985: House and Senate negotiators reached agreement on legislation to impose economic sanctions against South Africa, in the wake of that country's growing unrest and state of emergency.

1986: President Reagan, citing executive privilege, refused to allow senators to see Justice Department memos written between 1969 to 1971 by William H. Rehnquist, who was facing confirmation hearings to become chief justice of the United States.

1987: Iranian pilgrims and riot police clashed in the Muslim holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, resulting in some 400 deaths, according to the Saudi government, which blamed the Iranians for the violence.

1988: In a televised speech, Jordan's King Hussein called for an independent Palestinian state in the Israeli-occupied territories as he told the Palestinians to take affairs into their own hands.

1989: A pro-Iranian group in Lebanon released a grisly videotape purportedly showing the body of American hostage William R. Higgins dangling from a rope, a day after his kidnappers threatened to kill him.

1990: Pitcher Nolan Ryan of the Texas Rangers became the 20th major leaguer to win 300 games as he led his team to victory over the Milwaukee Brewers 11-3.

1990: Shoal Creek, a private country club in Birmingham, Alabama, that drew criticism for being all-white, announced it had accepted a black businessman as an honorary member.

1991: President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in Moscow.

1991: Seven people were killed when an Amtrak passenger train derailed near Camden, S.C.

1991: Seven people were killed when a bus carrying Girl Scouts crashed in Palm Springs, Calif.

1991: The Senate overturned a 43-year-old law and voted to allow women to fly military warplanes in combat.

1992: The space shuttle "Atlantis" blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a problem-plagued scientific mission.

1992: Summer Sanders became the first American athlete to win four gold medals at the Barcelona Olympics as she won the gold in the women's 200-meter butterfly.

1993: Belgium's King Baudouin I died at age 62; he was succeeded by his brother, Prince Albert.

1993: A US-brokered truce halted Israel's weeklong military offensive in southern Lebanon, which was launched in retaliation for guerrilla attacks that killed seven Israeli troops.

1994: The U.N. Security Council authorized member states to use "all necessary means" to oust the military leadership in Haiti.

1995: In the second-largest takeover in U.S. corporate history, the Walt Disney Company agreed to acquire Capital Cities-ABC, Inc. in a $19 billion deal.

1996: After Clinton's announcement that he would sign it, 98 Democrats joined the House's Republican majority to pass a historic welfare overhaul bill.

1996: The White House won agreement with key Republican lawmakers on a package of anti-terrorism measures.

1997: In Brooklyn, New York, police seized five bombs believed bound for terrorist attacks on New York City subways.

1998: President Clinton said he would "completely and truthfully" answer prosecutors' questions about Monica Lewinsky in testimony to be beamed by closed-circuit television to a grand jury.

1998: IBM's Russian subsidiary agreed to pay $8.5 million in federal fines for selling powerful computers ultimately destined for a Russian nuclear weapons laboratory.

1999: Chicago authorities said as many as 46 more residents had died as a result of a relentless heat wave that enveloped much of the nation and produced the hottest July on record in New York City.

2000: The Republican national convention opened in Philadelphia, with George W. Bush's name put into nomination for president. 

2000: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak survived a no-confidence vote. North and South Korea agreed to reopen border liaison offices and reconnect a railway linking their capitals.