Monday 29 July 2024 Calendar with holidays, observances and special days

Holidays and observances

• Argentina's Human Values Day
• International Day for Socio-Cultural Diversity and the fight against discrimination
• International Tiger Day or Global Tiger Day
• Mohun Bagan Day in India
• National Culture Day in Argentina
• National Lasagna Day and National Chicken Wing Day in USA
• National Thai Language Day (Thailand)
• Olsok or St. Olaf's Day (King Olaf II Haraldsson of Norway is remembered as Rex perpetuus Norvegiae, the Eternal King of Norway. Olsok is a national day of celebration in the Nordic countries of Norway and the Faroe Islands, and also in the provinces of Härjedalen in Sweden and Savonlinna in Finland)
• Rain Day
• Santa Marta Festival in Spain

Events

• In 2016 the seafloor in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone – an area in the Pacific Ocean being targeted for deep-sea mining – is found to contain an abundance and diversity of life, with more than half of the species collected being new to science.
• 2005 – Astronomers announce their discovery of the dwarf planet Eris.
• 1976 – In New York City, David Berkowitz (a.k.a. the "Son of Sam") kills one person and seriously wounds another in the first of a series of attacks.
• 1973 – Greeks vote to abolish the monarchy, beginning the first period of the Metapolitefsi.
• 1965 – Vietnam War: The first 4,000 101st Airborne Division paratroopers arrive in Vietnam, landing at Cam Ranh Bay.
• 1959 – First United States Congress elections in Hawaii as a state of the Union.
• 1948 – Olympic Games: The Games of the XIV Olympiad: After a hiatus of 12 years caused by World War II, the first Summer Olympics to be held since the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, open in London.
• 1899 – The First Hague Convention is signed.
• 1864 – American Civil War: Confederate spy Belle Boyd is arrested by Union troops and detained at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C.
• 1858 – United States and Japan sign the Harris Treaty.
• 1851 – Annibale de Gasparis discovers asteroid 15 Eunomia.
• 587 BC – The Neo-Babylonian Empire sacks Jerusalem and destroys the First Temple.

Births

• 1993 – Nicole Melichar, American tennis player. Nicole Melichar (Czech: Nicole Melicharová, Czech pronunciation: ) is an American tennis doubles specialist.
• 1991 – Miki Ishikawa, American actress and singer. Miki Michelle Ishikawa (born July 29, 1991) is a Japanese-American actress and singer best known for her role as Amy Yoshida on The Terror and for being part of the music group T-Squad.
• 1984 – Chad Billingsley, American baseball player. He was a National League (NL) All-Star in 2009.
• 1983 – Elise Testone, American singer-songwriter. Her debut album In This Life was released in February 2014.
• 1983 – Jerious Norwood, American football player. He played college football at Mississippi State and is the schools second all-time leading rusher.
• 1981 – Troy Perkins, American soccer player. The 2006 Major League Soccer Goalkeeper of the Year award winner earned seven caps with the United States national team.
• 1980 – Ben Koller, American drummer. Ben Koller (born July 29, 1980) is an American drummer whose played with Converge, Mutoid Man, Killer Be Killed and All Pigs Must Die.
• 1979 – Ronald Murray, American basketball player. Ronald Murray (born July 29, 1979) is a retired American professional basketball player who last played for Al Mouttahed Tripoli of the Lebanese Basketball League.
• 1977 – Rodney Jerkins, American rapper and producer. Rodney Roy Jerkins (born July 29, 1977), also known by his stage name Darkchild, is an American record producer, rapper, composer, and songwriter.
• 1974 – Josh Radnor, American actor, director, and screenwriter. He made his writing and directorial debut with the 2010 comedy drama film Happythankyoumoreplease, for which he won the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize.
• 1973 – Stephen Dorff, American actor and producer. Stephen Hartley Dorff Jr. (born July 29, 1973) is an American actor, known for portraying Roland West in the third season of HBO's crime drama anthology series True Detective, PK in The Power of One, Stuart Sutcliffe in Backbeat, Johnny Marco in Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, and for his roles in Cecil B.
