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July 13 is the 194th day of the year (195th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 171 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1930, the first two World Cup matches took place simultaneously on 13 July and were won by France and USA, who defeated Mexico 4-1 and Belgium 3-0 respectively. The first goal in World Cup history was scored by Lucien Laurent of France. In the final, Uruguay defeated Argentina 4-2 in front of a crowd of 93,000 people in Montevideo, and in doing so became the first nation to win the World Cup.
Previous international competitions
The world’s first international football match was a challenge match played in Glasgow in 1872 between Scotland and England, which ended in a 0-0 draw. The first international tournament, the inaugural edition of the British Home Championship, took place in 1884. At this stage the sport was rarely played outside the United Kingdom. As football grew in popularity in other parts of the world at the turn of the 20th century, it was held as a demonstration sport with no medals awarded at the 1900 and 1904 Summer Olympics (however, the IOC has retroactively upgraded their status to official events), and at the 1906 Intercalated Games.
After FIFA was founded in 1904, it tried to arrange an international football tournament between nations outside the Olympic framework in Switzerland in 1906. These were very early days for international football, and the official history of FIFA describes the competition as having been a failure.
At the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, football became an official competition. Planned by The Football Association (FA), England’s football governing body, the event was for amateur players only and was regarded suspiciously as a show rather than a competition. Great Britain (represented by the England national amateur football team) won the gold medals. They repeated the feat in 1912 in Stockholm, where the tournament was organised by the Swedish Football Association.
With the Olympic event continuing to be contested only between amateur teams, Sir Thomas Lipton organised the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy tournament in Turin in 1909. The Lipton tournament was a championship between individual clubs (not national teams) from different nations, each one of which represented an entire nation. The competition is sometimes described as The First World Cup, and featured the most prestigious professional club sides from Italy, Germany and Switzerland, but the FA of England refused to be associated with the competition and declined the offer to send a professional team. Lipton invited West Auckland, an amateur side from County Durham, to represent England instead. West Auckland won the tournament and returned in 1911 to successfully defend their title. They were given the trophy to keep forever, as per the rules of the competition.
In 1914, FIFA agreed to recognise the Olympic tournament as a “world football championship for amateurs”, and took responsibility for managing the event. This paved the way for the world’s first intercontinental football competition, at the 1920 Summer Olympics, contested by Egypt and thirteen European teams, and won by Belgium. Uruguay won the next two Olympic football tournaments in 1924 and 1928. Those were also the first two open world championships, as 1924 was the start of FIFA’s professional era.
Due to the success of the Olympic football tournaments, FIFA, with President Jules Rimet the driving force, again started looking at staging its own international tournament outside of the Olympics. On 28 May 1928, the FIFA Congress in Amsterdam decided to stage a world championship itself. With Uruguay now two-time official football world champions and to celebrate their centenary of independence in 1930, FIFA named Uruguay as the host country of the inaugural World Cup tournament.
The national associations of selected nations were invited to send a team, but the choice of Uruguay as a venue for the competition meant a long and costly trip across the Atlantic Ocean for European sides. Indeed, no European country pledged to send a team until two months before the start of the competition. Rimet eventually persuaded teams from Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia to make the trip. In total thirteen nations took part: seven from South America, four from Europe and two from North America.
World Cups before World War II
After the creation of the World Cup, the 1932 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles, did not plan to include football as part of the schedule due to the low popularity of the sport in the United States, as American football had been growing in popularity. FIFA and the IOC also disagreed over the status of amateur players, and so football was dropped from the Games. Olympic football returned at the 1936 Summer Olympics, but was now overshadowed by the more prestigious World Cup.
The issues facing the early World Cup tournaments were the difficulties of intercontinental travel, and war. Few South American teams were willing to travel to Europe for the 1934 and 1938 tournaments, with Brazil the only South American team to compete in both. The 1942 and 1946 competitions were cancelled due to World War II and its aftermath.
