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 – Brightest known supernova SN 1054 (creates the Crab Nebula) 1st reported by Chinese astronomers
1453 – 41 Jewish martyrs burned at stake at Breslau
1634 – The city of Trois-Rivières is founded in New France, later to become the Canadian province of Quebec
1774 – Orangetown Resolutions adopted in the Province of New York, one of many protests against the British Parliament’s Coercive Acts
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.
1776 – According to popular legend the Liberty Bell rings for the Second Continental Congress
1785 – James Hutton, geologist, publicly reads an abstract of his theory of uniformitarianism for the first time at the meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
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 – Past presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both die on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, President John Quincy Adams calls “visible and palpable remarks of Divine Favor”
1836 – Wisconsin Territory forms
1838 – Iowa Territory is organised from Wisconsin Territory, lasting until 1846
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.
1865 – Alice in Wonderland is published for the first time
1875 – White Democrats kill several blacks in terrorist attacks in Vicksburg
1881 – Tuskegee Institute opened in Alabama.
1884 – Statue of Liberty presented to US in Paris
1886 – The first rodeo in America was held at Prescott, AZ.
1894 – After seizing power, Judge Stanford B. Dole declared Hawaii a republic.
1902 – Civil government is established in the Philippines by a proclamation from US President Theodore Roosevelt, who offers a general amnesty to insurgents
1910 – Race riots broke out all over the United States after African-American Jack Johnson knocked out Jim Jeffries in a heavyweight boxing match.
1917 – Troops of the Russian Provisional Government open fire on protesters in Petrograd during the ‘July Days’ of unrest
1934 – At Mount Rushmore, George Washington’s face was dedicated.
1939 – Lou Gehrig is first MLB player to have his number (4) retired on his “Appreciation Day” at Yankee Stadium, makes iconic “luckiest man” speech
1941 – Latvia partisans shoot 416 Jews dead
1942 – Siege of Sevastopol ends with the surrender of Soviet forces and after massive German bombing raids that leave just 11 city buildings undamaged
1946 – The Philippines achieved full independence for the first time in over four hundred years.
1954 – Dr Sam Sheppard’s wife Marilyn is murdered (he is accused of the crime)
1959 – The 49-star U.S. flag became official.
1960 – The 50-star U.S. flag made its debut in Philadelphia, PA.
1966 – U.S. President Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act, which went into effect the following year.
1972 – The Royal Ulster Constabulary forward a file about the killings on ‘Bloody Sunday’ (30 January 1972) to the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland
1976 – The U.S. celebrated its Bicentennial.
1976 – Israel launches hostage rescue mission of 106 Air France crew and passengers held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda by pro-Palestinian hijackers. Three hostages die along with all the hijackers, numerous Ugandan soldiers and Yonatan Netanyahu, an Israeli soldier
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.
1993 – Pizza Hut blimp deflates and lands safely on W 56th street in NYC
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.
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.
2006 – North Korea tests four short-range missiles, one medium-range missile, and a long-range Taepodong-2. The long-range Taepodong-2 reportedly fails in mid-air over the Sea of Japan/East Sea.
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)
2017 – North Korea tests first successful intercontinental ballistic missile into Sea of Japan
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
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
