This Day in History

[GordMay]

June 23

0930: World's oldest parliament, the Icelandic Parliament, the Alþingi (anglicised as Althing or Althingi), established.

1775: 1st regatta held on river Thames, England.

1868: American inventor Christopher Latham Sholes, and two others, were granted a patent for a typewriter.

1939: US Congress establishes US Coast Guard Reserve (renamed US Coast Guard Auxiliary 1941), as uniformed volunteer units, supporting the Coast Guard.

1960: 1st contraceptive pill is made available for purchase, in the U.S.

1961: The Antarctic Treaty was enacted, reserving the entire continent for free and nonpolitical scientific investigation.

1976: CN Tower in Toronto, tallest free-standing structure (555 m) opens.

1993: Lorena Gallo Bobbitt amputates husband John Wayne Bobbitt's penis.

2000: The bulk ore carrier MV “Treasure” sinks, off the western coast of South Africa, soiling more than 19 000 penguins; this resulted in the world's largest ever rescue of birds, from an oiling event.

2016: The United Kingdom voted, in a referendum, to withdraw from the European Union, with 51.9 percent supporting Britain's exit (“Brexit”) and 48.1 percent opposing the move.

[Alan Mighty]

A minor note:

23 June 2021 marks the 76th anniversary of the end (if there was an end) to the battles on Okinawa. 200,000 dead (in round figures) over about 3 months (late March - 23 June). That's 12,500 US combatants, 94,000 Nippon combatants, and something in the order of 94,000 civilians.

Yesterday, 22 June 2021, of course marked (as Gord May noted) the 80th anniversary of Barbarossa. That's the start of 27 million people, civilians and combatants, being killed across the USSR. A dreadful toll.

[GordMay]

June 24

0451: 10th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet.

1340: The English fleet defeats the French fleet, at Sluys, off the Flemish coast (the Hundred Years' War).

1497: John Cabot claims Eastern Canada, for England (believes he has found Asia, in Nova Scotia). Cabot became the first European to set foot in North America, since the Vikings.

1527: Paracelsus publicly burns standard medical textbooks, in Basle, as a protest against the current teaching and practice of medicine.

1692: Kingston, Jamaica, founded.

1795: William Smellie, the Scottish compiler of the first edition, of the Encyclopædia Britannica, died in Edinburgh.

1812: French Emperor Napoleon, who had massed his troops in Poland in the spring, to intimidate Russian Tsar Alexander I, and 600,000 troops of his Grand Army, launched an ill-fated invasion of Russia, by crossing the Nieman River.

1821: South American patriots, under Simón Bolívar, defeated Spanish royalists, on the plains near Caracas, Venezuela, in the Battle of Carabobo.

1917: Russian Black Sea fleet mutinies at Sebastopol.

1948: Soviet Union begins the West Berlin Blockade, by stopping access by road, rail and water. Allies respond with the Berlin Airlift.

2017: UN states Yemen cholera epidemic reached 200,000 cases, with 1,300 deaths. Worst cholera outbreak anywhere in the world.

[GordMay]

June 25

1630: Fork introduced to American dining, by Governor Winthrop.

1638: Lunar eclipse is 1st astronomical event recorded in the American Colonies.

1678: Venetian Elena Cornaro Piscopia is awarded a doctorate of philosophy, from the University of Padua, 1st woman to receive a university doctoral degree, or PhD.

1857: Gustave Flaubert goes on trial, for public immorality, regarding his novel, Madame Bovary.

1876: US 7th Cavalry, under Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer, wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, in what has become known as "Custer's Last Stand" [Battle of the Little Bighorn].

1900: Dunhuang manuscripts, including the Diamond Sutra, world's oldest surviving dated book, discovered by Daoist monk Wang Yuanlu, in the Mogao Caves, China.

1903: Marie Curie announces her discovery of radium.

1943: Major General Dwight D. Eisenhower takes command, as Supreme Allied Commander, in Europe.

1947: Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl was first published, appearing in the Netherlands under the title 'Het Achterhuis' (“The Secret Annex”).

