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Labor leader Jimmy Hoffa is reported missing

Born on This Day

Primo Levi

1919 - 1987

Italian-Jewish chemist and writer who recounted his experience as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in his memoir “If This Is a Man.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel

1967 - 2020

Gen X author who brought awareness to mental health struggles through her 1994 memoir “Prozac Nation.”

Wesley Snipes

1962 -

Actor and martial artist best known for playing the titular vampire hunter in the “Blade” franchise.

Primo LeviGetty Images

Elizabeth WurtzelCorbis via Getty Images

Wesley SnipesGetty Images

1946

JUL31

Marilyn Monroe, then known as Norma Jean Dougherty, signs her first movie contract, with Twentieth-Century Fox. She will be paid $150 a week.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on July 31st

Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, dies

Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order of Roman Catholic missionaries and educators, dies in Rome. The Society of Jesus, as the Jesuit order is formally known, played an important role in the Counter-Reformation and eventually succeeded in converting millions around the world to Catholicism. Ignatius, the son of a noble and wealthy Spanish […]

Hurricane sinks Spanish treasure ships

A hurricane strikes the east coast of Florida, sinking 10 Spanish treasure ships and killing nearly 1,000 people, on July 31, 1715. All of the gold and silver onboard at the time would not be recovered until 250 years later. From 1701, Spain sent fleets of ships to the Western Hemisphere to bring back natural […]

Marquis de Lafayette becomes a major-general without pay

On July 31, 1777, a 19-year-old French aristocrat, Marie-Joseph Paul Roch Yves Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, accepts a commission as a major-general in the Continental Army—without pay. During his service as the Continental Congress’ secret envoy to France, Silas Deane had, on December 7, 1776, struck an agreement with French military expert, Baron […]

Third Battle of Ypres begins in Flanders

On July 31, 1917, the Allies launch a renewed assault on German lines in the Flanders region of Belgium, in the much-contested region near Ypres, during World War I. The attack begins more than three months of brutal fighting, known as the Third Battle of Ypres. While the first and second battles at Ypres were […]

Preparations for the Final Solution begin

On July 31, 1941, Hermann Göring, writing under instructions from Hitler, ordered Reinhard Heydrich, SS general and Heinrich Himmler’s number-two man, “to submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question.” Goering recounted briefly the […]

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Ranger 7 photographs moon

Ranger 7, an unmanned U.S. lunar probe, takes the first close-up images of the moon—4,308 in total—before it impacts with the lunar surface northwest of the Sea of Clouds. The images were 1,000 times as clear as anything ever seen through earth-bound telescopes. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had attempted a similar mission […]

Delta Flight 723 crashes in fog at Boston Logan

On July 31, 1973, Delta Flight 723 strikes a concrete seawall as it descends into Boston’s Logan International Airport amid heavy ground fog. The collision tears off some of the fuselage and the plane slams into the ground, breaking apart and bursting into flames. Almost all on board die instantly in what becomes the worst […]

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