July 1

1952 – The trademark for Silly Putty was officially registered, though originally filed on March 31, 1950. A trademark protects words, names, symbols, sounds, or colors that distinguish goods and services. The MGM lion’s roar and the shape of a Coca-Cola bottle are also trademarked.

1862 – President Abraham Lincoln signed the first income tax bill, levying a 3% tax on annual incomes of $600-$10,000 and a 5% tax on incomes over $10,000. On this day, Congress also established the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

1863 – Beginning of the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War.

July 2

1788 – Congress announced that the United States Constitution had been ratified by the required nine states and appointed a committee to prepare for the new American government.

July 3

1976 – The raid on Entebbe airport in Uganda occurred as an Israeli commando unit rescued 103 hostages from a hijacked Air France airliner. The jet had been en route from Tel Aviv to Paris when it was hijacked by pro-Palestinian guerrillas. Three hostages, seven hijackers, and twenty Ugandan soldiers were killed during the rescue.

July 4

1776 – The Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress.

July 5

1988 – The Bugs Bunny phrase “What’s Up, Doc?” was registered as a trademark.

July 7

1989 – Warner Brothers registered a copyright for “Batman,” a movie based on a popular cartoon character.

1898 – President William McKinley signed a resolution annexing Hawaii. In 1900, Congress made Hawaii an incorporated territory of the U.S., which it remained until becoming a state in 1959.

July 9

1968 – U.S. patent #3,392,261 for the “Portable Beam Generator,” also known as a hand-held laser ray gun, was granted to inventor Frederick R. Schellhammer.

July 11

1893 – Hood’s Sarsaparilla CIH & CO Compound Extract was trademark registered and used as a medicine to “purify the blood” and treat heart disease, rheumatism, scrofula, and dropsy.

1990 – Bill Atkinson, the inventor of HyperCard software, left Apple Computers along with Andy Hertzfeld, co-inventor of the Apple Macintosh, and started a new company called General Magic.

July 12

1927 – “Green Giant” Great Big Tender Peas were trademark registered.

Birthday – American folk singer and social activist Woody Guthrie (1912-1967) was born in Okemah, Oklahoma. He is best known for This Land Is Your Land, Union Maid, and Hard Traveling.

July 15

1975 – The Detroit Tigers’ name was trademark registered.

July 16

1945 – The experimental atomic bomb “Fat Man” was set off at 5:30 a.m. in the New Mexico desert, creating a mushroom cloud rising 41,000 ft. The bomb emitted heat three times the temperature of the sun’s interior and wiped out all plant and animal life within a mile.

July 18

1947 – President Harry Truman signed an executive order determining the line of succession if the president becomes incapacitated or dies in office. Following the vice president, the Speaker of the House and President of the Senate are next in succession. This became the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified on February 10, 1967.

July 19

1921 – The name Breyers Ice Cream was trademark registered.

July 19-20

1848 – A women’s rights convention was held at Seneca Falls, New York. Topics discussed included voting rights, property rights, and divorce. The convention marked the beginning of an organized women’s rights movement in the U.S.

July 20

1969 – A global audience watched on television as Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong took his first steps onto the moon. As he stepped onto the moon’s surface, he said, “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind”—inadvertently omitting an “a” before “man” and slightly changing the meaning.

July 21

1875 – Mark Twain’s novel “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” was registered for copyright.

1984 – The first robot-related fatality in the United States occurred when a factory robot in Jackson, Michigan, crushed a 34-year-old worker against a safety bar.

July 22

1873 – Louis Pasteur received a patent for the manufacture of beer and the treatment of yeast, which would later influence his discovery of pasteurization.

1934 – Bank robber John Dillinger (1902-1934) was shot and killed by FBI agents as he left Chicago’s Biograph Movie Theater after watching Manhattan Melodrama starring Clark Gable and Myrna Loy. Dillinger was the first criminal labeled by the FBI as “Public Enemy No. 1.” After spending nine years (1924-1933) in prison, Dillinger went on a deadly crime spree across Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. He was reportedly betrayed by the “Lady in Red.”

July 23

1906 – The song “America the Beautiful” was registered by Katharine Lee Bates.

July 24

1956 – A patent for an oral form of the antibiotic Penicillin was granted to Ernst Brandl and Hans Margreiter.

July 26

1994 – Patent  #349,137 for a toy teddy bear was granted to Josef Gottstein.

1953 – The beginning of Fidel Castro’s revolutionary “26th of July Movement.” In 1959, Castro led the rebellion that drove out dictator Fulgencio Batista. Although he once declared that Cuba would never again be ruled by a dictator, Castro’s government became a Communist dictatorship.

Birthday – Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was born in Dublin, Ireland.

July 27

1953 – The Korean War ended with the signing of an armistice by U.S. and North Korean delegates at Panmunjom, Korea. The war lasted just over three years.

1960 – The first episode of “The Andy Griffith Show” was registered for copyright.

July 30

1933 – The Monopoly board game was registered for copyright, and Charles Darrow, the inventor, became the first millionaire game designer after he sold his patent to Parker Brothers.