July 1–3, 1863: The Battle of Gettsyburg is fought in Pennsylvania and Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia is forced to retreat south.
July 10, 1923: Earl Hamner Jr., creator of The Waltons, is born in Nelson County.
July 10, 1943: The tennis champion Arthur Ashe is born in Richmond. On his birthday in 1996, a statue of Ashe is unveiled on Monument Avenue in Richmond.
July 11, 1963: Martin Luther King Jr. travels to Danville and speaks to civil rights protesters there.
July 15, 1864: The banker Maggie Lena Walker is born in Richmond. Her mother is a servant in the home of Elizabeth Van Lew; her father is a white abolitionist writer.
July 22, 1587: After landing on the Outer Banks of present-day North Carolina, John White and forty men sail to Roanoke Island to check on a garrison of soldiers left there the year before. They find only the bones of one of the men.
July 24, 1609: A hurricane strikes the nine-ship English fleet bound for Virginia, and the flagship Sea Venture is separated from the other vessels.