1534: French explorer Jacques Cartier claims for France the lands around Gaspé by erecting a 30-foot cross at Pointe-Penouille [1]

1567: Mary, Queen of Scots, is forced to abdicate, and her one-year-old son becomes King James VI of Scotland

1832: Benjamin Bonneville leads the first wagon train across the Rocky Mountains through Wyoming’s South Pass

1911: American explorer Hiram Bingham rediscovers Machu Picchu, the Lost City of the Incas

1943: RAF begins bombing ​Hamburg​ (until 3rd August), creating a firestorm and killing 42,600 people during Operation Gomorrah

2019: Global warming is the fastest in 2,000 years and scientific consensus that humans are the cause is at 99%, according to three major reports published in journals “Nature” and “Nature Geoscience”

Source: Onthisday.com