• 1973 – Wanya Morris, American singer. Wanyá Jermaine Morris (born July 29, 1973) is an American singer, best known as a member of the R&B group Boyz II Men.
• 1972 – Wil Wheaton, American actor, producer, and screenwriter. Wheaton has also appeared in recurring roles as Aqualad in Teen Titans, Cosmic Boy on the Legion of Super Heroes and Mike Morningstar/Darkstar in the Ben 10 universe.
• 1970 – Adele Griffin, American author. Adele Griffin (born July 29, 1970) is a young adult fiction author, writing numerous novels for young adults, most recently The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone, as well as the Vampire Island and Witch Twins series.
• 1966 – Martina McBride, American singer-songwriter and producer. She is known for her soprano singing range and her country pop material.
• 1965 – Chang-Rae Lee, South Korean-American author and academic. Chang-rae Lee (born July 29, 1965) is a Korean-American novelist and a professor of creative writing at Stanford University.
• 1965 – Luis Alicea, Puerto Rican-American baseball player and coach. Luis René Alicea de Jesús (born July 29, 1965) is a former Major League Baseball second baseman.
• 1965 – Stan Koziol, American soccer player (d. 2014), was an American soccer midfielder who played professionally in the Major Indoor Soccer League, National Professional Soccer League and American Professional Soccer League. He also competed with the Puerto Rico national football team in 1992.
• 1965 – Woody Weatherman, American guitarist and songwriter. Woodroe "Woody" Weatherman is lead guitarist for the heavy metal band Corrosion of Conformity.
• 1963 – Alexandra Paul, American actress and producer. This was followed with prominent roles in American Flyers (1985), 8 Million Ways to Die (1986), and Dragnet (1987).
• 1962 – Scott Steiner, American wrestler. Scott Carl Rechsteiner (born July 29, 1962), better known by the ring name Scott Steiner, is an American professional wrestler currently signed to National Wrestling Alliance.
• 1959 – Dave LaPoint, American baseball player and manager. David Jeffrey LaPoint (born July 29, 1959) is a retired Major League Baseball pitcher.
• 1958 – Cynthia Rowley, American fashion designer. Cynthia Rowley (born July 29) is an American fashion designer based in the West Village of New York City.
• 1958 – Gail Dines, English-American author, activist, and academic. Gail Dines (born 29 July 1958) is professor emerita of sociology and women's studies at Wheelock College in Boston, Massachusetts.
• 1956 – Ronnie Musgrove, American lawyer and politician, 62nd Governor of Mississippi. David Ronald "Ronnie" Musgrove (born July 29, 1956) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 29th Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi from January 16, 1996 to January 11, 2000 and as the 62nd Governor of Mississippi from January 11, 2000 to January 13, 2004.
• 1956 – Teddy Atlas, American boxer, trainer, and sportscaster. Theodore A. "Teddy" Atlas Jr. (born July 29, 1956) is an American boxing trainer and fight commentator.
• 1955 – Dave Stevens, American illustrator (d. 2008), was an American illustrator and comics artist. He is most famous for creating The Rocketeer comic book and film character, and for his pin-up style "glamour art" illustrations, especially of model Bettie Page.
• 1953 – Ken Burns, American director and producer. Kenneth Lauren Burns (born 1953) is an American filmmaker, known for his style of using archival footage and photographs in documentary films.
• 1953 – Patti Scialfa, American singer-songwriter and guitarist. In 2014, Scialfa was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band.
• 1953 – Tim Gunn, American television host and actor. Timothy MacKenzie Gunn (born July 29, 1953) is an American fashion consultant, television personality, actor, voice actor and author.
• 1951 – Dan Driessen, American baseball player and coach. Daniel Driessen (born July 29, 1951 in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina) is a former Major League Baseball infielder who played for five teams in his 15-year big-league career.
• 1951 – Dean Pitchford, American actor, director, screenwriter, and composer. His work has earned him an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for three additional Oscars, two more Golden Globes, eight Grammy Awards, and two Tony Awards.
• 1950 – Jenny Holzer, American painter, author, and dancer. Jenny Holzer (born July 29, 1950) is an American neo-conceptual artist, based in Hoosick Falls, New York.