1950: North Korea unleashed an attack, southward across the 38th parallel, after which the UN Security Council (minus the Soviet delegate) passed a resolution, calling on UN members to assist South Korea, beginning the Korean War [‘Police Action’].

1957: Hurricane Audrey hits US Gulf Coast, which kills 390 people. Water on the coast reached as high as 15 feet above the normal high-tide mark. Boats were washed ashore, by the tremendous waves. The towns of Cameron, Creole and Grand Chenier were devastated by the hurricane. Only one building survived in Creole ,and only two were left standing in Cameron.

1973: White House Counsel John Dean begins testifying, before US Senate Watergate Committee. Admits President Richard Nixon took part in the Watergate cover-up.

1977: Roy C. Sullivan, of Virginia, is struck by lightning, for 7th time.

1993: Canadian politician Kim Campbell was sworn in, as the country's 19th prime minister, becoming the first woman to hold the post; she served for less than five months.

1997: Oceanographer Jacques Cousteau died.

2009: American singer and dancer Michael Jackson died, at age 50, from a lethal combination of sedatives and propofol, an anesthetic.
2009: American actress Farrah Fawcett, who first gained fame for an iconic pinup poster, and later became a superstar, with the hit television series Charlie's Angels, died of cancer at age 62.

2021: New type of ancient human announced: "Nesher Ramla Homo" 140,000-120,000 years ago, possible Neanderthal ancestors, uncovered in Ramla, Israel.
“A Middle Pleistocene Homo from Nesher Ramla, Israel” ➥ https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6549/1424

[GordMay]

June 26

1541: Francisco Pizarro, the governor of Peru, and conqueror of the Inca civilization, is assassinated in Lima, by Spanish rivals.

1721: With the support of Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Zabdiel Boylston began the first smallpox vaccinations in the American colonies.

1787: British historian Edward Gibbon completed “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”.

1844: Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon church, was murdered, by an armed mob, in Carthage, Illinois.

1894: Karl Benz, of Germany, receives US patent for gasoline-driven auto.

1900: Dr Walter Reed begins research that beats Yellow Fever.

1918: The Australian steamer “Wimmera: is sunk, by a mine laid north of Cape Maria van Diemen, in 1917, by the German raider “Wolf”; 26 of its 151 passengers and crew were killed.

1927: Comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke approaches within 0.0394 AUs of Earth.

1945: In the Herbst Theater auditorium, in San Francisco, delegates from 50 nations sign the United Nations Charter, establishing the world body as a means of saving “succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” The Charter was ratified on October 24, and the first U.N. General Assembly met in London on January 10, 1946.

1953: Lavrentiy Beria, one of the trio of Russian leaders after Stalin's death, and the former secret police chief, is ousted from power ,and arrested.

1956: The U.S. Congress approves the Federal Highway Act, which allocates more than $30 billion, for the construction of some 41,000 miles of interstate highways; it will be the largest public construction project in U.S. history to that date.

1959: The St. Lawrence Seaway is officially opened, creating a navigational channel, from the Atlantic Ocean to all the Great Lakes. The seaway, made up of a system of canals, locks, and dredged waterways, extends a distance of nearly 2,500 miles.

1963: During the Cold War, U.S. Pres. John F. Kennedy delivered his famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech [intended to mean "I am a Berliner", but may actually mean "I am a doughnut"], in West Berlin.

1974: The Universal Product Code [UPC] is scanned for the first time, to sell a package of Wrigley's chewing gum, at the Marsh Supermarket, in Troy, Ohio.

1977: Elvis Presley sings, in Indianapolis, the last public performance of his career.

1977: Tim Severin, aboard the “Brendan”, reaches Newfoundland, in attempt to prove sixth-century Irish monks could have voyaged across the Atlantic.

1978: First dedicated oceanographic satellite, SEASAT 1, launched.

2016: Panama Canal's third set of locks opens for commercial traffic, doubling the Canal’s capacity, at an estimated cost of $5.25 billion.

