1502 Pope Gregory XIII (born) (died 1585)
1536 Catherine of Aragon (died) (b. 1485)
1558 France takes Calais, the last continental possession of England.
1598 Boris Godunov becomes Czar of Russia.
1608 Fire destroys Jamestown, Virginia.
1610 Galileo Galilei makes his first observation of the four Galilean moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa, although he is not able distinguish the last two until the following day.
1782 The first American commercial bank, the Bank of North America, opens.
1785 Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon.
1797 The modern Italian flag is first used.
1800 Millard Fillmore (born), American politician, 13th President of the United States (died 1874)
1827 Sandford Fleming (born), Scottish-Canadian engineer, created Universal Standard Time (died 1915)
1835 HMS Beagle drops anchor off the Chonos Archipelago.
1891 Zora Neale Hurston (born), American anthropologist and author (died 1960)
1894 William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film.
1904 The distress signal “CQD” is established only to be replaced two years later by “SOS”.
1910 Orval Faubus (born), American politician, 36th Governor of Arkansas (died 1994)
1911 Butterfly McQueen (born), American actress (died 1995)
1919 Henry Ware Eliot (died), American businessman and philanthropist, co-founded Washington University in St. Louis (b. 1843)
1920 The New York State Assembly refuses to seat five duly elected Socialist assemblymen.
1922 Jean-Pierre Rampal (born), French flute player (died 2000)
1925 Gerald Durrell (born), Indian-English zookeeper, conservationist, and author, founded Durrell Wildlife Park (died 1995)
1927 The first transatlantic telephone service is established from New York to London, United.
1935 Benito Mussolini and French Foreign minister Pierre Laval sign the Franco-Italian Agreement.
1942 Vasily Alexeev (born), Russian weightlifter (died 2011)
1942 World War II: The siege of the Bataan Peninsula begins.
1943 Nikola Tesla (died), Serbian-American physicist and engineer (born 1856)
1945 World War II: British General Bernard Montgomery holds a press conference in which he claims credit for victory in the Battle of the Bulge.
1946 Jann Wenner (born), American publisher, co-founded Rolling Stone
1946 Mike Wilds (born), English race car driver
1948 Kenny Loggins (born), American singer-songwriter (Loggins and Messina)
1948 Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell crashes while in pursuit of a supposed UFO.
1950 Erin Gray (born), American actress
1954 Georgetown-IBM experiment: the first public demonstration of a machine translation system, is held in New York at the head office of IBM.
1956 David Caruso (born), American actor and producer
1957 Katie Couric (born), American journalist and author
1959 Kathy Valentine (born), American bass player and songwriter (The Go-Go’s)
1959 The United States recognizes the new Cuban government of Fidel Castro.
1960 The Polaris missile is test launched.
1961 John Thune (born), American politician
1963 Rand Paul (born), American politician
1964 Cyril Davies (born), English singer and harmonica player (Blues Incorporated) (born 1932)
1964 Nicolas Cage (born), American actor, producer, and director
1973 Mark Essex fatally shoots 10 people and wounds 13 others at Howard Johnson’s Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana, before being shot to death by police officers.
1979 Third Indochina War Cambodian–Vietnamese War: Phnom Penh falls to the advancing Vietnamese troops, driving out Pol Pot and theKhmer Rouge.
1980 U.S. President Jimmy Carter authorizes legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out the Chrysler Corporation.
1985 Lewis Hamilton (born), English race car driver
1988 Trevor Howard (died),English actor (born 1913)
1989 Hirohito (died), Japanese emperor (born 1901)
1989 Prince Akihito is sworn in as the emperor of Japan after the death of his father Hirohito
1990 Bronko Nagurski (died), American football player (born 1908)
1990 The interior of the Leaning Tower of Pisa is closed to the public for safety reasons.
1991 Roger Lafontant, former leader of the Tonton Macoute in Haiti under François Duvalier, attempts a coup d’état, which ends in his arrest.
1993 Bosnian War: The Bosnian Army executes a surprise attack on the village of Kravica in Srebrenica.
1999 The Senate trial in the impeachment of U.S. President Bill Clinton begins.
2002 Jon Lee (died), English drummer (Feeder, The Darling Buds, and Raindancer) (born 1968)
2007 Bobby Hamilton (died), American race car driver (born 1957)
2010 Muslim gunmen in Egypt open fire on a crowd of Coptic Christians, killing eight of them and one Muslim bystander.
2012 A hot air balloon crashes near Carterton, New Zealand, killing all 11 people on board.
2013 Carl Berner (died), German-American super-centenarian (born 1902)
2013 Larry Clapp (died), American lawyer and politician (born 1946)
EO Smith
Latest posts by EO Smith (see all)
- Patriotism - 4 July, 2017
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- Alternative Facts and Science - 24 January, 2017