On this day: 31 July
Events, births and deaths on 31 July. Every date is checked against Wikidata.
Years ago today
1 year ago2025
Nothing recorded for that year.
10 years ago2016
- Deaths · Seymour Papert
- Deaths · Chiyonofuji Mitsugu
100 years ago1926
- Births · Hilary Putnam
- Births · Bernard Nathanson
1000 years ago1026
Within 100 years of that
- 1098 · Deaths · Hugh of Montgomery, 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury
Events · 22
- 1423Battle of Cravant — 1423 battle during the Hundred Years' War
- 1667Treaty of Breda — peace treaty which brought an end to the Second Anglo-Dutch War
- 1763Battle of Bloody Run — battle of Pontiac's War (1763)
- 1904Battle of Hsimucheng — 1904 minor engagement of the Russo-Japanese War
- 1905Japanese invasion of Sakhalin — 1905 battle of the Russo-Japanese War
- 1917Third Battle of Ypres — Battle in the First World War
- 1932July 1932 German federal election — 1932 federal election in Germany
- 1972Operation Motorman — 1972 British Army operation in Northern Ireland during The Troubles
- 1972Claudy bombing — 1972 terror attack in Claudy, Northern Ireland during the Troubles
- 1973Delta Air Lines Flight 723 — aviation accident
- 1975Miami Showband killings — 1975 mass murder in Northern Ireland
- 1987Edmonton tornado — F4 tornado that hit Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in 1987
- 1988Sultan Abdul Halim ferry terminal bridge collapse — 1988 disaster in Butterworth, Penang, Malaysia
- 1991START I — 1991 treaty between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the reduction of strategic offensive arms
- 1992Thai Airways International Flight 311 — aviation accident in Kathmandu, Nepal on 1992-07-31
- 1992China General Aviation Flight 7552 — aviation accident
- 1997FedEx Express Flight 14 — scheduled cargo flight
- 2002Hebrew University bombing — hamas bombing in 2002
- 2008East Coast Jets Flight 81 — aviation accident
- 20112011 Kashgar attacks — Terrorist attack in Xinjiang, China
- 20142014 Kaohsiung gas explosion — gas explosion in Kaohsiung in 2014
- 20202020 Kenai Peninsula mid-air collision — two-plane collision in Alaska
Births · 60
- 1143(Julian date)Nijō — Emperor of Japan
- 1396(Julian date)Philip III the Good — Duke of Burgundy from 1419 to 1467 (1396-1467)
- 1527Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor — King of the Romans, King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia (1527-1576)
- 1704Gabriel Cramer — Genevan mathematician (1704-1752)
- 1800Friedrich Wöhler — German chemist (1800-1882)
- 1812Amélie of Leuchtenberg — Empress consort of Brasil (1812–1873)
- 1835Paul du Chaillu — French-American anthropologist, zoologist and traveler
- 1843Peter Rosegger — Austrian poet and writer (1843-1918)
- 1880Premchand — Indian writer of Hindi and Urdu fiction (1880–1936); pioneer of social realism in Hindustani literature
- 1884Carl Friedrich Goerdeler — German politician and member of the 20 July plot (1884-1945)
- 1893Fatima Jinnah — Pakistani dental surgeon, biographer and stateswoman (1893–1967)
- 1901Jean Dubuffet — French artist (1901–1985)
- 1912Milton Friedman — American economist and statistician (1912–2006)
- 1914Louis de Funès — French actor and comedian (1914–1983)
- 1914Mario Bava — Italian filmmaker, screenwriter, special effects artist and cinematographer (1914–1980)
- 1918Primo Levi — Italian chemist, partisan, Holocaust survivor, and writer (1919–1987)
- 1918Paul D. Boyer — American biochemist (1918–2018)
- 1921Peter Benenson — English human rights activist (1921-2005)
- 1923Stephanie L. Kwolek — American chemist, inventor of Kevlar (1923–2014)
- 1926Hilary Putnam — American philosopher and mathematician
- 1929José Santamaría — Uruguayan and Spanish footballer (1929-2026)
- 1929Don Murray — American actor (1929–2024)
- 1932John Searle — American philosopher (1932–2025)
- 1933Cees Nooteboom — Dutch writer (1933–2026)
- 1935Geoffrey Lewis — American actor (1935-2015)
Deaths · 60
- 450(Julian date)Peter Chrysologus — Bishop of Ravenna
- 1358(Julian date)Étienne Marcel — provost of the merchants of Paris (1315-1358)
- 1556(Julian date)Ignatius of Loyola — Spanish Catholic priest and theologian (1491–1556)
- 1693Willem Kalf — Dutch painter (1619–1693)
- 1726Nicolaus II Bernoulli — Russian mathematician (1695-1726)
- 1750John V of Portugal — King of Portugal from 1707 to 1750
- 1784Denis Diderot — French Enlightenment philosopher writer and encyclopædist (1713–1784)
- 1849Sándor Petőfi — Hungarian poet and liberal revolutionary (1823–1849)
- 1864Louis Christophe François Hachette — French magazine publisher (1800-1864)
- 1875Andrew Johnson — President of the United States from 1865 to 1869
- 1884Kiến Phúc — Vietnamese emperor (1869–1884)
- 1886Franz Liszt — Hungarian romantic composer and virtuoso pianist (1811-1886)
- 1913John Milne — British geologist, mining engineer and inventor of the horizontal pendulum seismograph (1850-1913)
- 1914Jean Jaurès — French / Occitan socialist leader (1859-1914)
- 1917Hedd Wyn — Welsh poet who was killed on the first day of the Battle of Passchendaele (1887–1917)
- 1917Francis Ledwidge — Irish poet (1887-1917)
- 1920(Julian date)Ion Dragoumis — Greek diplomat and philosopher (1878–1920)
- 1940Udham Singh — Indian revolutionary (1899-1940)
- 1942Francis Younghusband — British army explorer (1863–1942)
- 1944Antoine de Saint-Exupéry — French writer and aviator (1900–1944)
- 1953Robert A. Taft — American politician, son of 27th U.S. President William Howard Taft (1889–1953)
- 1954Onofre Marimón — racecar driver
- 1958Eino Kaila — Finnish philosopher and psychologist (1890–1958)
- 1964Jim Reeves — American country singer (1923–1964)
- 1966Bud Powell — American jazz pianist and composer (1924–1966)
Dates verified against Wikidata (CC0). Titles and descriptions come from Wikidata.