2017: America's Cup: Emirates Team New Zealand defeat Oracle Team USA 7-1 in Bermuda, Peter Burling (26) youngest ever helmsman.

2019: Two US Florida towns pay hackers considerable ransom, to unfreeze their computer systems; Riviera Beach $600,00 and Lake City $500,000.

2020: New York Times says Russia secretly offered bounties, to Taliban-linked forces, to kill US and coalition troops, in Afghanistan.

[GordMay]

Also, on June 26:
1930: On Thursday, June 26, 1930, the "John B. King" exploded, after getting struck by lightning, near Brockville, Ont.
The "John B. King" was launched in 1863. It was a 140-foot wooden drill boat, Canada's largest drilling boat at the time.
The crew, consisting of more than 40 people, was working off the point of Cockburn Island. They were drilling and blasting a channel through Brockville narrows.
Thunderstorms are not rare, in that part of the river, so when sudden squalls appeared, the crew continued to work.
But a lightning bolt came down and struck the vessel, that was packed with dynamite. The scow exploded, and 30 members of the crew died.
The United States Coast Guard "Cutter 211" witnessed the explosion, and rescued 12 members of the crew.

[GordMay]

June 27

1542: Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo sets sail, from the Mexican port of Navidad, to explore the west coast of North America, on behalf of the Spanish Empire.

1759: British general James Wolfe begins the siege of Quebec.

1829: In Genoa, Italy, English scientist James Smithson dies, after a long illness, leaving behind a will with a peculiar footnote. In the event that his only nephew died without any heirs, Smithson decreed that the whole of his estate would go to “the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”
Six years after his death, his nephew, Henry James Hungerford, indeed died without children, and on July 1, 1836, the U.S. Congress authorized acceptance of Smithson’s gift.

1871: Yen made official monetary unit of Japan.

1898: Canadian-American adventurer Joshua Slocum arrives in Newport, Rhode Island, completing the 1st solo circumnavigation of the globe, aboard “Spray”.

1905: Russian sailors mutiny, aboard battleship "Potemkin", and sail for Odessa.

1940: USSR returns to the Gregorian calendar, using Sunday as a rest day, after 6 years using a Russian six-day calendar.

1950: US sends 35 military advisers to South Vietnam.

1954: 1st atomic power station opens - Obninsk, near Moscow, in Russia. The reactor remained in operation for 48 years.
1954: CIA/United Fruit-sponsored rebels overthrow elected government of Guatemala.

1957: The British Medical Research Council publishes a report suggesting a direct link between smoking and lung cancer.
Report ➥ https://www.bmj.com/content/1/5034/1523
About ➥ http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/d...00/2956618.stm

1967: The world's first ATM is installed in Enfield, London.

1972: Video game, and home computer company, Atari, Inc. founded by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, in Sunnyvale, California.

1976: Ebola breaks out in Sudan. A factory storekeeper, in the Nzara township of Sudan, becomes ill on June 27, 1976. Five days later, he dies, and the world’s first recorded Ebola virus epidemic begins making its way through the area.
1976: Air France A-300B Airbus, hijacked from Athens, arrives at Entebbe, Uganda; four hijackers members Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Bader-Meinhof Gang in Germany.

2003: The US National ‘Do Not Call Registry’, formed to combat unwanted telemarketing calls, and administered by the Federal Trade Commission, enrolls almost three-quarters of a million phone numbers, on its first day.

2008: Bill Gates steps down, as Chairman of Microsoft Corporation, to work full time for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

[GordMay]

June 28

1635: French colony of Guadeloupe established in the Caribbean.

1846: Saxophone is patented, by Antoine-Joseph "Adolfe" Sax.

1880: Australian bushranger Ned Kelly captured, at Glenrowan.

1902: US Congress passes the Spooner bill, authorizing a canal to be built across the Isthmus of Panama. US buys concession to build Panama canal, from French, for $40 million.

1904: SS “Norge” runs aground and sinks, off Rockall, North Atlantic, more than 635 die, largest maritime loss of life until Titanic.

