July 1917

The Sphere: An Illustrated Newspaper (July 7, 1917)

July – First Cottingley Fairies photographs taken in Yorkshire, England, apparently depicting fairies; a hoax not admitted by the child creators until 1981.

July 1 - East St. Louis riot: A labor dispute ignites a race riot in East St. Louis, Illinois, which leaves 250 dead.
 
Russian General Brusilov begins the major Kerensky Offensive in Galicia, initially advancing towards Lemberg.

July 2 – WWI: Greece joins the war on the side of the Allies.

July 6 – WWI:  Battle of Aqaba: Arabian troops led by T. E. Lawrence capture Aqaba from the Ottoman Empire.
 
Conscription Crisis of 1917 in Canada leads to passage of the Military Service Act.

July 7 – The Lions Clubs International is formed in the United States.

July 8–13 – WWI: First Battle of Ramadi: British troops fail to take Ramadi from the Ottoman Empire; a majority of British casualties are due to extreme heat.
 
July 12 – Bisbee Deportation: The Phelps Dodge Corporation deports over 1,000 suspected IWW members from Bisbee, Arizona.

July 16–July 17 – Russian troops mutiny, abandon the Austrian front, and retreat to the Ukraine; hundreds are shot by their commanding officers during the retreat.

July 16–July 18 – Serious clashes in Petrograd in July Days; Lenin escapes to Finland; Trotsky is arrested.

July 17 – King George V of the United Kingdom issues a proclamation, stating that thenceforth the male line descendants of the British Royal Family will bear the surname Windsor, vice the Germanic bloodline of House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which is an offshoot of the historic (800+ years) House of Wettin.

July 20 - The Parliament of Finland, with a Social Democratic majority, passes a "Sovereignty Act," declaring itself, as the representative of the Finnish people, sovereign over the Grand Principality of Finland. The Russian Provisional Government does not recognize the act, as it would have devolved Russian sovereignty over Finland, formerly exercised by the Russian Emperor as Grand Prince of Finland and alter the relationship between Finland and Russia into a real union with Russia solely responsible for the defence and foreign relations of an independent Finland.
 
(July 7, O.S.) – Alexander Kerensky becomes premier of the Russian Provisional Government, replacing Prince Georgy Lvov.
The Russian Provisional Government enacts women's suffrage.
The Corfu Declaration, which enables the establishment of the post-war Kingdom of Yugoslavia, is signed by the Yugoslav Committee and the Kingdom of Serbia.

July 20–July 28 – WWI: Austrian and German forces repulse the Russian advance into Galicia.
 
July 25 – Sir William Thomas White introduces Canada's first income tax as a "temporary" measure (lowest bracket is 4% and highest is 25%).

July 28 – The Silent Parade is organized by the NAACP in New York City to protest the East St. Louis riot of July 2, as well as lynchings in Tennessee and Texas.

July 30 – The Parliament of Finland is dissolved by the Russian Provisional Government. New elections are held in the autumn, resulting in a bourgeois majority.

July 31 – WWI: Battle of Passchendaele: Allied offensive operations commence in Flanders.