July 16
1920 — Babe Ruth breaks his season record of 29 homers with his 30th, leading the New York Yankees past the St. Louis Browns, 5-2. Ruth ends the season with 54.
1920 — The United States sweeps Australia in five matches to win the Davis Cup for the first time since 1913. The U.S. team is made up of Bill Tilden and Bill Johnston.
1938 — Paul Runyan wins the PGA Championship by routing Sam Snead 8 and 7 in the final round.
1947 — Rocky Graziano scores a technical knockout with a barrage of 30 punches against Tony Zale in the sixth round to win the world middleweight boxing title. Held in Chicago Stadium, it’s the largest grossing fight in history.
1950 — Uruguay beats Brazil 2-1 to win soccer’s World Cup in Rio de Janeiro.
1967 — Kathy Whitworth wins the LPGA championship by one stroke over Shirley Englehorn. Whitworth sinks a fifty-foot uphill putt for a birdie on the 18th green at Pleasant Valley Country Club in Sutton Mass.
1989 — Betsy King birdies three of the first four holes of the final round to win her first U.S. Women’s Open championship by four strokes over Nancy Lopez.
1993 — Nick Faldo ties the best single round in 122 years of the British Open with a course-record 63 to give him a one-stroke lead after the second round.
1995 — Annika Sorenstam of Sweden wins the U.S. Women’s Open by one stroke over Meg Mallon, her first victory on the LPGA Tour.
2005 — In Las Vegas, Jermain Taylor beats Bernard Hopkins for the undisputed middleweight title. Hopkins, a winner of a record 20 consecutive defenses, starts slowly and the undefeated challenger builds up a big enough lead on two judges’ scorecards to take the crown.
2006 — J.R. Todd becomes the first black driver to win an NHRA Top Fuel event, beating Tony Schumacher in the Mopar Mile-High Nationals.
2011 — Kyle Busch wins the Nationwide race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway to become the third driver to win 100 races in NASCAR’s three national series. Busch, with 22 Cup victories and 29 Trucks wins, also ties Mark Martin for first place in career Nationwide Series victories with 49. Richard Petty and David Pearson are the other drivers with at least 100 wins.
2012 — Roger Federer surpasses Pete Sampras to set the record for the most weeks at No. 1 in the ATP rankings. After winning Wimbledon a week ago — his 75th career ATP title — Federer returns to the top for the first time since June 2010. Today marks his 287th week at No. 1, one more than Sampras.
July 17
1939 — Henry Picard beats Byron Nelson 1-up in 37 holes to win the PGA championship.
1941 — Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak of 56 games is stopped by Al Smith and Jim Bagby of the Indians before 67,000 at Cleveland.
1955 — Beverly Hanson beats Louise Suggs by three strokes in a playoff to capture the first LPGA championship.
1966 — Jim Ryun becomes the first American to hold the record in the mile since 1937. With a time of 3:51.3 at Berkeley, Calif., Ryun shatters Michel Jazy’s mark of 3:53.6 by 2.3 seconds.
1974 — Bob Gibson strikes out Cesar Geronimo of the Reds in the second inning to become the second pitcher in major league history to record 3,000 strikeouts.
1979 — Sebastian Coe breaks the world record in the mile with a time of 3:48.95 in Oslo, Norway. The time is rounded up to 3:49.
1983 — Bobby Hebert passes for 314 yards and three touchdowns to lead the Michigan Panthers to a 24-22 win over the Philadelphia Stars in the first USFL championship game.
1983 — Tom Watson wins his second straight and fifth career British Open title. Watson shoots a 9-under 275 at Royal Birkdale Golf Club in Southport, England to finish one stroke ahead of Andy Bean and Hale Irwin.
1990 — Minnesota becomes the first team in major league history to pull off two triple plays in one game, but it isn’t enough to overcome Boston as the Red Sox beat the Twins 1-0.
1994 — Brazil wins a record fourth World Cup soccer title, taking the first shootout in championship game history over Italy.
2005 — Tiger Woods records another ruthless performance at St. Andrews, closing with a 2-under 70 to win the British Open for his 10th career major. He wins by five shots, the largest margin in any major since Woods won by eight at St. Andrews five years ago. He joins Jack Nicklaus as the only players to win the career Grand Slam twice.
2006 — Stacey Nuveman and Lovieanne Jung each homer to power the United States to the World Cup of Softball title with a 5-2 victory over Japan.
2011 — Japan stuns the United States in a riveting Women’s World Cup final, winning 3-1 on penalty kicks after coming from behind twice in a 2-2 tie. Goalkeeper Ayumi Kaihori makes two brilliant saves in the shootout. Japan, making its first appearance in the final of a major tournament, hadn’t beaten the Americans in their first 25 meetings.
