French History This Month - July

• Events:
  • The first Battle of the Somme (WWI) - 1.07.1916
    21,000 men died the first day
  • Volume 1 of Diderot's Encyclopédie published - 1.07.1751
    
  • 2nd Olympiad opens in Paris - 2.07.1900
    
  • Samuel Champlain founded Québec - 3.07.1608
    
  • Statue of Liberty presented to the US by the people of France - 4.07.1883
    It was dedicated in 1886
  • Bikini first modeled - 5.07.1946
    in Paris, designed by Louis Reard
  • Jean Moulin executed - 8.07.1943
    Resistance leader
  • Napoléon annexes Holland - 9.07.1810
    Makes his brother Louis its king
  • Paris Métro opens - 10.07.1900
    
  • Jean-Paul Marat stabbed to death by Charlotte Corday - 13.07.1793
    While taking his bath
  • Bastille is stormed - 14.07.1789
    Beginning the French Revolution
  • La Marseillaise adoped as French National Anthem - 15.07.1795
    Written by Rouget de Lisle in 1792
  • Margarine patented - 15.07.1869
    By Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès in Paris
  • Mont Blanc tunnel opens - 16.07.1965
    Connecting France and Italy
  • English defeated at the Battle of Castillon - 17.07.1453
    By the French, ending the Hundred Years' War
  • Battle of the Pyramids - 21.07.1798
    Napoléon defeated an army of roughly 60,000 Mamelukes
  • Battle of Salamanca - 22.07.1812
    Duke of Wellington defeats the French
  • Jacques Cartier lands at Gaspé in Canada - 24.07.1534
    Claims territory for France
  • Louis Blériot flys across the English Channel - 25.07.1909
    The first to do so
  • Maximilien Robespierre executed by guillotine - 28.07.1794
    With 19 other French revolutionaries

• Births
  • George Sand - 1.07.1804 - Novelist, Amandine Dudevant, née Dupin
  • Louis Blériot - 1.07.1872 - Aviator
  • Erik Satie - 1.07.1925 - Composer
  • Jean Cocteau - 5.07.1889 - Poet, novelist, artist, film directory
  • Georges Pompidou - 5.07.1911 - Statesman & former president
  • Pierre Cardin - 7.07.1922 - Fashion designer
  • Jean de la Fontaine - 8.07.1621 - Writer
  • John Calvin - 10.07.1509 - Religious reformer
  • Camille Pissarro - 10.07.1830 - Painter
  • Marcel Proust - 10.07.1871 - Writer
  • Edgar Degas - 19.07.1834 - Impressionist Painter
  • Alexandre Dumas pève - 24.07.1802 - Author
  • Alexandre Dumas fils - 27.07.1824 - Dramatist
  • Marcel Duchamp - 28.07.1887 - Painter
  • Alexis de Tocqueville - 29.07.1805 - Historian and politician

• Deaths
  • Marie de Medici - 3.07.1642 - Queen of France
  • Marie Curie - 4.07.1934 - Franco-Polish physicist & Nobel Prize winner
  • Georges Bernanos - 5.07.1894 - Author
  • Guy de Maupassant - 6.07.1893 - Writer
  • Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre - 10.07.1851 - Phtographic pioneer
  • Alfred Dreyfus - 11.07.1935 - Soldier
  • Charlotte Corday - 17.07.1793 - Murderess of Marat
  • Marie François Xavier Bichat - 22.07.1802 - Anatomist
  • Sacha Guitry - 24.07.1957 - Actor and dramatist
  • Cyrano de Bergerac - 28.07.1655 - Poet and soldier