1914: Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his consort, Sophie, are assassinated, Gavrilo Princip, at Sarajevo, precipitating the outbreak of World War I.

1919: Germany signs the Treaty of Versailles, under protest.

1926: Mercedes Benz forms, when the world's oldest automobile manufacturers, DMG and Benz & Cie, merge.

1968: Daniel Ellsberg indicted, for leaking Pentagon Papers.

1969: Police carry out an early morning raid, on gay bar Stonewall Inn, Greenwich Village, NY; about 400 to 1,000 patrons riot against police, it lasts 3 days. Beginning of the modern LGBT rights movement

1970: Muhammad Ali [Cassius Clay] stands before the Supreme Court, regarding his refusal of induction into the U.S. Army, during the Vietnam War.

1971: The Supreme Court overturns the draft evasion conviction of Muhammad Ali.

1981: Terry Fox, who, after losing part of one of his legs to cancer, attempted to run across the country, to raise money for cancer research [Marathon of Hope], died, at Royal Columbian Hospital, New Westminster, British Columbia – one month short of his twenty-third birthday.
Before his death on June 28, 1981, Terry had achieved his once unimaginable goal of $1 from every Canadian. More importantly, he had set in motion the framework for an event, The Terry Fox Run, that would ignite cancer research in Canada, raising more than $850 million since 1980, and bring hope and health to millions of Canadians.
His legacy continues. Today, there are 10,200 School and Community Runs, including 3.6 million+Annual Participants, across Canada; and 108 international Terry Fox runs, in 35 countries, annually.
➥ https://terryfox.org/terrys-story/

2007: The bald eagle was removed from the U.S. list of endangered and threatened species.

2018: Ebola outbreak, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, declared "largely contained", by World Health Organisation, first outbreak to use new Merck vaccine.

2020: Global death toll from COVID-19 passes 500,000, doubling in less than two months (Johns Hopkins).

[GordMay]

June 29

1534: French mariner Jacques Cartier discovered Prince Edward Island, off the coast of what is now Canada.

1540: Former Lord Privy Seal, and Chancellor of the Exchequer of England, Thomas Cromwell, indicted as a heretic.

1613: During a performance of William Shakespeare's Henry VIII, the Globe Theatre was destroyed. within an hour after its thatch was accidentally set aflame, by a cannon marking the king's entrance onstage.

1767: Parliament passed the Townshend Revenue Act, sponsored by British Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend, which imposed on colonists in British America an import tax on tea and other goods, and thus brought some colonists one step closer to revolution.

1880: France annexes Otaheite [Tahiti].

1895: English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley died

1952: USS “Oriskany” becomes 1st aircraft carrier to sail around Cape Horn.

1955: The Soviet Union sends tanks to Poznan, Poland, to put down anti-Communist demonstrations.

1964: Civil Rights Act of 1964 passes, after an 83-day filibuster, in the US Senate.

1972: In ‘Furman v. Georgia’, the U.S. Supreme Court rules, by a vote of 5-4, that capital punishment, as it is currently employed on the state and federal level, is unconstitutional. The majority held that, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, the death penalty qualified as “cruel and unusual punishment,” primarily because states employed execution in “arbitrary and capricious ways,” especially in regard to race. It was the first time that the nation’s highest court had ruled against capital punishment.
In 1976, with 66 percent of Americans still supporting capital punishment, the Supreme Court acknowledged progress made in jury guidelines, and reinstated the death penalty, under a “model of guided discretion.” I

1974: While on tour with the Kirov (now Mariinsky) Ballet, in Toronto, Mikhail Baryshnikov defected from the Soviet Union, citing artistic reasons, and he later settled in the United States.

1986: Richard Branson, aboard 72 ft powerboat “Virgin Atlantic Challenger II”, reaches Bishop Rock, Isles of Scilly, fastest crossing of Atlantic. He was denied the prestigious ‘Blue Riband’, for the fastest crossing, because the boat did not have a commercial maritime purpose, and he refueled [twice] on the way.

