TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – JULY 1
69 Vespasian, a Roman army leader, is hailed as a Roman emperor by the Egyptian legions.
1543 England and Scotland sign the Peace of Greenwich.
1798 Napoleon Bonaparte takes Alexandria, Egypt.
1838 Charles Darwin presents a paper on his theory of evolution to the Linnean Society in London.
1862 The U.S. Congress established the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
1863 In the first day’s fighting at Gettysburg, Federal forces retreat through the town and dig in at Cemetery Ridge and Cemetery Hill.
1867 Canada, by the terms of the British North America Act, becomes an independent dominion.
1874 The Philadelphia Zoological Society zoo opened as the first zoo in the United States.
1898 American troops take San Juan Hill and El Caney, Cuba, from the Spaniards.
1905 The USDA Forest Service was created within the Department of Agriculture. The agency was given the mission to sustain healthy, diverse, and productive forests and grasslands for present and future generations.
1934 The Federal Communications Commission replaced the Federal Radio Commission as the regulator of broadcasting in the United States.
1943 The U.S. Government began automatically withholding federal income tax from paychecks.
1945 The New York State Commission Against Discrimination is established–the first such agency in the United States.
1946 U.S. President Harry Truman signed Public Law 476 that incorporated the Civil Air Patrol as a benevolent, nonprofit organization. The Civil Air Patrol was created on December 1, 1941.
1956 President Eisenhower called for $50 billion to be spent over 13 years for the construction of over 42,500 miles of interstate highways using the Interstate Highway Revenue Act which was to be funded by taxing gasoline, currently this tax is 19 cents for each gallon of gas.
1961 The first community air-raid shelter was built. The shelter in Boise, ID had a capacity of 1,000 people and family memberships sold for $100.
1961 British troops land in Kuwait to aid against Iraqi threats.
1963 The U.S. postmaster introduces the ZIP code.
1968 The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was signed by 60 countries. It limited the spreading of nuclear material for military purposes. On May 11, 1995, the treaty was extended indefinitely.
1977 The United States Senate held a secret meeting debating whether or not the United States should start building neutron warheads . Neutron warheads leave buildings and structure intact and kill people only by radiation within one or two days of detonation and exposure to the radiation.
1979 The Walkman makes its appearance in stores for the first time The portable audio cassette player was made by Sony and went on sale in Japan.
1980 “O Canada” was proclaimed the national anthem of Canada.
1980 U.S. President Jimmy Carter signed legislation that provided for 2 acres of land near the Lincoln Memorial for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
1981 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that candidates for federal office had an “affirmative right” to go on national television.
1999 The new Scottish Parliament is opened by the queen, this is the first time Scotland has had its own parliament for nearly 300 years.
1999 The U.S. Justice Department released new regulations that granted the attorney general sole power to appoint and oversee special counsels. The 1978 independent-counsel statute expired on June 30.
2002 The International Criminal Court (ICC) is established It is the first international judicial body that has the power to try individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. It was created by the Rome Statute, an international treaty that was signed in the Italian city of Rome in 1998.
2004 The international mission to Saturn, known as Cassini-Huygens, reaches Saturn after six years and has successfully sent back the first close-up photographs of the Saturn’s rings.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
