On This Day: July 10 — From the Great Fire of Southwark to the Last Beetle
July 10 — A date that has seen everything from catastrophic fires and groundbreaking medical firsts to the dawn of satellite communications and the end of an automotive era. Here are the pivotal events that took place on this day in history.
1212: The Great Fire of Southwark swept through London, ravaging the district and destroying the recently rebuilt stone London Bridge. Contemporary accounts estimate 3,000 people lost their lives. The disaster reshaped medieval urban planning and fire safety measures in the city for centuries to come.
1890: Wyoming entered the Union as the 44th state after President Benjamin Harrison signed its statehood bill. The territory had already made history by granting women the right to vote in 1869, a move that cemented its progressive legacy.
1893: Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, a pioneering Black American surgeon, performed the first successful open-heart surgery in the United States at Chicago's Provident Hospital, which he had founded. The hospital was the nation's first Black-owned and operated medical facility, and Williams' operation on James Cornish marked a milestone in cardiac medicine, proving the viability of surgical intervention on the heart.
1921: Violence erupted in Belfast, Northern Ireland, as the Irish Republican Army clashed with British forces in what became known as Belfast's Bloody Sunday. Twenty people were killed, more than 100 injured, and 200 homes destroyed. The massacre deepened sectarian divisions and fueled the Irish War of Independence.
1925: The Scopes Monkey Trial officially began with jury selection in Dayton, Tennessee. High school teacher John Scopes was charged with violating state law by teaching evolution. The trial became a national spectacle, pitting modern science against religious fundamentalism and setting the stage for decades of debate over science education in U.S. public schools.
1940: The Battle of Britain commenced as German forces launched sustained air raids on shipping convoys in the English Channel, targeting ports and radar stations. The three-month-and-three-week campaign was the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces, and Britain's successful defense proved pivotal in preventing a Nazi invasion.
1962: Volvo safety engineer Nils Bohlin received U.S. Patent No. 3,043,625 for his three-point seat-belt system. Volvo had first introduced the design in 1959, but Bohlin's patent cemented a design now credited with saving more than a million lives. The company famously made the patent available to all automakers, a decision that transformed global automotive safety standards.
1962: The Telstar 1 satellite, built by AT&T and launched by NASA, became the world's first active communications satellite. It relayed the first live television signals and telephone calls between the United States and France, heralding the age of instant global communication.
1966: Martin Luther King Jr. led a massive rally at Soldier Field in Chicago, drawing thousands for a speech condemning housing discrimination against Black Americans. The event, dubbed Freedom Sunday, was part of a broader push for fair housing that culminated in the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
1973: The Bahamas gained full independence after 300 years of British colonial rule. The transition was peaceful, and the new nation quickly became a symbol of Caribbean sovereignty and tourism-driven economic development.
1985: French secret service agents sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior with two bombs while it was docked in Auckland, New Zealand. The vessel had been preparing to protest French nuclear testing in the Pacific. France initially denied involvement but later apologized and paid reparations to New Zealand, Greenpeace, and the family of a photographer who died in the attack. The scandal rocked the French government and intensified global anti-nuclear activism.
1991: Boris Yeltsin was sworn in as the first democratically elected president of Russia, a watershed moment in the country's post-Soviet transition. His leadership oversaw sweeping economic reforms but also a period of political instability that shaped modern Russia.
2011: The News of the World, a British tabloid with a 168-year history, published its final issue. The closure followed revelations that journalists had hacked the phones of celebrities, politicians, and crime victims, sparking a public outcry that reshaped press regulation in the UK.
2018: The last four boys and their soccer coach were rescued from the Tham Luang Nang Non cave system in northern Thailand, ending a harrowing 18-day ordeal. The 12-member Wild Boars team and their coach had been trapped by floodwaters after heavy rainfall. The dramatic rescue operation involved an international team of divers and captivated audiences worldwide.
2019: The final Volkswagen Beetle A5 rolled off the assembly line in Puebla, Mexico, ending production of the modern Beetle. Conceived in 1938 as Hitler's "people's car," the Beetle evolved into an icon of counterculture and longevity, boasting the longest production run of any single car model in automotive history.
— USA TODAY Network
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Today in history, July 10