1990: Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are banned, to protect the ozone layer. The London Amendment to the Montreal Protocol stipulated that CFCs be phased out by 2000 in developed countries, and by 2010 in developing countries. CFCs are one of the substances most harmful to the ozone layer, escalating the greenhouse effect, and global warming.

2007: Apple Inc.'s first mobile smartphone, the ‘iPhone’, went on sale.

2009: American hedge-fund investment manager Bernie Madoff received a sentence of up to 150 years, in prison, for operating the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

[GordMay]

June 30

1520: Spanish conquistadors, under Hernán Cortés, are expelled from Tenochtitlan, following an Aztec revolt against their rule, during "La Noche Triste" (the Night of Sadness). Many soldiers drown in the escape, and Aztec emperor Moctezuma II dies in the struggle

1860: Famous debate on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, held at the Oxford University Museum, and dominated by arguments between Thomas Henry Huxley and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce.

1893: Excelsior diamond (blue-white 995 carats), then world's largest, discovered in Jagersfontein Mine, South Africa.

1900: A major fire broke out on a Pier in New Jersey (Pier 3 in Hoboken), engulfing 4 docked German ships, and spreading to over 27 ships, before the fire was bought under control.

1908: An enormous aerial explosion, presumably caused by a comet fragment colliding with Earth, flattened approximately 2,000 square km (500,000 acres) of pine forest, near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, in central Siberia.

1934: "Night of Long Knives" - German dictator Adolf Hitler stages a bloody purge of the Nazi party. Hitler had his elite SS guards summarily execute many leading officials of the SA.

1937: The world's first emergency telephone number, 999, was launched, in London. When 999 was dialed, a buzzer sounded, and a red light flashed in the exchange, to attract an operator's attention.

1942: U-boats sink and damage 146 allied ships this month (700,227 tons).

1948: John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley demonstrate their invention, the transistor, for the first time, at Bell Labs.

1953: The first, all-fiberglass-bodied American sports car, the Chevrolet Corvette was manufactured.

1954: The total eclipse of the sun is seen around the world in Europe, United States, and Asia, including Pakistan and India. The longest duration of total eclipse was two minutes 35 seconds. Solar eclipses are normally only seen by a small specific area of the world, so this was unusual, as it was seen from so many continents.

1971: Three Soviet cosmonauts, who had spent 23 days orbiting the earth, began reentry procedures, and when they fired the explosive bolts to separate the "Soyuz 11", a critical valve was jerked open, and the capsule was suddenly exposed to the nearly pressure less environment of space. Seconds later, the cosmonauts were dead. (only people to die in space).

1981: China's Communist Party condemns late Mao Zedong's policy.

1994: Pre-trial hearings open in LA, against O.J. Simpson.

1997: British lease on the New Territories, in Hong Kong, established by the Second Convention of Peking, expires.
1997: Leap Second to synchronize atomic clocks.

2019: President Donald Trump becomes first sitting US president to set foot in North Korea, in the Korean Demilitarized Zone, meeting Kim Jong Un.

[GordMay]

July 1

1390: French and Genuese armada sails out against barbarian pirates.

1535: Sir Thomas More went on trial for treason for refusing to accept King Henry VIII as head of the Church of England.

1596: An English fleet, under the Earl of Essex, Lord Howard of Effingham and Francis Vere, capture and sack Cadiz, Spain.

1690: Army of Protestant King William III defeats deposed Roman Catholic King James II, in Battle of Boyne, in Ireland.

1776: 1st vote on Declaration of Independence, for Britain's North American colonies.

1782: American privateers attack Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

1798: Napoleon Bonaparte takes Alexandria, Egypt.

1816: French frigate “Medusa” wrecked; basis of Géricault's painting ‘Raft of the Medusa’.

1831: Admiral James C Ross reaches magnetic North Pole.

1858: The joint reading of Charles Darwin, and Alfred Russel Wallace's papers, on evolution, to the Linnean Society, in London.

1863: Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; Lee's northward advance halted.

