Historical Events -  July 31.

1498: Christopher Columbus became the first European to explore the islands of Trinidad during his third voyage in the Western Hemisphere.

1657: Mughals conquered the Kalyani fort of Bijapur.

1658: Mughal emperor Aurangzeb proclaimed himself king of the Mughal empire.

1940: Udham Singh, an Indian revolutionary freedom fighter, was executed by the British in London.

1956: Jim Laker became the first bowler to take all 10 wickets in a Test inning.

1964: The first clear photographs of the moon were taken by the Ranger 7 spacecraft.

1992: Georgia joined the United Nations.

1992: Ramon Magsaysay Award presented to Satar player Pt. Ravi Shankar.

2000: The Lok Sabha had passed the Chhattisgarh ‘State formation, Bill’.

2006: Fidel Castro handed over power to his brother, Raul.

2009: Pakistan’s Supreme Court had declared the emergency imposed in 2007 by the former Pak President Pervez Musharraf as unconstitutional under Article 279 of the Constitution.

2012: Michael Phelps (19 medals in swimming) broke the record set in 1964 by Larisa Latynina for the most medals (18 medals) won at the Olympics.

 

Famous Birthdays – July 31

1704: Gabriel Cramer, a Genevan mathematician.

1880: Munshi Premchand, an Indian writer.

1907: Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi, an Indian mathematician, statistician, philologist, historian, and polymath.

1941: Amarsinh Chaudhary an Indian politician. He became the first Adivasi to serve as the Chief Minister of Gujarat.

1947: Mumtaz, an Indian Hindi film actress.

1965: J. K. Rowling, a British writer, and philanthropist.

1992: Kiara Advani, an Indian actress.

 

Death Anniversaries -  July 31

1865: Jagannath Shankarsheth Murkute, an Indian philanthropist and educationalist.

1875: Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United States.

1940: Udham Singh, an Indian revolutionary belonging to the Ghadar Party.

1980: Mohammed Rafi, an Indian film playback singer.

2014: Nabarun Bhattacharya, an Indian writer in the Bengali language.