Today:
1304 – Fall of Stirling Castle (1304): Edward I of England captured Stirling Castle, the last major Scottish stronghold resisting English rule during the Wars of Scottish Independence.
1810 – Colombia declared its independence from Spain, a date now celebrated as the country’s Independence Day.
1871 – British Columbia became the sixth province to join the Canadian Confederation.
1917 – The Corfu Declaration was signed, expressing the intention to create a unified South Slavic state after World War I, which later became Yugoslavia.
1944 – Claus von Stauffenberg carried out the unsuccessful 20 July Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf’s Lair headquarters.
1969 – Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle on the Moon, achieving humanity’s first crewed lunar landing.
1976 – Viking 1 successfully landed on Mars and transmitted the first close-up images ever taken from the Martian surface.
1999 – Bertie Ahern and David Trimble formally established Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government under the Good Friday Agreement.
2012 – The 2012 Aurora Theater Shooting occurred during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 people and injuring dozens more.
2021 – Jeff Bezos flew to the edge of space aboard New Shepard NS-16, the first crewed mission operated by his company Blue Origin.