* On July 14, 1789, Parisian revolutionaries and mutinous troops storm and dismantle the Bastille, signaling the start of the French Revolution. The royal fortress had come to symbolize the tyranny of the Bourbon monarchs.

* On July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr fatally shoots his long-time political antagonist Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Charged with murder in New York and New Jersey, Burr, still the vice president, returned to Washington, D.C., where he finished his term immune from prosecution.

* On July 16, 1935, the world’s first parking meter is installed on the corner of First S...