1867: The Dominion of Canada established, comprising the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario & Quebec, with John A. Macdonald serving as the first Prime Minister, by the terms of the British North America Act.

1873: Prince Edward Island becomes 7th Canadian province.

1881: 1st international telephone conversation, Calais, Maine to St Stephen, New Brunswick.

1905: Albert Einstein introduces his theory of special relativity.

1908: "SOS" (· · · – – – · · ·) distress signal becomes the worldwide standard for help.

1916: The Battle of the Somme begins. Approximately 30,000 men are killed on the first day, two-thirds of them British.

1944: Bretton Woods Conference starts, dominated by Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes, and leads to establishment of the IMF, and the World Bank.

1961: Diana, Princess of Wales born.

1963: The U.S. postmaster introduces the ZIP [Zone Improvement Plan] code.

1968: The United States, the United Kingdom, the U.S.S.R., and 59 other states signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in an attempt to halt the spread of nuclear weapons.

1979: Sony introduces the Walkman, first popular portable cassette player.

1997: The crown colony of Hong Kong officially reverted to Chinese sovereignty, ending 156 years of British rule.

2002: The International Criminal Court is established, by the Rome Statute, to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.

2019: Japan resumes commercial whaling, after a break of more than 30 years.

[GordMay]

July 2

1679: Europeans first visit Minnesota, and see headwaters of Mississippi, in an expedition led by Daniel Greysolon de Du Luht.

1698: English engineer Thomas Savery patents the first steam engine.

1776: The Continental Congress resolves, with the Declaration of Independence, that the American colonies "are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States." After a dramatic all-night ride, Delaware delegate Caesar Rodney arrived, just in time to cast the decisive vote approving the Declaration of Independence. John Dickinson abstains from the vote.

1808: Simon Fraser completes his trip down Fraser River, British Columbia, lands at Musqueam.

1839: A slave rebellion occurred, on the Spanish schooner “La Amistad”, and in their trial the following year the mutineers, who were deemed to be kidnap victims, rather than merchandise, were acquitted - a victory for American abolitionism.

1865: One-time Methodist Reform Church minister William Booth, and his wife Catherine, found the East London Christian Mission, now known as the Salvation Army.

1881: Charles J. Guiteau fatally wounds [died 79 days later on September 19] President James A. Garfield, in Washington, D.C.

1885: Canada's North-west Insurrection ends, with surrender of Big Bear.

1900: The first flight of a Zeppelin dirigible airship , “LZ-1" took place, as the airship departed a floating hangar on Lake Constance, near Friedrichshafen, Germany.

1937: American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, and Fred Noonan, disappear, in the Central Pacific [en route to Howland Island], during an attempt to fly around the world.

1951: Leidse astronomers discover radio signal out of Milky Way system.

1956: Elvis Presley records "Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel".

1962: American businessman Sam Walton opened the first Walmart (then known as Wal-Mart) store, in Rogers, Arkansas.

1964: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, perhaps the most important U.S. laws on civil rights, since Reconstruction (1865–77), and a hallmark of the American civil rights movement.

1966: 1st French nuclear test, on Mururoa atoll.

1976: Formal reunification of North and South Vietnam.

1982: Larry Walters, using lawn chair & 42 helium balloons, rose to 16,000'.

1989: Tiananmen Square student leader Wang Dan arrested and imprisoned, for spreading counterrevolutionary propaganda and incitement [trial not till 1991].

1990: Imelda Marcos and Adnan Khashoggi found not guilty of racketeering.

2005: 10* Live 8 concerts held around the world, organised by Bob Geldof, to raise awareness of poverty. [Hyde Park, London - Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia - Park Place in Barrie, Ontario - Victory Column in Tiergarten Park, Berlin - Red Square, Moscow - Chateau de Versailles, Paris - Circus Maximus, Rome - Mercy Fitzgerald Square, Johannesburg - Eden Project, Cornwall, England - Makuhari Messe, Chiba, Japan]

2012: GlaxoSmithKline settles the largest healthcare fraud case in US history, for US$3 Billion.
More ➥ https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/glaxo...failure-report

2018: British divers discover 12 boys and their coach alive, in Tham Luang Nang Non cave, Thailand, after being trapped for 9 days, by monsoon flooding.

