Today in 1498 On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to land on the island of Trinidad.

July 31 is the 212th day of the year (213th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 153 days remaining until the end of the year.

Our on this day in history archives contain over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

EVENTS

781 – The oldest recorded eruption of Mt. Fuji (Traditional Japanese date: July 6, 781)

904 - Thessaloniki falls to the Arabs, who destroy the city.

1009 – Pietro Boccapecora becomes Pope Sergius IV

1423 – Hundred Years' War: Battle of Cravant – The French army is defeated at Cravant on the banks of the river Yonne.

1492 - Jews are expelled from Spain, when the Alhambra Decree takes effect.

1498 – On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to land on the island of Trinidad.

1588 – The Spanish Armada is spotted off the coast of England.

1655 – Russo-Polish War of 1654 to 1667: The Russian army enters the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.

1658 – Aurangzeb is proclaimed Mughal Emperor of India.

1667 – The Treaty of Breda ends the Second Anglo-Dutch War. The Dutch colony of New Amsterdam gets tranferred to British control, being renamed New York. The Dutch get the previously British colony in present-day Suriname.

1703 – Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, but is pelted with flowers.

1712 - Great Northern War: Danish and Swedish ships clash in the Baltic Sea, with an inconclusive result.

1715 - An 11-ship Spanish treasure fleet is lost in a hurricane between the Florida Keys and Havana, Cuba, killing at least 1,000 people.

1741 - Charles Albert of Bavaria invades Upper Austria and Bohemia.

1763 – Pontiac's War: The Odawa Chief Pontiac's forces defeat British troops at the Battle of Bloody Run.

1790 – First US patent issued; granted to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.

1856 – Christchurch, New Zealand is chartered as a city.

1865 - The first Narrow gauge mainline railway in the world opens at Grandchester, Queensland, Australia.

1901 - With hot-air balloon Preussen, Arthur Berson and Reinhard Suering reach a record height of 10,800 meters.

1913 - The Balkan States sign an armistice in Bucharest.

1914 - French Socialist politician Jean Jaurès is assassinated in a Paris café by the Nationalist Raoul Villain.

1917 – The Third Battle of Ypres starts in Flanders.

1919 – German national assembly adopts the Weimar constitution (to enter into force August 14)

1930 – The radio mystery program The Shadow airs for the first time.

1932 - Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party wins over 38% of the vote in German elections.

1936 – The International Olympic Committee announces that the 1940 Summer Olympics were to be held in Tokyo. However, the games were given back to the IOC after the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out, and were eventually cancelled altogether because of World War II.

1941 – Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring orders SS general Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question."

1945 – Pierre Laval, fugitive former leader of Vichy France, surrenders to Allied soldiers in Austria.

1948 – At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) is dedicated.

1951 – Japan Airlines is established.

1954 – First ascent of K2, by an Italian expedition led by Ardito Desio, also involving Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni. The lack of credit given to Walter Bonatti causes a lot of controversy in the years to come.

1956 – Jim Laker sets extraordinary record at Old Trafford in the fourth Test of taking nineteen wickets in a first-class match (the previous best was seventeen.

1961 – At Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, the first All-Star Game tie in major league baseball history occurs when the game is stopped in the 9th inning due to rain.

1964 – Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes).

1969 - The Mariner 6 probe flies by Mars and sends photographs to Earth.

1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover.

1973 – A Delta Air Lines jetliner crashes while landing in fog at Logan Airport, Boston, Massachusetts killing 89

1975 – In Detroit, Michigan, Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa is reported missing.

1976 – NASA releases the famous Face on Mars photo, taken by Viking 1.

1976 – Flooding on the Big Thompson River in Colorado kills 143 people.

1977 – David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam serial killer, carries out his last murder, shooting Stacey Moskowitz.

1981 – A 7-week strike by Major League Baseball players ends.

1987 – A rare, class F-4 tornado rips through Edmonton, Alberta, killing 27 people and causing $330 million in damage.

1988 – 32 people are killed when a bridge collapses in Penang, Malaysia.

1991 – The United States and Soviet Union sign the START I arms reduction treaty.

1991 – A Soviet OMON attacks a Lithuanian customs post in Medininkai.

1992 – China General Aviation flight 7552 crashes at take-off from Nanking, to Xiamen.

1992 – A Thai Airways Airbus A300-310 crashes into mountain south of Kathmandu, Nepal killing 113.

1992 – The Republic of Georgia joins the United Nations.

1996 – MIL-STD-1750A is declared inactive for use in new designs.

1998 – The United Kingdom imposes a total landmine ban.

1999 – NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface.

2000 – The Knesset (Israeli parliament) chooses Moshe Katsav as the next President.

2006 – Fidel Castro transfers power in Cuba to his brother Raul Castro.

2007 - Operation Banner, the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland, and the longest-running British Army operation ever, comes to an end.

2008 – Scientists report that the Phoenix spacecraft had confirmed the presence of frozen water on the planet Mars.

2012 - Michael Phelps beats Larisa Latynina's record number of Olympic medals.

2013 - Zimbabwe holds a Presidential election. The main candidates are long-time President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. Mugabe's ZANU-PF Party claims a landslide victory, but Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change declares the election null and void on the grounds of vote-rigging.

2014 - Shortly before midnight, gas explosions occur in the city of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, killing at least 26 people.

2015 - Beijing is given the right to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.

2017 - Los Angeles, California, volunteers to host the 2028 Summer Olympics, effectively giving the 2024 Summer Olympics to Paris.

2017 - US President Donald Trump fires White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, only ten days after giving him the job.