What happened on July 1 ?

251 ? The battle of Abrittus is won by Goths against Romans. Roman Emperors Decius and Herennius Etruscus are killed.

1097 - Battle of Dorylaeum: Crusaders under Bohemond of Taranto defeat a Turkish army under Qilich Arslan I.

1690 - Battle of the Boyne as reckoned under Julian calendar.

1782 - American privateers attack Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

1858 - The joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's papers on evolution to the Linnean Society.

1862 - Russian State Library is founded.

1862 - American Civil War: The Battle of Malvern Hill takes place, the final battle in the Seven Days Campaign, part of the George McClellan's Peninsula Campaign.

1863 - American Civil War: the Battle of Gettysburg begins.

1867 - The British North America Act, 1867 takes effect as the Constitution of Canada, creating the Canadian Confederation; John A. Macdonald sworn as first Prime Minister.

1870 - The United States Department of Justice formally comes into existence.

1873 - Prince Edward Island joins the Canadian Confederation.

1878 - Canada joins the Universal Postal Union.

1881 - World's first international telephone call takes place between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine, USA.

1881 - General Order 70, the culmination of the Cardwell-Childers reforms of the British Army's organisation, came into effect.

1885 - United States terminates reciprocity and fishery agreement with Canada.

1890 - Canada and Bermuda linked by telegraph cable.

1916 - First day on the Somme: On the first day of the Battle of the Somme 20,000 soldiers of the British Army are killed and 40,000 wounded.

1921 - Communist Party of China was founded.

1933 - Canadian Parliament suspends all Chinese immigration.

1935 - Regina, Saskatchewan police and Royal Canadian Mounted Police ambush strikers participating in On-to-Ottawa-Trek.

1942 - World War II: First Battle of El Alamein.

1943 - Tokyo City merged with Tokyo Prefecture and was dissolved. Since then, no city in Japan has had the name "Tokyo." (Present-day Tokyo is not a city.)

1957 - The International Geophysical Year begins (until December 31, 1958).

1958 - The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation links television broadcasting across Canada via microwave.

1958 - Flooding of the St. Lawrence Seaway begins.

1959 - The Party of the African Federation (PFA) holds its constitutive conference.

1960 - Independence of Somalia.

1962 - Independence of Rwanda.

1962 - Independence of Burundi.

1963 - ZIP Codes are introduced for United States mail.

1963 - The British Government admits that former diplomat Kim Philby had worked as a Soviet agent.

1963 - The Beatles release She Loves You as a single in the United Kingdom.

1966 - First colour television transmission in Canada, from Toronto.

1967 - The European Community is formally created out of a merger with the Common Market, the European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Atomic Energy Commission.

1968 - The CIA's Phoenix Program is officially established.

1968 - The Nuclear non-proliferation treaty signed by about sixty countries in Geneva, Switzerland.

1968 - Formal separation of the United Auto Workers from the AFL-CIO.

1972 - Andreas Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe and Holger Meins of the Red Army Faction are captured in Frankfurt after a shootout with the police.

1976 - Portugal granted autonomy to Madeira.

1979 - Sony introduces the Walkman.

1980 - O Canada officially becomes the national anthem of Canada.

1983 - A North Korean Ilyushin Il-62M jet en route to Conakry Airport in Guinea crashes into the Fouta Djall Mountains in Guinea-Bissau, killing all 23 people on board.

1987 - Excavation begins on the Channel Tunnel.

1988 - Bologna, Italy: Quartetto Cetra's last concert after over forty years' musical career.

1990 - East Germany accepts the Deutsche Mark as its currency, thus uniting the economies of East and West Germany.

1991 - The Warsaw Pact is officially dissolved at a meeting in Prague.

1997 - The United Kingdom hands sovereignty over Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China.

1999 - The Scottish Parliament is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth on the day powers are officially transferred from the old Scottish Office in London to the new devolved Scottish Executive in Edinburgh.

2000 - Vermont's civil unions law goes into effect.

2001 - Aliso Viejo officially becomes the 34th city in Orange County, California.

2002 - A Bashkirian Airlines Tupolev TU-154 and a DHL (German cargo) Boeing 757 collide in mid-air over Ueberlingen, southern Germany, killing 71.

2003 - In Hong Kong, 500,000 people march to protest a new anti-subversion law.

2004 - In Hong Kong, 530,000 people march to urge a faster pace of democratisation and universal suffrage.

2004 - Saturn Orbit Insertion of Cassini-Huygens begins at 01:12 UT and ends at 02:48 UT.

2004 - Horst Köhler becomes the Federal President of Germany.

2005 - Revaluation of the Romanian Leu.

2006 - The first operation of Qinghai-Tibet Railway in China.

2006 - Austria hands over Presidency of the European Union to Finland.