Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/July 31
July 31: Ka Hae Hawai‘i Day in Hawai'i, Feast day of Saint Ignatius of Loyola.
- 1667 – The Second Anglo-Dutch War between England and the United Provinces ended with the signing of the Treaty of Breda in the Dutch city of Breda.
- 1703 – English writer Daniel Defoe was placed in a pillory for seditious libel after publishing a pamphlet politically satirising the High church Tories.
- 1777 – The Second Continental Congress passed a resolution allowing French nobleman Marquis de Lafayette to enter the American revolutionary forces as a Major General.
- 1917 – World War I: The Battle of Passchendaele began near the town of Ypres in West Flanders, Belgium, with the Allied Powers aiming to push through the German lines and capture their submarine bases along the Belgian coast.
- 1941 – The Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi military leader Hermann Göring ordered SS general Reinhard Heydrich to develop "a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution to the Jewish question".
- 1971 – Apollo program: The first Lunar Rover (pictured) was used during the Apollo 15 mission to the moon.
More events on this day... Recent days: July 30 – July 29 – July 28