July 19

64 – The Great Fire of Rome rages on for six days, destroying half of the city

711 – Umayyad moslem forces, under Tariq ibn Ziyad, defeat the Visigoths led by King Roderic at Guadalete in southern Spain, noted as the first battle of the moslem conquest of the Iberian peninsula.

939 – During the Reconquista, King Ramiro II of León defeats a moslem army under Caliph Abd-al-Rahman III near Simancas in Spain

1701 – Under terms of the Nanfan Treaty, the Iroquois Confederacy cedes territory north of the Ohio River to England.

1814 – Samuel Colt is born in Hartford, Connecticut

1843 –The Great Western Steamship Company’s steamship SS Great Britain is launched, the first ocean going craft with an iron hull and screw propeller, and at the time, the largest vessel afloat in the world.

1845 – The Great New York City Fire destroys 345 buildings and results in the death of 4 firefighters and 26 citizens

1870 – France declares war on Prussia.

1929 – Gaston Glock is born in Vienna, Austria

1934 – The rigid airship USS Macon ‘surprises’ the cruiser USS Houston near Clipperton Island, southwest of Mexico, en route to Hawaii, with a mail delivery for President Roosevelt, a demonstration by its Captain of the aircraft’s potential for tracking ships at sea.

1963 – Joe Walker flies a North American X-15 for the first time to an altitude of 347,800 feet exceeding an altitude of 100 km, qualifying as spaceflight.

1967 – Piedmont Airlines Flight 22, a Boeing 727, and a private corporate Cessna 310 collide over Hendersonville, North Carolina and crash, killing all 82 passengers and crew aboard both aircraft.

1969 – Senator Ted Kennedy crashes his car into a tidal pond at Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, killing his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne.

1977 – The world’s first Global Positioning System is transmitted from an orbiting satellite.

1979 – Sandinista rebels overthrow the Somoza government of Nicaragua.

1981 – In a private meeting with President Reagan, French President Mitterrand reveals the existence of the Farewell Dossier, a collection of documents showing the Soviet Union had been stealing American technological research and development for decades.

1982 – David S. Dodge, president of the American University of Beirut, is kidnapped by Hezbollah

1989 – United Airlines Flight 232, A Douglas DC-10, suffers a engine failure in flight, damaging most of the craft’s fight controls, and crashes as the crew attempts an emergency landing at the Gateway Airport in Sioux City, Iowa killing 112 of the 286 passengers and crew aboard.

2018 – The Knesset passes the controversial Nationality Bill, which defines the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

2019 – Dutch actor Rutger Hauer dies, age 75, at his home in the Netherlands.