Historical Events
- Jul 15 Natal forms as a British colony separate from Cape Colony
- Jul 16 Statue of Laurens Jansz Coster unveiled in Haarlem
- Jul 17 The Great Train Wreck of 1856 between Camp Hill and Fort Washington, Pennsylvania kills over 60 people
- Jul 31 Christchurch, New Zealand, is chartered as a city
Famous Birthdays
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943)
Jul 10 Serbian-American physicist, electrical engineer and inventor who developed alternating current and the Tesla Coil, born in Smiljan, Austrian Empire (now Croatia)
- Jul 15 Owen Dunell, South African cricket batsman (South Africa's 1st Test captain; 2 Tests), born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa (d. 1929)
- Jul 21 Louise Blanchard Bethune, 1st American woman architect, born in Waterloo, New York (d. 1915)
- Jul 23 Arthur H. Bird, American composer, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts (d. 1923)
- Jul 23 Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Indian early nationalist leader, born in Ratnagiri, British India (d. 1920)
- Jul 24 Charles Émile Picard, French mathematician, born in Paris (d. 1941)
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Jul 26 Irish dramatist (Pygmalion, Nobel Prize for Literature 1925), born in Dublin, Ireland
- Jul 30 Richard Haldane, British viscount and lord-chancellor (Life of A Smith), born in Edinburgh, Scotland (d. 1928)
Famous Deaths
- Jul 4 István Ferenczy, Hungarian sculptor, dies at 64
Amedeo Avogadro (1776-1856)
Jul 9 Italian scientist who contributed to molecular theory, including what is known as Avogadro's law (6.022 x 10 ^ 23), dies at 79
- Jul 9 James Strang, American Mormon splinter group leader (self-proclaimed king of Beaver Island), dies of his wounds three weeks after being attacked by disaffected members at 43
- Jul 11 Josef Kajetán Tyl, Czech playwright, writer and author of the Czech national anthem (Kde domov můj), dies of an unknown illness at 48
- Jul 15 Margaretha Jacoba de Neufville, Dutch author (The Kidnap), dies at 81
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Jul 29 German pianist, composer (Humoresque), and music critic (Neue Zeitschrift für Musik - New Journal for Music), dies at 46
