1327 Teenaged Edward III is crowned King of England, but the country is ruled by his mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer.
1329 King John of Bohemia captures Medvėgalis, an important fortress of the pagan Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and baptizes 6,000 of its defenders
1709 Alexander Selkirk is rescued after being shipwrecked on a desert island, inspiring the book Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.
1790 In New York City, the Supreme Court of the United States convenes for the first time.
1793 France declares war on the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
1844 G. Stanley Hall (born), American psychologist (died 1924)
1850 Edward Baker Lincoln (died), son of Abraham Lincoln (born 1846)
1851 Mary Shelley (died), English author (born 1797)
1861 Texas secedes from the United States.
1865 President Abraham Lincoln signs the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
1876 A murder conviction effectively forces the violent Pennsylvanian Irish anti-owner coal miners, the “Molly Maguires”, to disband.
1884 The first volume (A to Ant) of the Oxford English Dictionary is published.
1893 Thomas A. Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio, the Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey.
1894 John Ford (born), American director and producer (died 1973)
1897 Denise Robins (born), English author (died 1985)
1901 Clark Gable (born), American actor (died 1960)
1904 S. J. Perelman (born), American author and screenwriter (died 1979)
1909 George Beverly Shea (born), Canadian-American singer-songwriter (died 2013)
1918 Russia adopts the Gregorian Calendar.
1920 The Royal Canadian Mounted Police begins operations.
1931 Boris Yeltsin (born), Russian politician, 1st President of Russia (died 2007)
1934 Bob Shane (born), American singer and guitarist (The Kingston Trio)
1937 Don Everly (born), American singer-songwriter and guitarist (Everly Brothers)
1937 Garrett Morris (born), American comedian and actor
1937 Ray Sawyer (born), American singer-songwriter (Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show)
1938 Sherman Hemsley (born), American actor (died 2012)
1942 Voice of America, the official external radio and television service of the United States government, begins broadcasting with programs aimed at areas controlled by the Axis powers.
1942 U.S. Navy conducts Marshalls-Gilberts raids, the first offensive action by the United States against Japanese forces in thePacific Theater in WWII.
1944 Petru Popescu (born), Romanian-American director, producer, and author
1947 Jessica Savitch (born), American journalist (died 1983)
1957 Felix Wankel’s first working prototype (DKM 54) of the Wankel engine runs at the NSU research and development department Versuchsabteilung TX in Germany
1960 Four black students stage the first of the Greensboro sit-ins at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.
1965 Brandon Lee (born), American actor and martial artist (died 1993)
1965 Princess Stéphanie of Monaco (born)
1966 Buster Keaton (died), American actor (born 1895)
1966 Hedda Hopper (died), American actress and columnist (born 1885)
1968 Pauly Shore (born), American comedian and actor
1968 The New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad are merged to form the ill-fated Penn Central Transportation.
1968 The execution of Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem by South Vietnamese National Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan is videotaped and photographed by Eddie Adams. This image helped build opposition to the Vietnam War.
1969 Andrew Breitbart (born), American publisher and author (died 2012)
1974 Kuala Lumpur is declared a Federal Territory.
1976 George Whipple (died), American physician and pathologist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1878)
1978 Director Roman Polanski skips bail and flees the United States to France after pleading guilty to charges of having sex with a 13-year-old girl.
1979 Convicted bank robber Patty Hearst is released from prison after her sentence is commuted by President Jimmy Carter.
1979 The returns to Tehran, Iran after nearly 15 years of exile.
1986 Alva Myrdal (died), Swedish sociologist and politician, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1902)
1991 A runway collision between US Air Flight 1493 and SkyWest Flight 5569 at the Los Angeles International Airport results in the deaths of 34 people, and injuries to 30 others.
1992 The Chief Judicial Magistrate of Bhopal court declares Warren Anderson, ex-CEO of Union Carbide, a fugitive under Indian law for failing to appear in the Bhopal Disaster case.
1996 The Communications Decency Act is passed by the U.S. Congress.
1997 Herb Caen (died), American columnist (born 1916)
1998 Rear Admiral Lillian E. Fishburne becomes the first female African American to be promoted to rear admiral.
2002 Daniel Pearl, American journalist and South Asia Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal, kidnapped January 23, 2002, is beheaded and mutilated by his captors.
2003 Space Shuttle Columbia on mission STS-107 disintegrates during reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.
David M. Brown (died), American captain and astronaut (born 1956)
Ilan Ramon (died), Israeli pilot and astronaut (born 1954)
Kalpana Chawla (died), Indian-American astronaut (born 1961)
Laurel Clark (died), American surgeon, captain, and astronaut (born 1961)
Michael P. Anderson (died), American pilot and astronaut (born 1959)
Rick Husband (died), American pilot and astronaut (born 1957)
William C. McCool (died), American navy officer and astronaut (born 1961)
2004 251 people are trampled to death and 244 injured in a stampede at the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.
2004 Janet Jackson’s breast is exposed during the half-time show of Super Bowl XXXVIII, resulting in US broadcasters adopting a stronger adherence to Federal Communications Commission censorship guidelines.
2013 Barney (died), American dog of George W. Bush (born 2000)
2013 Ed Koch (died), American lawyer, judge, and politician, 105th Mayor of New York City (born 1924)
2013 The Shard, the tallest building in the European Union, is opened to the public.
EO Smith
Latest posts by EO Smith (see all)
- Patriotism - 4 July, 2017
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- Alternative Facts and Science - 24 January, 2017