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On July 28, 1942, Joseph Stalin issues "Order No. 227" that came to be known as "Not a step back!" in defense of Leningrad against the German advance. The order established that one to three battalions called the Shtrafbats, are sent to the frontlines fraught with danger and death. Order No. 227 also directed the Russian army to create blocking detachments to maintain military discipline, prevent deserting troops from fleeing the battlefield, and shooting them on the spot. The order declared, “Panic makers and cowards must be liquidated on the spot. Not one step backward without orders from higher headquarters!"

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On July 21, 2011, NASA's space shuttle Atlantis lands at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and marked the end of NASA's 30-year space shuttle mission. Known to NASA as Atlantis STS-135, it was the 135th and final mission of the United States Space Shuttle program. The space shuttle, Atlantis, was manned by 4 astronauts - Christopher Ferguson, Douglas G. Hurley, Sandra Magnus, and Rex J. Walheim when it launched on July 8, 2011, to deliver thousands of pounds of equipment, parts, and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) through 2012. The space mission took 13 days to complete traveling...

On July 14, 1789, French revolutionaries stormed and took possession of the medieval fortress and prison known as the Bastille. The storming of Bastille marked the beginning of the French Revolution that eventually led to the end of France's last monarchy ruled by King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette, who were later executed by guillotine for treason in 1793. Today, the storming of Bastille is celebrated each year on July 14 as Bastille Day or ‘la Fête Nationale Française’ or ‘Fete Nat’ with a French military parade, fireworks and concerts on Champs-Élysées in Paris, France. Soon other countries...

On July 7, 1930, the construction of the Hoover Dam in the State of Nevada begins. Hoover Dam was considered the largest dam of its time with a height of 726 feet and 1,244 across. It's able to hold 28,945,000 acre-feet of water from Lake Mead, once the largest reservoir in the United States. Hoover Dam used a total of 3,250,000 cubic yards of concrete that some estimates would be enough concrete to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York. The immensely huge amount of concrete including tens of millions of pounds of steel and pipes required...