1148 Louis VII of France lays siege to Damascus during the Second Crusade.
1487 Citizens of Leeuwarden, Netherlands strike against a ban on foreign beer.
1534 French explorer Jacques Cartier plants a cross on the Gaspé Peninsula and takes possession of the territory in the name of Francis I of France.
1567 Mary, Queen of Scots, is forced to abdicate and replaced by her 1-year-old son James VI.
1568 Carlos (died), Prince of Asturias (born 1545)
1574 Thomas Platter the Younger (born), Swiss physician (died 1628)
1594 John Boste (died), English martyr and saint (born 1544)
1701 Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founds the trading post at Fort Pontchartrain, which later becomes the city of Detroit, Michigan.
1725 John Newton (born), English sailor and clergyman (died 1807)
1739 Benedetto Marcello (died), Italian composer and educator (born 1686)
1783 Simón Bolívar (born), Venezuelan commander and politician, 2nd President of Venezuela (died 1830)
1786 Joseph Nicollet (born), French mathematician and explorer (died 1843)
1794 Johan Georg Forchhammer (born), Danish mineralogist and geologist (died 1865)
1802 Alexandre Dumas (born), French author and playwright (died 1870)
1814 War of 1812: General Phineas Riall advances toward the Niagara River to halt Jacob Brown’s American invaders.
1823 In Maracaibo, Venezuela takes place the naval Battle of Lake Maracaibo, where the Admiral José Prudencio Padilla, defeated the Spanish Armada, thus culminating the independence for the Gran Colombia.
1823 Slavery is abolished in Chile.
1847 After 17 months of travel, Brigham Young leads 148 Mormon pioneers into Salt Lake Valley, resulting in the establishment of Salt Lake City. Celebrations of this event include the Pioneer Day Utah state holiday and the Days of ’47 Parade.
1851 Friedrich Schottky (born), German mathematician (died 1935)
1853 William Gillette (born), American actor and author (died 1937)
1856 Émile Picard (born), French mathematician (died 1941)
1862 Martin Van Buren (died), American lawyer and politician, 8th President of the United States (born 1782)
1866 Reconstruction: Tennessee becomes the first U.S. state to be readmitted to the Union following the American Civil War.
1880 Ernest Bloch (born), Swiss-American composer (died 1959)
1895 Robert Graves (born), English author (died 1985)
1897 Amelia Earhart (born), American pilot and author (died 1937)
1901 O. Henry is released from prison in Columbus, Ohio after serving three years for embezzlement from a bank.
1904 Leo Arnaud (born), French-American composer (died 1991)
1911 Hiram Bingham III re-discovers Machu Picchu, “the Lost City of the Incas”.
1915 The passenger ship S.S. Eastland capsizes while tied to a dock in the Chicago River. A total of 844 passengers and crew are killed in the largest loss of life disaster from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes.
1920 Bella Abzug (born), American lawyer and politician (died 1998)
1920 Constance Dowling (born), American model and actress (died 1969)
1921 Giuseppe Di Stefano (born), Italian tenor (died 2008)
1924 Aris Poulianos (born), Greek anthropologist and archaeologist
1927 Zara Mints (born), Russian-Estonian literary scientist (died 1990)
1929 The Kellogg–Briand Pact, renouncing war as an instrument of foreign policy, goes into effect (it is first signed in Paris on August 27, 1928 by most leading world powers).
1931 A fire at a home for the elderly in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania kills 48 people.
1935 The Dust Bowl heat wave reaches its peak, sending temperatures to 109°F (43°C) in Chicago, Illinois and 104°F (40°C) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
1936 Ruth Buzzi (born), American actress
1937 Alabama drops rape charges against the so-called “Scottsboro Boys”.
1938 First ascent of the Eiger north face.
1943 World War II: Operation Gomorrah begins: British and Canadian airplanes bomb Hamburg by night, and American planes by day. By the end of the operation in November, 9,000 tons of explosives will have killed more than 30,000 people and destroyed 280,000 buildings.
1944 Jim Armstrong (born), Irish guitarist (Them)
1945 Hugh Ross (born), Canadian-American astrophysicist
1946 Gallagher (born), American comedian
1947 Peter Serkin (born), American pianist
1950 Cape Canaveral Air Force Station begins operations with the launch of a Bumper rocket.
1951 Gypie Mayo (born), English guitarist and songwriter (Dr. Feelgood and The Yardbirds) (died 2013)
1951 Lynda Carter (born), American actress and singer
1953 Claire McCaskill (born), American lawyer and politician
1959 At the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev have a “Kitchen Debate”.
1965 Constance Bennett (died), American actress, singer, and producer (born 1904)
1966 Michael Pelkey makes the first BASE jump from El Capitan along with Brian Schubert. Both came out with broken bones. BASE jumping has now been banned from El Capitan.
1967 During an official state visit to Canada, French President Charles de Gaulle declares to a crowd of over 100,000 in Montreal: Vive le Québec libre! (“Long live free Quebec!”). The statement, interpreted as support for Quebec independence, delighted many Quebecers but angered the Canadian government and many English Canadians.
1968 Kristin Chenoweth (born), American actress and singer
1969 Apollo program: Apollo 11 splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean.
1974 Watergate scandal: the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Richard Nixon did not have the authority to withhold subpoenaed White House tapes and they order him to surrender the tapes to the Watergate special prosecutor.
1980 Peter Sellers (died), English actor, singer, director, and screenwriter (born 1925)
1980 The Quietly Confident Quartet of Australia wins the Men’s 4 x 100 meter medley relay at the Moscow Olympics, the only time the United States has not won the event at Olympic level.
1983 The Black July anti-Tamil riots begin in Sri Lanka, killing between 400 and 3,000. Black July is generally regarded as the beginning of the Sri Lankan Civil War.
1986 Vugar Gashimov (born), Azerbaijani chess player (died 2014)
1990 Iraqi forces start massing on the Kuwait-Iraq border.
1998 Russell Eugene Weston, Jr. bursts into the United States Capitol and opens fire killing two police officers. He is later ruled to be incompetent to stand trial.
2002 Democrat James Traficant is expelled from the United States House of Representatives on a vote of 420 to 1.
2009 The MV Arctic Sea, reportedly carrying a cargo of timber, is allegedly hijacked in the North Sea by pirates, but much speculation remains as to the actual cargo and events.
2012 Chad Everett (died), American actor (born 1936)
2012 Robert Ledley (died), American physiologist and physicist, invented the CT scanner (born 1926)
2012 Sherman Hemsley (died), American actor (born 1938)
2013 Virginia E. Johnson (died), American psychologist and sexologist (born 1925)
EO Smith
Latest posts by EO Smith (see all)
- Patriotism - 4 July, 2017
- The Super Sucker Bowl - 10 February, 2017
- Alternative Facts and Science - 24 January, 2017