EVENTS:
- 1810 – Citizens of Bogotá, New Granada declare independence from Spain.
- 1885 – The Football Association legalizes professionalism in association football under pressure from the British Football Association.
- 1903 – The Ford Motor Company ships its first car.
- 1935 – Switzerland: A Royal Dutch Airlines plane en route from Milan to Frankfurt crashes into a Swiss mountain, killing thirteen.
- 1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 11 successfully makes the first manned landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to walk on the Moon almost 7 hours later. (US Time)
- 1976 – The American Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.
- 2015 – A huge explosion in the mostly Kurdish border town of Suruç, Turkey, targeting The Socialist Youth Associations Federation, kills at least 31 people and injures over 100.
- 2015 – The United States and Cuba resume full diplomatic relations after five decades.
- 2017 – O. J. Simpson is granted parole to be released from prison after serving nine years of a 33-year sentence after being convicted of armed robbery in Las Vegas.
- 2021 – American businessman Jeff Bezos flies to space aboard New Shepard NS-16 operated by his private spaceflight company Blue Origin.
BIRTHS:
- 1864 – Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Swedish poet, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1931)
- 1889 – John Reith, 1st Baron Reith, Scottish broadcaster, co-founded BBC (d. 1971)
- 1897 – Tadeus Reichstein, Polish chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1996)
- 1900 – Maurice Leyland, English cricketer and coach (d. 1967)
- 1909 – Eric Rowan, South African cricketer (d. 1993)
- 1911 – Baqa Jilani, Indian cricketer (d. 1941)
- 1934 – Doug Padgett, English cricketer and manager
- 1947 – Gerd Binnig, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1971 – Ed Giddins, English cricketer
- 1987 – Niall McGinn, Irish footballer
- 1989 – Javier Cortés, Mexican footballer
- 1996 – Ben Simmons, Australian basketball player
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
- Friend’s Day (Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil)
- Independence Day, celebrates the independence declaration of Colombia from Spain in 1810.
- Tree Planting Day (Central African Republic)
- Engineer’s Day (Costa Rica)
