What happened on 9 July?

18 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1762 Catherine the Great's reign Enlightened-absolutist empress; Russia expands hugely (Crimea 1783, partitions of Poland) and becomes a great European power.
2. 1962 Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans 32 canvases of mass-market soup; manifesto of Pop Art.
3. 1868 14th Amendment to US Constitution Birthright citizenship and equal protection clause.
4. 1943 Italian Campaign Long, costly Allied slog up the Italian peninsula -- Monte Cassino, Anzio, Po Valley.
5. 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily Operation Husky opened the Italian campaign; Mussolini fell weeks later.
6. 1926 The Northern Expedition Nationalists and Communists march north together from Canton to break the warlords — and succeed, reunifying China under the Kuomintang flag by 1928. Halfway through, in Shanghai,
7. 1877 First Wimbledon Championships Men's singles tennis championship at Wimbledon.
8. 2022 Sri Lankan economic crisis Bankruptcy and shortages drive crowds to storm the presidential palace, forcing the leader to flee the country.
9. 1762 Catherine's coup against Peter III Six months into her husband's reign, the German-born empress rides to the Guards in uniform and seizes the throne; Peter is dead within days.
10. 2011 South Sudan independence World's newest internationally recognised state separates from Sudan.
11. 1860 Nightingale Training School opens Funded by the public's Nightingale Fund, the first secular professional nursing school opens at St Thomas' Hospital in London.
12. 1850 Presidency of Millard Fillmore Signed Compromise of 1850; Fugitive Slave Act inflamed tensions.
13. 1971 Kissinger's secret trip to Beijing Feigning a stomach upset in Pakistan, Nixon's national security adviser slips off to Beijing to meet Zhou Enlai and arrange the President's visit.
14. 1996 Elevators (Me & You) (OutKast) Spacey ATLiens single about fame's double edges.
15. 1755 Braddock's defeat at the Monongahela A British column marching on Fort Duquesne is cut to pieces by French and Indigenous fighters; General Braddock is killed and his young aide George Washington rallies the survivors
16. 1793 Upper Canada limits slavery Months after Chloe Cooley was bound and sold across the Niagara, Simcoe's Act bars new enslavement — the first legislation against slavery in the British Empire.
17. 1609 Rudolf II's Letter of Majesty Pressed by his brother Matthias and the Bohemian estates, Rudolf guarantees Bohemia's Protestants freedom of worship — the charter whose violation sparks the Defenestration of Prag
18. 1955 Russell–Einstein Manifesto Signed by Einstein a week before his death and issued by Bertrand Russell, the manifesto warns that nuclear war threatens the human race and calls for peaceful settlement of disput