WEDNESDAY, July 29, 2026

1588-The "Invincible" Spanish Armada is sighted approaching England, and several skirmishes follow, forcing the invading fleet to make a long and costly retreat around Scotland and Ireland

1609-Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs at Ticonderoga, New York, setting the stage for French-Iroquois conflicts for the next 150 years

1848-Irish Potato Famine: Tipperary Revolt - an unsuccessful nationalist revolt against British rule is put down by police

1905-US Secretary of War William Howard Taft makes a secret agreement with Japanese Prime Minister Katsura, agreeing to give Japan free rein in Korea in return for non-interference with the US in the Philippines

1921-Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party

1923-Albert Einstein speaks about pacifism in Berlin

1958-U.S. President Eisenhower signs into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, establishing NASA

1988-Gorbachev pushes plan to elect a Soviet president and parliament in March 1989