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International Calendar - July

Canada Day	1 July	Canada
Communist Party Birthday	1 July	China
Bank Holiday	1 July	Taiwan
Independance Day	4 July	USA
Commemorates the formal adoption by the Continental Congress of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, although the signing of the Declaration was not finished until August 1776. Philadelphia was the first to observe the holiday on July 8, 1776 at which time the Declaration was read aloud. City bells rang and bands played. It is celebrated now by parades, pageants, and patriotic speeches, along with firework displays and organized firing of guns and cannons. It was not declared a legal holiday until 1941.
Orangemen's Day	12 July	Northern Ireland
Bastille Day	14 July	France
Commemorates the start of the French Revolution in 1789. The Bastille was a French prison fortress in Paris. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Bastille was used primarily for political prisoners - citizens deemed obnoxious to the royal court. Be they peasant or politician, they were arrested by secret warrants called lettres-de-cachet and imprisoned indefinitely without accusation or trial. On the 14 July 1789 the Bastille was attacked and captured by a mob assisted by royal troops. Two days later the destruction of the fortress was started amid great public rejoicing. The site is now an open square called the Place de la Bastille.
Constitution Day	17 July	South Korea
Maritime Day	20 July	Thailand
Asalha Puja	30 July	Thailand

What Happened...

Literature

5000BC Sumerian Language in use

1859 Dickens: Tale of Two Cities, novel of the French Revolution

1697 Vanbrugh: The provok'd wife, a play; a fine study of an ill treated wife.

History

828 Crete captured by Arabs

1067 Rebellion in South West England

1971 Lt. William Calley found guilty of My Lai massacre of South Vietnamese civilians in 1968.

Science

845 Chinese used paper money

1657 Huyghans designed first pendulum for clock

1988 Claims that consumption of convenience foods caused decline in intelligence

Arts

16 BC Erection of Maison Carree, Nimes, finest extant small Roman Shrine

1294 Work began on Cathedral of San Gennaro Naples; completed 1323; western facade 1906

1915 Keep the home fire's burning, wartime song, published