2011 — Darren Clarke gives Northern Ireland another major championship, winning the British Open by three strokes over Americans Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson.
2016 — Henrik Stenson shoots an 8-under 63 to beat Phil Mickelson by three strokes, becoming the first man from Sweden to win the British Open.
July 18
1896 — James Foulis wins the U.S. Men’s Open golf championship at Shinnecock Hills, Southampton, N.Y.
1927 — Ty Cobb of the Philadelphia Athletics doubles off the glove of Harry Heilmann for his 4,000th hit.
1951 — Jersey Joe Walcott, at 37, becomes the oldest fighter to win the world heavyweight title with a seventh-round knockout of Ezzard Charles at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.
1970 — San Francisco’s Willie Mays gets career hit number 3,000 off Montreal’s Mike Wegener in the second inning.
1975 — The trial of Dave Forbes, the first pro athlete to be indicted for a crime committed during play, ends in a hung jury. Forbes, of the Boston Bruins, was indicted for excessive force used on an opponent. Forbes’ victim was Henry Boucha in a game on Jan. 4 against the North Stars at Minnesota. The prosecution decides not to seek a retrial.
1987 — New York’s Don Mattingly ties Dale Long’s 31-year-old major league record when he homers for the eighth consecutive game in the Yankees’ 7-2 loss to the Texas Rangers.
1993 — Greg Norman shoots a 64 on the final day to set a record with a 13-under 267 and wins the British Open. Norman wins by two strokes over defending champion Nick Faldo.
1995 — Britain’s Jonathan Edwards breaks the 10-year-old world triple jump record, leaping 59 feet in the Salamanca Provincial meet. Edwards tops the previous mark of 58-11½ set in 1985 by Willie Banks of the United States.
1999 — Jean Van de Velde’s triple bogey on the 72nd hole sets the stage for Paul Lawrie to become the first Scotsman to win the British Open in his native land since Tommy Armour in 1931. Lawrie, 10 strokes behind when the final round began, wins the four-hole playoff over Van de Velde and Justin Leonard, making birdies on the last two holes to complete the biggest comeback in a major.
1999 — David Cone dazzles the Montreal Expos, throwing the 14th perfect game in modern history to lead the New York Yankees to a 6-0 victory.
2005 — In Oklahoma City, the United States loses a tournament title game for the first time since 1997, falling 3-1 to Japan in the championship of the inaugural World Cup of Softball. The Americans, which lost to Canada earlier in this tournament, lost to Australia 1-0 in the championship game of the 1997 Superball, held in Ohio.
2010 — Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa shoots a 1-under 71 for a seven-stroke victory at 16-under 272 in the British Open on the Old Course at St. Andrews. Lee Westwood of England finishes second.
July 19
1877 — Spencer Gore beats William Marshall in 48 minutes (6-1, 6-2, 6-4) in the first men’s singles tennis championship at the All England Club, Wimbledon.
1909 — Cleveland shortstop Neal Ball pulls off the first unassisted triple play in modern major league history.
1910 — Cy Young wins his 500th career game as the Cleveland Indians beat the Washington Senators 5-4 in 11 innings.
1957 — Don Bowden is the first American to break the four-minute mile with a 3:58.7 time at Stockton, Calif.
1980 — The Summer Olympics open in Moscow without the United States and 64 other boycotting countries.
1987 — Nick Faldo of England wins the British Open by one shot when American Paul Azinger bogeys four times on the back nine.
1990 — Pete Rose, baseball’s all-time hits leader, is sentenced to five months in prison and an additional three months in a halfway house for cheating on his taxes.
1997 — Daniel Komen of Kenya shatters the 8-minute barrier for the 2-mile run and sets a world record of 7:58.61 at the Hechtel Night of track in Belgium. Haile Gebrselassie had set the world record of 8:01.08 on May 31.
2008 — In the WNBA’s first outdoor game, the Indiana Fever overcomes the heat and humidity in New York to beat the Liberty 71-55. Arthur Ashe Stadium, home of the U.S. Open, had a basketball court laid on top of the tennis court.
2009 — Tom Watson squanders a chance to become golf’s oldest major champion. The 59-year-old misses an 8-foot putt on the 72nd hole of the British Open, then loses a four-hole playoff by six shots to Stewart Cink.
2009 — Eighty-one-year-old Hershel McGriff becomes the oldest driver to take part in a national NASCAR series race, finishing 13th in a Camping World West Series event at Portland International Raceway.
2014 — Shoni Schimmel, a rookie who doesn’t start for her own team, puts on a record-breaking performance — scoring 29 points to help the East beat the West 125-124 in the first WNBA All-Star game to go to overtime. Tamika Catchings makes a layup with 6.9 seconds to go to give the East the lead and then knocks the ball away from Skylar Diggins on the defensive end to seal the victory.
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