Events on July 19 45
Year 484
Leontius, Roman usurper, is crowned Eastern emperor at Tarsus (modern Turkey). He is recognized in Antioch and makes it his capital.
Year 711
Umayyad conquest of Hispania: Battle of Guadalete: Umayyad forces under Tariq ibn Ziyad defeat the Visigoths led by King Roderic.
Year 939
Battle of Simancas: King Ramiro II of León defeats the Moorish army under Caliph Abd-al-Rahman III near the city of Simancas.
Year 998
Arab-Byzantine wars: Battle of Apamea: Fatimids defeat a Byzantine army near Apamea.
Year 1333
Wars of Scottish Independence: Battle of Halidon Hill: The English win a decisive victory over the Scots.
Year 1545
The Tudor warship Mary Rose sinks off Portsmouth; in 1982 the wreck is salvaged in one of the most complex and expensive projects in the history of maritime archaeology.
Year 1553
Lady Jane Grey is replaced by Mary I of England as Queen of England after only nine days on the throne.
Year 1588
Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Gravelines: The Spanish Armada is sighted in the English Channel.
Year 1701
Representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy sign the Nanfan Treaty, ceding a large territory north of the Ohio River to England.
Year 1702
Great Northern War: A numerically superior Polish-Saxon army of Augustus II the Strong, operating from an advantageous defensive position, is defeated by a Swedish army half its size under the command of King Charles XII in the Battle of Klissow.
Year 1817
Unsuccessful in his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Hawaii for the Russian-American Company, Georg Anton Schäffer is forced to admit defeat and leave Kauai.
Year 1832
The British Medical Association is founded as the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association by Sir Charles Hastings at a meeting in the Board Room of the Worcester Infirmary.
Year 1843
Brunel's steamship the SS Great Britain is launched, becoming the first ocean-going craft with an iron hull and screw propeller, becoming the largest vessel afloat in the world.
Year 1845
Great New York City Fire of 1845: The last great fire to affect Manhattan began early in the morning and was subdued that afternoon. The fire killed four firefighters, 26 civilians, and destroyed 345 buildings.
Year 1848
Women's rights: A two-day Women's Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York.
Year 1863
American Civil War: Morgan's Raid: At Buffington Island in Ohio, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan's raid into the north is mostly thwarted when a large group of his men are captured while trying to escape across the Ohio River.
Year 1864
Taiping Rebellion: Third Battle of Nanking: The Qing dynasty finally defeats the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
Year 1916
World War I: Battle of Fromelles: British and Australian troops attack German trenches as part of the Battle of the Somme.
Year 1940
World War II: Battle of Cape Spada: The Royal Navy and the Regia Marina clash; the Italian light cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni sinks, with 121 casualties.
Year 1940
Field Marshal Ceremony: First occasion in World War II, that Hitler appointed field marshals due to military achievements.
Year 1942
World War II: Battle of the Atlantic: German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions in response to the effective American convoy system.
Year 1943
World War II: Rome is heavily bombed by more than 500 Allied aircraft, inflicting thousands of casualties.
Year 1947
Prime Minister of the shadow Burmese government, Bogyoke Aung San and eight others are assassinated.
Year 1961
Tunisia imposes a blockade on the French naval base at Bizerte; the French would capture the entire town four days later.
Year 1963
Joe Walker flies a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 106,010 meters (347,800 feet) on X-15 Flight 90. Exceeding an altitude of 100 km, this flight qualifies as a human spaceflight under international convention.
Year 1964
Vietnam War: At a rally in Saigon, South Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Khánh calls for expanding the war into North Vietnam.
Year 1972
Dhofar Rebellion: British SAS units help the Omani government against Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman rebels in the Battle of Mirbat.
Year 1977
The world's first Global Positioning System (GPS) signal was transmitted from Navigation Technology Satellite 2 (NTS-2) and received at Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at 12:41 a.m. Eastern time (ET).[1]
Year 1979
The Sandinista rebels overthrow the government of the Somoza family in Nicaragua.
Year 1979
Two gigantic supertankers collide off the island of Little Tobago in the Caribbean Sea, killing 26 crew members and spilling 280,000 tons of crude oil into the sea.
Year 1981
In a private meeting with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, French President François Mitterrand reveals the existence of the Farewell Dossier, a collection of documents showing the Soviet Union had been stealing American technological research and development.
Year 1983
The first three-dimensional reconstruction of a human head in a CT is published.
Year 1997
The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army resumes a ceasefire to end their 25-year paramilitary campaign to end British rule in Northern Ireland.
Year 2014
Gunmen in Egypt's western desert province of New Valley Governorate attack a military checkpoint, killing at least 21 soldiers. Egypt reportedly declares a state of emergency on its border with Sudan.