• 1949 – Leslie Easterbrook, American actress. Debbie Callahan in the Police Academy films and Rhonda on the television series Laverne & Shirley.
• 1947 – Dick Harmon, American golfer and coach (d. 2006), was one of America's top golf instructors with clients including Fred Couples, Jay Haas, Craig Stadler, Lanny Wadkins, Steve Elkington and 2009 U.S. Open winner Lucas Glover.
• 1946 – Neal Doughty, American keyboard player, songwriter, and producer. Neal Allan Doughty (born July 29, 1946, Evansville, Indiana) is an American keyboardist, best known as a founding member of the rock band REO Speedwagon and the only member to have played on every album.
• 1945 – Sharon Creech, American author and educator. She was the first American winner of the Carnegie Medal for British children's books and the first person to win both the American Newbery Medal and the British Carnegie.
• 1944 – Jim Bridwell, American rock climber and mountaineer, was an American rock climber and mountaineer, active since 1965, especially in Yosemite Valley, but also in Patagonia and Alaska. He is noted for pushing the standards of both free climbing and big-wall climbing, and later alpine climbing.
• 1940 – Betty Harris, American chemist. Betty Harris (born September 9, 1939 in Orlando, Florida, United States) is an American soul singer.
• 1938 – Peter Jennings, Canadian-American journalist and author (d. 2005), was a Canadian-American journalist who served as the sole anchor of ABC World News Tonight from 1983 until his death from lung cancer in 2005. He dropped out of high school, yet he transformed himself into one of American television's most prominent journalists.
• 1937 – Daniel McFadden, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize Laureate. He is the Presidential Professor of Health Economics at the University of Southern California and Professor of the Graduate School at University of California, Berkeley.
• 1936 – Elizabeth Dole, American lawyer and politician, 20th United States Secretary of Labor. Mary Elizabeth "Liddy" Alexander Hanford Dole (born July 29, 1936) is an American politician and author who served in the Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H.
• 1933 – Lou Albano, Italian-American wrestler, manager, and actor (d. 2009), was an Italian-American professional wrestler, manager and actor. He was active as a professional wrestler from 1953 until 1969 before becoming a manager until 1995.
• 1933 – Randy Sparks, American folk singer-songwriter and musician (The New Christy Minstrels). Randy Sparks (born July 29, 1933, Leavenworth, Kansas) is an American musician, singer-songwriter and founder of The New Christy Minstrels and The Back Porch Majority.
• 1933 – Robert Fuller, American actor and rancher. Robert Welch (born May 14, 1950) is a professional wrestler and manager better known by his ring names Robert Fuller and Col.
• 1932 – Nancy Kassebaum, American businesswoman and politician. Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker (née Landon; born July 29, 1932) is an American politician who represented the State of Kansas in the United States Senate from 1978 to 1997.
• 1925 – Harold W. Kuhn, American mathematician and academic (d. 2014), was an American mathematician who studied game theory. He won the 1980 John von Neumann Theory Prize along with David Gale and Albert W.
• 1924 – Lloyd Bochner, Canadian-American actor (d. 2005), was a Canadian actor.
• 1923 – Edgar Cortright, American scientist and engineer (d. 2014), was a scientist and engineer, and senior official at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States. His most prominent positions during his career were Director of NASA's Langley Research Center, and Chairman of the Apollo 13 Review Board which investigated the explosion that occurred during the Apollo 13 spaceflight in 1970.
• 1923 – Gordon Mitchell, American bodybuilder and actor (d. 2003), was an American actor and bodybuilder who made about 200 B movies.
• 1918 – Don Ingalls, American writer and producer (d. 2014). He was a lifelong friend of Gene Roddenberry, having served in the Los Angeles Police Department with him.
• 1918 – Edwin O'Connor, American journalist and author (d. 1968), was an American journalist, novelist, and radio commentator. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1962 for his novel The Edge of Sadness (1961).
• 1918 – Mary Lee Settle, American novelist, essayist, and memoirist (d. 2005), was an American writer.
• 1916 – Budd Boetticher, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2001), was an American film director. He was famous for the series of low-budget Westerns he made in the late 1950s starring Randolph Scott.
