📜 This Day in History

July 31

• 1009Sergius IV became the 142nd pope, succeeding John XVIII.
• 1874Patrick Francis Healy was inaugurated as president of Georgetown University, becoming the first African-American president of a predominantly white university in the United States.
• 1954A team of Italian climbers became the first to reach the summit of K2, the world's second-highest mountain.
• 1975The Troubles: In a botched paramilitary attack, three members of the popular Miami Showband and two Ulster Volunteer Force gunmen were killed in County Down, Northern Ireland.
• 2006Following intestinal surgery, Fidel Castro provisionally transferred the duties of the Cuban presidency to his brother Raúl.
• 2020A mid-air collision in Soldotna, Alaska, United States, killed seven people, including state representative Gary Knopp.

Born on this day

• 1912Milton Friedman, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2006)
• 1914Louis de Funès, French actor and screenwriter (died 1983)
• 1919Primo Levi, Italian chemist and author (died 1987)
• 1965J. K. Rowling, English author and film producer