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July 1
The Academy Award for Best Director is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given in honor of a film director who has exhibited outstanding directing while working in the film industry. The 1st Academy Awards were held in 1929 with the award being split into "Dramatic" and "Comedy" categories; Frank Borzage (pictured) and Lewis Milestone won for Seventh Heaven and Two Arabian Knights, respectively. Nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the directors branch of AMPAS; winners are selected by a plurality vote from the entire eligible voting members of the Academy. The Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture have been very closely linked throughout their history. Of the 88 films that have been awarded Best Picture, 63 have also been awarded Best Director. Since its inception, the award has been given to 69 directors. John Ford has received the most awards in this category with four. William Wyler was nominated on twelve occasions, more than any other individual. abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz (Full list...)
July 4
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Historical coats of arms of the U.S. states date back to the admission of the first states to the Union. Despite the widely accepted practice of determining early statehood from the date of ratification of the United States Constitution, many of the original colonies referred to themselves as states shortly after the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776. Committees of political leaders and intellectuals were established by state legislatures to research and propose a seal and coat of arms. Many of these members were signers of the Articles of Confederation, Declaration of Independence, and United States Constitution. Several of the earliest adopted state coats of arms and seals were similar or identical to their colonial counterparts. State Arms of the Union, illustrated by Henry Mitchell and published by Louis Prang, offers historically accurate renderings of the state's coats of arms as they existed in 1876. An accomplished engraver with the Bureau of Engraving and Printing for 40 years, Mitchell was responsible for engraving several coats of arms for official state use as well as arms for well-known educational and philanthropic organizations. (Full list...)
July 8
The 2012 Tour de France was contested by 22 teams. The 2012 Tour de France was the 99th edition of the race, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It started in the Belgian city of Liège on 30 June and finished on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on 22 July. The number of riders allowed per squad was nine, resulting in a start list total of 198 riders. From the riders that began the race, 153 crossed the finish line in Paris. The average rider age was 30.17, with 22-year-old Thibaut Pinot (FDJ–BigMat) as the youngest rider, and 40-year-old Jens Voigt (RadioShack–Nissan) the oldest. The riders came from 31 countries; France, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Germany and Australia all had 12 or more riders in the race. Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack–Nissan) won the prologue and held the general classification leader's yellow jersey for the first week. Team Sky's Bradley Wiggins (pictured), second in the prologue, took the leadership of the race on stage seven, the first mountainous stage. He maintained his lead for the remainder of the race, winning the two longest time trials, and not losing time to his main challengers for the overall title in the mountains. (Full list...)
July 11
The order of battle of the Croatian Special Police in 1991–95 included up to 30 individual special forces units subordinated to the Ministry of the Interior. The special police (logo pictured) was created around the Ministry of the Interior's existing airborne special forces unit following an open revolt of the Croatian Serbs against the Government of Croatia in August 1990. It further developed with the increasing involvement of the Yugoslav People's Army in the conflict, supporting the Croatian Serbs. The conflict escalated into the Croatian War of Independence in 1991. The special police took part in the first clashes of the war in Pakrac and at the Plitvice Lakes. As Croatia had no army, the 3,000-strong special forces became the country's most effective fighting force. Even though several special police units were transformed into the Croatian National Guard (later renamed the Croatian Army) in 1991, the special police continued to operate throughout the war as special forces units supporting virtually all army operations. (Full list...)
July 15
Forty-seven Nobel Memorial Prizes in Economic Sciences have been given to 76 individuals. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially known as The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to researchers in the field of economic sciences. The first prize was awarded in 1969 to Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen. Each recipient receives a medal, a diploma and a monetary award that has varied throughout the years. In 1969, Frisch and Tinbergen were given a combined 375,000 SEK, which is equivalent to 2,871,041 SEK in December 2007. The award is presented in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death. The institution with the most affiliated laureates in economic sciences is the University of Chicago, which has 28 affiliated laureates. (Full list...)
July 18
Hong Kong has at least 7,829 high-rise buildings, with no fewer than 1,295 skyscrapers standing taller than 100 m (328 ft) and at least 312 buildings over 150 m (492 ft) in height. The tallest of these skyscrapers is the 108-storey International Commerce Centre, completed in 2010, which stands 484 m (1,588 ft) and is the ninth-tallest building in the world. The total combined heights of these skyscrapers is approximately 333.8 km (207 mi), making Hong Kong the world's tallest urban agglomeration. Furthermore, Hong Kong has the most people living at the 15th floor or higher, and the most buildings of at least 100 m (328 ft) and 150 m (492 ft) height in the world. Each evening, at least 44 skyscrapers and buildings on both sides of Victoria Harbour light up in a synchronised show called A Symphony of Lights, named by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest permanent light and sound festival in the world. (Full list...)
July 22
The best-selling album in the United Kingdom is Greatest Hits, a 1981 compilation album by the British band Queen (pictured). As of July 2016, it has sold more than 6.1 million copies, of which approximately 124,000 have been from downloads. An album is defined by the UK's Official Charts Company as being a type of music release that features more than four tracks and is longer than 25 minutes in duration. Sales of albums were first published on 22 July 1956 by the music magazine Record Mirror, who compiled a weekly chart of the country's five biggest-selling records. Since then, three albums have gone on to sell more than five million copies each: Greatest Hits by Queen, Gold: Greatest Hits by ABBA and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles. The top eight best-selling albums have each sold at least four million copies. Of the UK's top 60 best-selling albums, more than half are by British artists. Fourteen are by American artists, with the rest being from Ireland, Canada, Sweden and Jamaica. (Full list...)
July 25
Bowman Creek is a 26-mile (42 km) long tributary of the Susquehanna River in Luzerne County and Wyoming County, in Pennsylvania, in the United States. It has 26 named tributaries, of which 21 are direct tributaries and 5 are sub-tributaries. These include nineteen runs, six creeks, and one hollow (a stream that does not have a name of its own, but takes the name of the valley through which it flows). By length, the tributaries range from the 0.9-mile (1.4 km) long Benson Hollow and Wolf Run to the 7.2-and-7.7-mile (11.6 and 12.4 km) long Leonard Creek and Beaver Run. By watershed area, they range from 0.74 and 1.02 square miles (1.9 and 2.6 km2) for Wolf Run and Sugar Run to 11.4 and 17.4 square miles (30 and 45 km2) for Roaring Run and Leonard Creek. Bowman Creek's main stem is designated as a High-Quality Coldwater Fishery and the watersheds of all but two of its tributaries have the same designation. Wild trout naturally reproduce throughout all of the creek's tributaries. A total of ten named streams in the watershed of Bowman Creek are classified by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission as Class A Wild Trout Waters. (Full list...)
July 29
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American screenwriter and producer Gene Roddenberry's work includes the creation of the Star Trek franchise. He began a writing career while he was a sergeant in the Los Angeles Police Department, and his first work to be bought by a network was The Secret Defense of 117, although it took four years to be broadcast. While writing for The Lieutenant, he began working on a science fiction premise that became Star Trek. He oversaw the production of the series for the first two seasons, but following budget cuts and the move to an unfavorable timeslot for the third season, he stepped back from working on Star Trek but remained credited as an executive producer. Star Trek was resurrected twice, first as an animated series, and then as Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The studio brought in a new producer for the sequel to the film, to which Roddenberry demanded creative control or else he would refuse an executive producer credit, instead only willing to be credited as creative consultant. This credit started with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and continued through to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. (Full list...)