• 1916 – Charlie Christian, American guitarist (d. 1942), was an American swing and jazz guitarist.
• 1915 – Bruce R. McConkie, American colonel and religious leader (d. 1985), was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1972 until his death. McConkie was a member of the First Council of the Seventy of the LDS Church from 1946 until his calling to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
• 1915 – Francis W. Sargent, American soldier and politician, 64th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1998), was an American politician who served as the 64th Governor of Massachusetts from 1969 to 1975.
• 1914 – Irwin Corey, American actor and activist (d. 2017), was an American stand-up comic, film actor and activist, often billed as "The World’s Foremost Authority". He introduced his unscripted, improvisational style of stand-up comedy at the San Francisco club the hungry i.
• 1911 – Foster Furcolo, American lawyer and politician, 60th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1995), was an American lawyer, writer, and Democratic Party politician from Massachusetts. He was the state's 60th governor, and also represented the state as a member of the United States House of Representatives.
• 1910 – Gale Page, American actress (d. 1983), was an American singer and actress.
• 1909 – Chester Himes, American-Spanish author (d. 1984), was a black American writer. His works include If He Hollers Let Him Go and the Harlem Detective series.
• 1909 – Samm Sinclair Baker, American author (d. 1997), was the author/co-author of many how-to and self-help books, most notably The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet which he co-authored with Dr. Herman Tarnower.
• 1907 – Melvin Belli, American lawyer (d. 1996), was a prominent American lawyer known as "The King of Torts" and by insurance companies as "Melvin Bellicose." He had many celebrity clients, including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Errol Flynn, Chuck Berry, Muhammad Ali, The Rolling Stones, Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker, Martha Mitchell, Maureen Connolly, Lana Turner, Tony Curtis, and Mae West. During his legal career, he won over $600 million in damages for his clients.
• 1906 – Thelma Todd, American actress and singer (d. 1935), was an American actress and businesswoman often referred to by the nickname "The Ice Cream Blonde", also "Hot Toddy". Appearing in around 120 feature films and shorts between 1926 and 1935, she is best remembered for her comedic roles in films such as Marx Brothers' Monkey Business and Horse Feathers and a number of Charley Chase's short comedies.
• 1905 – Clara Bow, American actress (d. 1965), was an American actress who rose to stardom in silent film during the 1920s and successfully made the transition to "talkies" after 1927. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the film It brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl".
• 1905 – Stanley Kunitz, American poet and translator (d. 2006). He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress twice, first in 1974 and then again in 2000.
• 1904 – J. R. D. Tata, French-Indian pilot and businessman, founded Tata Motors and Tata Global Beverages (d. 1993), was an Indian aviator, entrepreneur, chairman of Tata Group and the shareholder of Tata Sons.
• 1900 – Don Redman, American composer, and bandleader (d. 1964), was an American jazz musician, arranger, bandleader, and composer.
• 1899 – Walter Beall, American baseball player (d. 1959), was an American baseball player who played for the New York Yankees on several championship teams in the 1920s.
• 1898 – Isidor Isaac Rabi, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize Laureate (d. 1988), was an American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance, which is used in magnetic resonance imaging. He was also one of the first scientists in the United States to work on the cavity magnetron, which is used in microwave radar and microwave ovens.
• 1892 – William Powell, American actor and singer (d. 1984). A major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he was paired with Myrna Loy in 14 films, including the Thin Man series based on the Nick and Nora Charles characters created by Dashiell Hammett.
• 1888 – Vladimir K. Zworykin, Russian-American engineer, invented the Iconoscope (d. 1982), was a Russian-American inventor, engineer, and pioneer of television technology. Zworykin invented a television transmitting and receiving system employing cathode ray tubes.
• 1887 – Sigmund Romberg, Hungarian-American pianist and composer (d. 1951), was a Hungarian-born American composer. He is best known for his musicals and operettas, particularly The Student Prince (1924), The Desert Song (1926) and The New Moon (1928).
• 1885 – Theda Bara, American actress (d. 1955), was an American silent film and stage actress.
