July 9

“On 9 July 1504, Wednesday, at seven o’clock, died ser Piero da Vinci, notary at the Palazzo del Podestà, my father, at seven o’clock. He was eighty years old.” The note gets the details wrong: 9 July was a Tuesday, and ser Piero was about seventy-eight. As the illegitimate son, Leonardo inherited…

Pressed by the Bohemian estates, the emperor granted his Bohemian subjects freedom of worship and let the Protestant estates choose defenders to protect it. The quarrel over churches built under it led to the defenestration of 1618.

Lewis’s pet project, a collapsible iron boat frame made at Harpers Ferry, was covered in elk and buffalo hides. With no pine pitch to seal the seams, the substitute washed out and she leaked in such manner that she would not answer. It “mortifyed me not a little,” Lewis wrote. They buried it and…

He signed the Compromise of 1850, including the Fugitive Slave Act. The last Whig president: his party did not nominate him in 1852.

He fell ill after Fourth of July ceremonies at the Washington Monument site and died in the White House 16 months into his term. Millard Fillmore took the oath the next day in the House chamber.

Shot by a firing squad in a barracks square before a crowd; by Bábí accounts the first volley of 750 rifles only cut his ropes. His remains were hidden for decades and laid in the shrine on Mount Carmel in 1909.

You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold. — William Jennings Bryan Farmers crushed by falling prices wanted silver coined freely again. The speech won Bryan the Democratic nomination; he lost the election to McKinley,…

Leading on the Tourmalet, Eugène Christophe broke his fork, walked down to Sainte-Marie-de-Campan and rebuilt it himself at the blacksmith’s, since the rules forbade help. He was penalised because a boy had worked the bellows.

In under eight weeks, after Germany occupied its wavering ally, Hungarian police and Adolf Eichmann’s office deported about 440,000 Jews to Auschwitz. Most were gassed on arrival at Birkenau.

Russell read it to the press with Joseph Rotblat beside him. Of its eleven signatories, ten had won Nobel Prizes. “Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.” It led to the Pugwash Conferences, which shared the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize with Rotblat.

Thirty-two canvases, one for each flavour Campbell’s sold, stood on a narrow shelf like tins in a shop. They cost $100 each. The dealer Irving Blum bought back the few he had sold to keep the set together; the Museum of Modern Art acquired it in 1996.

Its close views of Europa showed a bright, smooth shell of ice criss-crossed by cracks, the first hint of the ocean underneath that later missions went back for.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad launched a car of Malaysia’s own, built at Shah Alam with Mitsubishi on the bones of a Lancer. Demand outran supply, and the first Saga off the line is kept in the National Museum.

The first International AIDS Conference in a developing country opened days after more than 5,000 scientists signed the Durban Declaration that HIV causes AIDS. Eleven-year-old Nkosi Johnson, born with HIV, asked the audience to care for people living with it.

Zidane chipped a penalty in the seventh minute. In the 110th, in the last match of his career, he head-butted Marco Materazzi in the chest and was sent off. Italy scored all five of their penalties.

Germans remember it as the Sommermärchen, the summer fairy tale, when the country flew its flag without embarrassment. Ronaldo’s 15th World Cup goal broke Gerd Müller’s record.

When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. We’re still dancing. — Chuck Prince, chief executive of Citigroup He told the Financial Times that the flood of cheap credit for buy-outs was not over. He…

The marae complex at Opoa on Raiatea — an island once called Havaiʻi, in many traditions the Hawaiki of the ancestors — was the religious centre of a voyaging world, and stones from it founded marae on other islands. UNESCO listed it with the valley, lagoon and reef passage around it.

On 25 June 2021 Nauru, sponsoring a subsidiary of The Metals Company, invoked a clause that gave the Seabed Authority two years to finish its mining rules. The deadline passed with no mining code agreed, and a growing group of states calling for a pause.

On 25 June 2021 Nauru, sponsoring a subsidiary of The Metals Company, invoked a clause that gave the Seabed Authority two years to finish its mining rules. The deadline passed with no mining code agreed, and a growing group of states calling for a pause.

Launched by Isaac del Toro five kilometres from the top, Pogačar rode the last 43 kilometres alone to Gavarnie-Gèdre and took 2 minutes 38 seconds out of Vingegaard.