1776 – The amended Declaration of Independence, prepared by Thomas Jefferson, was approved and signed by John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress in America.
1054 – A supernova is observed by the Chinese, the Arabs and possibly Amerindians near the star Tauri. For several months it remains bright enough to be seen during the day. Its remnants form the Crab Nebula.
1120 – Jordan II of Capua anointed as prince after his infant nephew’s death
1187 – The Crusades: Battle of Hattin – Saladin defeats Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem
1453 – 41 Jewish martyrs burned at stake at Breslau
1610 – Battle of Klushino: King Sigismund III’s Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth army defeats Russia and Sweden
1653 – Barebones Parliment goes into session in England
1708 – Battle of Holowczyn: Swedish King Charles XII defeats superior Russian force in surprising vctory
1712 – 11 slaves are executed in New York for starting an uprising that killed 9 Caucasians
1776 – The amended Declaration of Independence, prepared by Thomas Jefferson, was approved and signed by John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress in America. https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/declaration-of-independence
1777 – John Paul Jones hoists first Stars and Stripes flag on Ranger at Portsmouth, NH
1802 – The U.S. Military Academy officially opened at West Point, NY.
1803 – The Louisiana Purchase was announced in newspapers. The property was purchased, by the U.S. from France, was for $15 million (or 3 cents an acre). The “Corps of Discovery,” led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, began the exploration of the territory on May 14, 1804.
1817 – Construction began on the Erie Canal, to connect Lake Erie and the Hudson River.
1826 – Former American presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson die, fifty years to the day after the adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence
1831 – “America (My Country ‘Tis of Thee)”, with lyric by Samuel Francis Smith, has 1st public performance at Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts
1845 – American writer Henry David Thoreau began his two-year experiment in simple living at Walden Pond, near Concord, MA.
1848 – In Washington, DC, the cornerstone for the Washington Monument was laid.
1855 – The first edition of “Leaves of Grass,” by Walt Whitman, was published in Brooklyn, NY.
1865 – Alice in Wonderland is published for the first time
1881 – Booker T. Washington establishes Tuskegee Institute (Alabama)
1884 – Statue of Liberty presented to US in Paris
1894 – After seizing power, The short-lived Republic of Hawaii is proclaimed by Sanford B. Dole
1901 – William Howard Taft, former Federal judge, is installed as first governor-general of the Philippines and declares amnesty for all insurgents who take an oath of allegiance
1902 – President Roosevelt officially ends the “”great insurrection”” in the Philippines July 4 and commends U.S. troops for upholding America’s “”lawful sovereignty”
1910 – Race riots broke out all over the United States after African-American Jack Johnson knocked out Jim Jeffries in a heavyweight boxing match.
1920 – The provisional government of Siberia’s Maritime Province agrees to hand over parts of the strategic oil- and coal-rich Sakhalin Islands to Japan
1925 – 44 die when the Dreyfus Hotel in Boston collapses
1939 – Lou Gehrig, recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, tells a crowd at Yankee Stadium that he considered himself “”The luckiest man on the face of the earth”” as he announces his retirement from major league baseball.”
1941 – Mass murder of Polish scientists and writers, committed by Nazi Germans in the captured Polish city of Lwow
1945 – Field Marshal Henry Maitland Wilson gives Britain’s agreement to use the atomic bomb against Japan at the Combined Policy Committee in Washington D. C.
1946 – Philippines gains independence from the United States, The South East Asian country had been ruled for almost 381 years by various colonial powers, starting with the Spanish in the early 16th century.
1959 – With the admission of Alaska as the 49th U.S. state earlier in the year, the 49-star flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1960 – Due to the post-Independence Day admission of Hawaii as the 50th U.S. state on August 21, 1959, the 50-star flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania almost ten and a half months later
1966 – Freedom of Information Act in the US is signed into law by Predident Lyndon B. Johnson, which allows for the disclosure of government information to the public. It came into effect a year later in 1967.
1968 – Two teens are killed at Lake Herman Road in California. They were the first (known) victims of the Zodiac Killer.
1970 – 100 injured in race rioting in Asbury Park NJ
1976 – The U.S. celebrated its Bicentennial.
1982 – Four Iranian diplomats kidnapped by Lebanese militia in Lebanon
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.
1997 – The Mars Pathfinder, an unmanned spacecraft, landed on Mars. A rover named Sojourner was deployed to gather data about the surface of the planet.
2004 – In New York, the cornerstone of the Freedom Tower (One World Trade Center) was laid on the former World Trade Center site.
2005 – NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft took pictures as a space probe smashed into the Tempel 1 comet. The mission was aimed at learning more about comets that formed from the leftover buidling blocks of the solar system. The Deep Impact mission launched on January 12, 2005.
2009 – North Korea launched seven ballistic missiles into waters off its east coast that defied U.N. resolutions.
2009 – The Statue of Liberty’s crown reopened to visitors. It had been closed to the public since 2001.
2012 – Discovery of Higgs boson particle is announced by scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)
2012 – 12th century manuscript Codex Calixtinus from Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, Spain, rediscovered, after been stolen, in the garage of an employee of the cathedral
2013 – 12 people are killed and 60 are injured in a wave of shootings across Chicago
2016 – NASA’s Juno spacecraft successfully enters Jupiter’s orbit
2018 – Hong Kong’s top court rules same-sex couples entitled to equal visa rights in landmark case
2019 – Biggest seaweed bloom in the world, the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt stretches from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico after algae explosion due to deforestation and fertiliser
2019 – UN accuses Venezuelan government of using death squads and policy of installing fear to remove opposition with 5,287 people killed in 2018 for supposedly resisting arrest
2021 – Researchers reveal there are 14 living descendants of Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci
2022 – Lone shooter at a 4th of July parade in Highland Park, Chicago, kills seven and wounds 47, later captured
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