• 1884 – Ralph Austin Bard, American financier and politician, 2nd Under Secretary of the Navy (d. 1975), was a Chicago financier who served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1941–1944, and as Under Secretary, 1944–1945. He is noted for a memorandum he wrote to Secretary of War Henry L.
• 1878 – Don Marquis, American author, poet, and playwright (d. 1937), was a humorist, journalist, and author. He was variously a novelist, poet, newspaper columnist, and playwright.
• 1876 – Maria Ouspenskaya, Russian-American actress and acting teacher (d. 1949), was a Russian actress and acting teacher. She achieved success as a stage actress as a young woman in Russia, and as an elderly woman in Hollywood films.
• 1872 – Eric Alfred Knudsen, American author, lawyer, and politician (d. 1957), was an American author, folklorist, lawyer and politician. He is most known for his writings and collections of short stories of and about Hawaiian folklore and culture.
• 1869 – Booth Tarkington, American novelist and dramatist (d. 1946), was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams. He is one of only three novelists to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, along with William Faulkner and John Updike.
• 1849 – Max Nordau, Hungarian physician, author, and critic, co-founded the World Zionist Organization (d. 1923), was a Zionist leader, physician, author, and social critic.
• 1806 – Horace Abbott, American businessman and banker (d. 1887), was an American iron manufacturer and banker. His work included the armor plating for USS Monitor, USS Agamenticus, USS Roanoke, and USS Monadnock.
• 1797 – Daniel Drew, American businessman and financier (d. 1879), was an American businessman, steamship and railroad developer, and financier. Summarizing his life, Henry Clews wrote: "Of all the great operators of Wall Street ...

Deaths

• 2015 – Franklin H. Westervelt, American computer scientist, engineer, and academic (b. 1930)
• 2015 – Mike Pyle, American football player and sportscaster (b. 1939)
• 2014 – Idris Muhammad, American drummer and composer (b. 1939)
• 2014 – Jon R. Cavaiani, English-American sergeant, Medal of Honor recipient (b. 1943)
• 2014 – M. Caldwell Butler, American soldier, lawyer, and politician (b. 1925)
• 2014 – Thomas R. St. George, American soldier and author (b. 1919)
• 2013 – Peter Flanigan, American banker and civil servant (b. 1923)
• 2010 – Charles E. Wicks, American chemist and academic (b. 1925)
• 2008 – Bruce Edward Ivins, American scientist and bio-defense researcher (b. 1946)
• 2007 – Marvin Zindler, American journalist (b. 1921)
• 2007 – Tom Snyder, American journalist and talk show host (b. 1936)
• 2003 – Foday Sankoh, Sierra Leonean soldier, founded the Revolutionary United Front (b. 1937)
• 2001 – Wau Holland, German computer scientist, co-founded Chaos Computer Club (b. 1951)
• 1998 – Jerome Robbins, American director, producer, and choreographer (b. 1918)
• 1996 – Jason Thirsk, American singer and bass player (b. 1967)
• 1995 – Les Elgart, American trumpet player and bandleader (b. 1917)
• 1994 – John Britton, American physician (b. 1925)
• 1984 – Fred Waring, American television host and bandleader (b. 1900)
• 1983 – Raymond Massey, Canadian-American actor and screenwriter (b. 1896)
• 1982 – Harold Sakata, American wrestler and actor (b. 1920)
• 1982 – Vladimir K. Zworykin, Russian-American engineer, invented the Iconoscope (b. 1889)
• 1981 – Robert Moses, American urban planner, designed the Northern State Parkway and Southern State Parkway (b. 1888)
• 1979 – Bill Todman, American screenwriter and producer (b. 1916)
• 1976 – Mickey Cohen, American gangster (b. 1913)
• 1974 – Cass Elliot, American singer (b. 1941)
• 1964 – Vean Gregg, American baseball player (b. 1885)
• 1962 – Leonardo De Lorenzo, Italian-American flute player and educator (b. 1875)
• 1951 – Ali Sami Yen, Turkish footballer and manager, founded Galatasaray S.K. (b. 1886)
• 1918 – Ernest William Christmas, Australian-American painter (b. 1863)