1174 – William I of Scotland, a key rebel in the Revolt of 1173-1174, is captured at Alnwick by forces loyal to Henry II of England.
1260 – the Livonian Order suffered its greatest defeat in the 13th century in the battle of Durbe against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
1558 – Battle of Gravelines: in France, Spanish forces led by Count Lamoral of Egmont defeat the French forces of Marshal Paul de Thermes at Gravelines.
1573 – Eighty Years’ War: the Siege of Haarlem ends after seven months.
1643 – English Civil War: Battle of Roundway Down – In England, Henry Wilmot, 1st Earl of Rochester, commanding the Royalist forces, heavily defeats the Parliamentarian forces led by Sir William Waller.
1787 – The Continental Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance establishing governing rules for the Northwest Territory. It also establishes procedures for the admission of new states and limits the expansion of slavery.
1793 – Journalist and French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat was assassinated in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday, a member of the opposing political faction.
1794 – The Battle of the Vosges is fought between French forces and those of Prussia and Austria.
1814 – The Carabinieri, the national gendarmerie of Italy, is established.
1830 – The General Assembly’s Institution, now the Scottish Church College, one of the pioneering institutions that ushered the Bengal Renaissance, is founded by Alexander Duff and Raja Ram Mohan Roy, in Calcutta, India.
1854 – In the Battle of Guaymas, Mexico, General Jose Maria Yanez stops the French invasion led by Count Gaston de Raousset-Boulbon.
1863 – New York Draft Riots: in New York City, opponents of conscription begin three days of rioting which will be later regarded as the worst in United States history.
1878 – Treaty of Berlin: the European powers redraw the map of the Balkans. Serbia, Montenegro and Romania become completely independent of the Ottoman empire.
1905 – The verdict in the six-month long Smarthavicharam trial of Kuriyedath Thathri is pronounced, leading to the excommunication of 65 men of various castes.
1919 – The British airship R34 lands in Norfolk, England, completing the first airship return journey across the Atlantic in 182 hours of flight.
1923 – The Hollywood Sign is officially dedicated in the hills above Hollywood, Los Angeles. It originally reads “Hollywoodland ” but the four last letters are dropped after renovation in 1949.
1941 – World War II: Montenegrins start a popular uprising against the Axis Powers (Trinaestojulski ustanak), the first one in Axis-controlled countries.
1962 – In an unprecedented action, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dismisses seven members of his Cabinet, marking the effective end of the National Liberals as a distinct force within British politics.
1973 – Alexander Butterfield reveals the existence of the Nixon tapes to the special Senate committee investigating the Watergate break in.
1977 – New York City, amidst a period of financial and social turmoil experiences a blackout lasting nearly 24 hours that leads to widespread fires and looting.
1985 – The Live Aid benefit concert takes place in London and Philadelphia, as well as other venues such as Sydney and Moscow.
1985 – United States Vice President George H.W. Bush becomes the Acting President for the day when President Ronald Reagan undergoes surgery to remove polyps from his colon.
1990 – An earthquake with its epicentre in Afghanistan results in the greatest number of fatalities in a mountaineering accident in High Asian mountains when an avalanche kills 43 climbers in Camp I on Pik Lenina (Lenin Peak).
2003 – French DGSE personnel abort an operation to rescue Íngrid Betancourt from FARC rebels in Colombia, causing a political scandal when details are leaked to the press.
2008 – War in Afghanistan: Taliban guerrillas attack NATO troops near the village of Wanat in the Waygal district in Afghanistan’s far eastern province of Nuristan.
2011 – Mumbai is rocked by three bomb blasts during the evening rush hour, killing 26 and injuring 130.
* Christian Feast Day:
* Abd-al-Masih
* Abel of Tacla Haimonot (Coptic Church)
* Clelia Barbieri
* Eugenius of Carthage
* Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor
* Mildthryth
* Silas (Roman Catholic Church)
* Teresa of the Andes
* July 13 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
* Statehood Day (Montenegro)
* The last day of Naadam (Mongolia)
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