[GordMay]

This day in music history ➥ https://www.thisdayinmusic.com/

➥ Inside the Rock Era: This Date in Rock Music History: July 2

[GordMay]

July 3

1608: Samuel de Champlain founded the city of Quebec, the first permanent European base in Canada.

1767: Pitcairn Island is discovered by Midshipman Robert Pitcairn, on an expeditionary voyage commanded by Philip Carteret.

1775: George Washington officially assumed command of the Continental Army, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, during the American Revolution, several weeks after being appointed to the post.

1790: In Paris, the Marquis de Condorcet proposes granting civil rights to women.

1814: Americans capture Fort Erie, Canada [War of 1812].

1883: SS “Daphne” sinks on Clyde River in Scotland; 195 die.

1901: The Wild Bunch, led by Butch Cassidy, commits its last American robbery near Wagner, Montana, taking $65,000 from a Great Northern train.

1903: The first cable across the Pacific Ocean is spliced between Honolulu, Midway, Guam and Manila.

1939: Ernst Heinkel demonstrates 800 kph (500 mph) rocket plane to Adolf Hitler.

1954: Food rationing ends in Great Britain, almost nine years after the end of World War II.

1971: American singer and songwriter Jim Morrison, who was a member of the rock group the Doors, died at age 27 in Paris; the official cause of death was heart failure.

1976: An Israeli commando squad, led by Dan Shomron, launched a rescue of hostages, held by airplane hijackers in Entebbe, Uganda.

1988: The U.S. Navy cruiser “Vincennes” shoots down an Iranian Airbus A300 passenger jet, that it mistakes for a hostile Iranian fighter aircraft, over Strait of Hormoez in the Persian Gulf. Kills 290.

1998: Rolls Royce Sold To Volkswagen, for £479m.

2007: America's Cup: Swiss defender “Alinghi” beats Team New Zealand by 1 second, to take the series 5-2, off Valencia, Spain.

2013: Following massive demonstrations against his rule, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi was removed from office, by a military action, with Adly Mansour appointed interim president.

[GordMay]

July 4

1776: The amended Declaration of Independence, prepared by Thomas Jefferson, is approved and signed by the Second Continental Congress [from only 12 colonies*], by John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress, and Charles Thomson, Congress secretary, in the Philadelphia State House, now Independence Hall. Called for the American colonies to secede from Great Britain. The declaration came 442 days after the first volleys of the American Revolution were fired, at Lexington and Concord, in Massachusetts.
* New York approved it on July 19, and 56 colonial delegates signed it on August 2.

1802: The United States Military Academy opened in West Point, New York.

1817: Construction begins on the Erie Canal, to connect Lake Erie and the Hudson River.

1826: Two major figures of the American Revolution, who became U.S. presidents, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, died, 50 years, to the day, after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

1884: The Statue of Liberty was presented to the United States, by the French, in Paris.

1910: In what was billed as the “Fight of the Century,” African American boxer Jack Johnson defeated James Jackson Jeffries, who was considered the “Great White Hope”; his victory led to nationwide celebrations by African Americans that were occasionally met by violence from whites, resulting in more than 20 deaths across the country.

1934: Polish chemist, physicist, Nobel Prize laureate Marie Curie died.

1946: The Republic of the Philippines was proclaimed an independent country, with Manuel Roxas as its first president.

1956: Direct keyboard input on computers debuted on MIT's Whirlwind, which had been completed five years earlier. The now-common method of input was revolutionary at a time when programmers offered instructions to machines by inserting punched cards and changing dials and switches. The Whirlwind also helped bring in a new form of memory for computers: core memory, which was installed in 1953.

2012: Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider, at CERN, announced that they had detected an interesting signal, that was likely from a Higgs boson.