July 7

The city of Tyre falls to Crusader and Venetian forces after a nineteen-week siege.

Twenty-five years after being burned at the stake as a heretic and witch by an English-backed tribunal, Joan of Arc was formally exonerated by a papal-authorized retrial. Witnesses, including former companions and clergy, testified to her piety and the flawed proceedings of her original trial, restoring her reputation and paving the way for her eventual canonization as a saint in 1920.

Joan of Arc is posthumously acquitted of heresy in a retrial held 25 years after her execution, formally clearing her name.

During his second voyage to North America, Cartier's expedition encountered Mi'kmaq people along the coast of present-day Canada, engaging in trade and ceremonial exchange near Chaleur Bay. These early encounters marked the beginning of sustained contact between French explorers and Indigenous nations that shaped the subsequent course of French colonization in the region.

Spanish conquistadors, though badly weakened, defeat a much larger Aztec army at the Battle of Otumba during their retreat from Tenochtitlan.

Signed at the Prussian city of Tilsit, the treaty ended fighting between Napoleon's France and Tsar Alexander I's Russia, with Russia agreeing to join the Continental System blockading British trade. The settlement temporarily reshaped the map of Europe and marked the high point of Napoleon's diplomatic dominance over the continent.

French explorer Jacques Cartier makes first contact with Indigenous peoples in present-day Canada.

As Union losses mounted, Congress passed the Enrollment Act authorizing conscription of men for military service, with provisions allowing wealthier draftees to pay a commutation fee or hire a substitute. The law's perceived unfairness toward the poor later fueled violent draft riots in New York City just weeks afterward.

France and Russia sign the first Treaty of Tilsit, ending hostilities in the War of the Fourth Coalition.

A clash between Japanese and Chinese troops near a bridge outside Beijing escalated into a full military confrontation, which Japan used as justification for launching a broader invasion of China. The incident is widely regarded as the starting point of the Second Sino-Japanese War, a conflict that later merged into the broader Pacific theater of World War II.

The United States institutes its first military draft during the Civil War.

President Reagan's nomination of the Arizona appeals court judge fulfilled a campaign promise to appoint the first woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. Confirmed unanimously by the Senate, O'Connor served for 24 years as a pivotal swing vote on the Court before retiring in 2006, and remains a landmark figure in the history of women in American law.

The Marco Polo Bridge Incident provides Japan's pretext for launching a full-scale invasion of China, beginning the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Four suicide bombers detonated devices on three London Underground trains and a double-decker bus during the morning rush hour, in coordinated attacks carried out by militants linked to al-Qaeda. The bombings, Britain's deadliest terrorist attack since Lockerbie, prompted major reforms to UK counterterrorism and emergency response policy.

President Ronald Reagan nominates Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court, who becomes the first woman to serve as a justice.

Negotiated over a decade of diplomatic effort, the treaty represented the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons, though none of the world's nuclear-armed states participated in the vote or signed on. Supporters view it as an important normative step toward disarmament, while critics note its limited practical effect absent buy-in from nuclear powers.

Four coordinated bomb explosions strike London's public transport system, killing 56 people and injuring more than 700.

After a prolonged siege during the Crusades, the coastal city of Tyre in present-day Lebanon fell to a combined Crusader and Venetian force, cutting off a key Muslim stronghold and securing Crusader control over much of the Levantine coastline. The city's fall bolstered the Kingdom of Jerusalem's position for several subsequent decades.

The United Nations adopts the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, with 122 countries voting in favor.

During the chaotic Spanish retreat from Tenochtitlan known as La Noche Triste, a small, exhausted Spanish force encountered a vastly larger Aztec army near Otumba. Cortes personally led a cavalry charge that killed the Aztec commander, breaking the coordination of the opposing force and allowing the Spanish to escape annihilation and regroup.