Year 1498
Christopher Columbus became the first European to explore the islands of Trinidad during his third voyage in the Western Hemisphere.
JULY 31
Daily Historical Chronicle
UPSC CSE • State PSC • SSC CGL Matrix
31 July: What Happened On This Day in History
Curated historical timeline of momentous political pacts, freedom struggle uprisings, constitutional developments, scientific breakthroughs, and prominent birthdays recorded on 31 July.
Year 1657
Mughals conquered the Kalyani fort of Bijapur.
Year 1658
Mughal emperor Aurangzeb proclaimed himself king of the Mughal empire.
Year 1940
Udham Singh, an Indian revolutionary freedom fighter, was executed by the British in London.
Year 1956
Jim Laker became the first bowler to take all 10 wickets in a Test inning.
Year 1964
The first clear photographs of the moon were taken by the Ranger 7 spacecraft.
Year 1992
Georgia joined the United Nations.
Year 1992
Ramon Magsaysay Award presented to Satar player Pt. Ravi Shankar.
Year 2000
The Lok Sabha had passed the Chhattisgarh ‘State formation, Bill’.
Year 2006
Fidel Castro handed over power to his brother, Raul.
Year 2007
Operation Banner, the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland, and the longest-running British Army operation ever, comes to an end.
Year 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.
Year 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.
Year 2014
Gas explosions in the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung kill at least 20 people and injure more than 270.
Born 1704
Gabriel Cramer, a Genevan mathematician.
Born 1880
Munshi Premchand, an Indian writer.
Born 1907
Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi, an Indian mathematician, statistician, philologist, historian, and polymath.
Born 1919
Hemu Adhikari, Indian cricketer (d. 2003)
Born 1941
Amarsinh Chaudhary an Indian politician. He became the first Adivasi to serve as the Chief Minister of Gujarat.
Born 1947
Mumtaz, an Indian Hindi film actress.
Born 1965
J. K. Rowling, a British writer, and philanthropist.
Born 1992
Kiara Advani, an Indian actress.
Died 1805
Dheeran Chinnamalai, Indian soldier (b. 1756)
Died 1865
Jagannath Shankarsheth Murkute, an Indian philanthropist and educationalist.
Died 1875
Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United States.
Died 1940
Udham Singh, an Indian revolutionary belonging to the Ghadar Party.
Died 1980
Mohammed Rafi, an Indian film playback singer.
Died 2014
Nabarun Bhattacharya, an Indian writer in the Bengali language.