July 1: Nuclear testing: Operation Crossroads, a series of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in Micronesia, is initiated by detonation of Able at an altitude of 520 feet (158 m).

July 4: Ankara University is founded in Turkey. - After over 381 years of Western dominance, the Philippines attains full independence.

July 5: Bikinis go on sale in Paris.

July 7: Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini becomes the first American saint to be canonized. - Howard Hughes nearly dies in a test flight of the Hughes XF-11, which crashes in a Beverly Hills neighborhood due to a propeller malfunction.

July 16: Bureau of Land Management (BLM) within Department of the Interior (formed by merger of Grazing Service and General Land Office).

July 21: An Irgun bomb explodes in Jerusalem due to secretive talks between Jews and Britain to consolidate the state of Israel.

July 22: King David Hotel bombing: The Irgun bombs the King David Hotel (headquarters of the British civil and military administration) in Jerusalem, killing 90.

July 25: Nuclear testing: In the first underwater test of the atomic bomb, the surplus USS Saratoga is sunk near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, when the United States detonates the Baker device during Operation Crossroads. - At Club 500 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis stage their first show as a comedy team. - In the last mass lynching in the United States, a mob of white men shoot and kill two African-American couples near Moore's Ford Bridge in Georgia. (source: Wikipedia)