-
0740: Death of St. Andrew of Crete
-
0959: Death of St. Odo the Good
-
0973: Death of St. Ulrich, bishop & patron of
Augsburg - 1st person known to have been canonized by a Pope
-
1054: Brightest known super-nova starts shining,
for 23 days.
-
1189: Henry II of England accepts a humiliating
peace offer from Phillip I of France, Richard "Lionheart,"
and John "Lackland"
-
1190: Kings Philip II & Richard I meet at VÇzelay,
France, and set off on the 3rd Crusade
-
1415: Creation of William Bruges as first Garter
King-of-Arms by Henry V, King of England
-
1519: Johann Tetzel, salesman of papal indulgences
in Germany, dies
-
1519: Martin Luther joins the Disputation of
Leipzig
-
1537: Death of Magdalen, Wife of James V and Queen
of Scotland
-
1567: Abdication of Mary, Queen of Scots
-
1606: Francis du Bose, of France, accused of
witchcraft
-
1623: Death of William Byrd, composer
-
1627: Death of Thomas Middleton, Elizabethan
dramatist
-
1653: The "Barebones" Parliament meets
-
1776: The Continental Congress adopted the
Declaration of Independence.
-
1802: The United States Military Academy officially
opened at West Point, New York.
-
1817: Governor Dewitt Clinton of New York broke
ground for the Erie Canal.
-
1825: "The Harmonicon" of London declared
that there was a "disagreeable eccentricity we had almost said
a hoax" about, of all things, Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.
-
1826: 50 years to the day after the Declaration of
Independence was adopted, former presidents John Adams and Thomas
Jefferson both died.
-
1831: The fifth president of the United States,
James Monroe, died in New York City.
-
1831: Baptist minister Dr. S.F. Smith composed
"America" for Independence Day services. He wrote the
words, borrowing the tune from an old German songbook. He didn't
realize at the time, the British were using the same tune for the
national anthem.
-
1845: American writer Henry David Thoreau began his
two-year experiment in simple living at Walden Pond, near Concord,
Massachusetts.
-
1855: The first edition of "Leaves of
Grass," by Walt Whitman, was published in Brooklyn, New York.
-
1862: English clergyman and mathematician Charles
L. Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, began inventing the story
of "Alice in Wonderland" for his friend Alice Pleasance
Liddell during a boating trip.
-
1863: Union troops defeated Confederate forces in a
battle at Vicksburg, Miss.
-
1863: Boise, Idaho founded (now capital of Idaho).
-
1872: The 30th president of the United States,
Calvin Coolidge, was born in Plymouth, Vermont.
-
1882: Telegraph Hill Observatory opens.
-
1894: Elwood Haynes successfully tests one of the
1st US autos
-
1895: The poem, "America the Beautiful"
by Wellesley College professor Katherine Lee Bates, was first
published in the "Congregationalist," a church
publication.
-
1917: During a ceremony in Paris honoring the
French hero of the American Revolution, US Lieutenant Colonel
Charles E. Stanton declared, "Lafayette, we are here!"
-
1939: Baseball's "Iron Horse," Lou Gehrig,
said farewell to his fans at New York's Yankee Stadium.
-
1942: Irving Berlin's musical review "This Is
the Army" opened at the Broadway Theater in New York. Net
profits of the show were $780,000.
-
1946: The Philippines became independent of US
sovereignty.
-
1959: America's 49-star flag, honoring Alaskan
statehood, was officially unfurled.
-
1960: America's 50-star flag, honoring Hawaiian
statehood, was officially unfurled.
-
1966: President Johnson signed the Freedom of
Information Act, which went into effect the following year.
-
1970: "American Top 40," hosted by Casey
Kasem, was heard for the first time on radio.
-
1976: Israeli commandos raided Entebbe airport in
Uganda rescuing almost all of the passengers and crew of an Air
France jetliner seized by pro-Palestinian hijackers.
-
1982: The space shuttle Columbia concluded its
fourth and final test flight with a smooth landing at Edwards Air
Force Base in California.
-
1984: The Statue of Liberty's torch, symbol of
freedom to tens of millions of new Americans for almost a century,
was removed from the statue's outstretched hand to be replaced with
a new one the following year.
-
1985: An attempted coup began in the West African
nation of Guinea; it was put down the following day.
-
1986: More than 250 sailing ships and the United
States' biggest fireworks display honored the Statue of Liberty in
its 100th birthday year.
-
1987: Klaus Barbie, the former Gestapo chief known
as the "Butcher of Lyon," was convicted by a French court
of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison (he died
in September 1991).
-
1987: Martina Navratilova won her eighth Wimbledon
singles title as she defeated Steffi Graf.
-
1988: President Reagan called the shooting down of
an Iranian passenger jet by the USS "Vincennes" the day
before an "understandable accident" and
"tragedy"; Ayatollah Khomeini vowed revenge.
-
1988: Stefan Edberg outdueled Boris Becker to win
his first Wimbledon title.
-
1989: Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev arrived
in France for a three-day visit that included an address to the
Council of Europe in Strasbourg.
-
1990: During a break in the Soviet Communist Party
congress in Moscow, President Mikhail S. Gorbachev promised to
resign in two years if perestroika did not improve Soviet life by
then.
-
1990: Rioting that left three people dead erupted
in 30 English towns following England's loss to West Germany in
World Cup soccer.
-
1990: Rioting that left three people dead erupted
in 30 English towns following England's loss to West Germany in
World Cup soccer.
-
1991: Americans celebrated Independence Day, with
the Persian Gulf War adding to emotions. President Bush and his
wife, Barbara, attended festivities in Marshfield, Missouri, and
Grand Rapids, Michigan, before returning to Washington DC for the
annual fireworks display.
-
1992: Steffi Graf won her fourth Wimbledon title,
defeating Monica Seles in a five-and-a-half-hour match interrupted
three times by rain.
-
1993: South African leaders F.W. de Klerk and
Nelson Mandela received the Liberty Medal in a ceremony outside
Philadelphia's Independence Hall.
-
1993: Pete Sampras won the men's title at
Wimbledon, defeating fellow American Jim Courier.
-
1994: Rwandan Tutsi rebels seized control of most
of the capital Kigali and continued advancing on areas held by the
Hutu-led government.
-
1994: The United States opened its embassy in
Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, with a Fourth of July party.
-
1995: President Boris Yeltsin announced that
Russian troops would be permanently stationed in Chechnya.
-
1995: British Prime Minister John Major won
re-election as Conservative Party leader.
-
1995: The space shuttle Atlantis and the Russian
space station Mir parted after spending five days in orbit docked
together.
-
1995: Actress Eva Gabor died in Los Angeles at age
74.
-
1996: President Clinton extolled the joys of
democracy and asked the nation to honor America's independence by
praising continued free rule in Russia as he spoke during a jamboree
honoring the 200th anniversary of Youngstown, Ohio.
-
1997: NASA's Pathfinder spacecraft landed on Mars,
inaugurating a new era in the search for life on the Red Planet.
-
1997: CBS newsman Charles Kuralt died in New York
at age 62.
-
1998: Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic won the
women's title at Wimbledon, defeating France's Nathalie Tauziat 6-4,
7-6 (7-2).
-
1998: Japan launched its Planet-B probe to Mars,
which is scheduled to begin beaming back photographs and data from
the Red Planet in October 1999.
-
1999: White supremacist Benjamin Nathaniel Smith
shot himself to death as police closed in on him in southern
Illinois, hours after he apparently shot and killed a Korean man
outside a church in Bloomington, Ind. (Smith had been on a three-day
rampage targeting minorities.) Pete Sampras and Lindsay Davenport
won the singles titles at Wimbledon, defeating Andre Agassi and
Steffi Graf.
-
2000: Tall ships sailed through New York Harbor
during OpSail 2000, celebrating Independence Day.
Send Mail to pbower@neo.rr.com
