Events
July 3
324 – Battle of Adrianople: Constantine
I defeats Licinius, who flees to Byzantium.
987 – Hugh Capet is crowned King of France,
the first of the Capetian dynasty that would
rule France till the French Revolution in
1792.
1608 – Québec City is founded by Samuel
de Champlain.
1754 – French and Indian War: George Washington
surrenders Fort Necessity to French forces.
1767 – Pitcairn Island is discovered by
Midshipman Robert Pitcairn on an expeditionary
voyage commanded by Philip Carteret.
1767 – Norway's oldest newspaper still in
print, Adresseavisen, is founded and the
first edition is published.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: George
Washington takes command of the Continental
Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1778 – American Revolutionary War: British
forces kill 360 people in the Wyoming Valley
massacre.
1819 – The Bank of Savings in New York City,
the first savings bank in the United States,
opens.
1839 – The first state normal school in
the United States, the forerunner to today's
Framingham State College, opens in Lexington,
Massachusetts with 3 students.
1844 – The last pair of Great Auks is killed.
1848 – Slaves are freed in the Danish West
Indies (now U.S. Virgin Islands) by Peter
von Scholten in the culmination of a year-long
plot by enslaved Africans.
1849 – The French enter Rome in order to
restore Pope Pius IX to power. This would
prove a major obstacle to Italian unification.
1852 – Congress establishes the United States'
2nd mint in San Francisco, California.
1863 – American Civil War: The final day
of the Battle of Gettysburg culminates with
Pickett's Charge.
1866 – Austro-Prussian War is decided at
the Battle of Königgratz, resulting in Prussia
taking over as the prominent German nation
from Austria.
1884 – Dow Jones and Company publishes its
first stock average.
1886 – Karl Benz officially unveils the
Benz Patent Motorwagen – the first purpose-built
automobile.
1886 – The New York Tribune becomes the
first newspaper to use a linotype machine,
eliminating typesetting by hand.
1890 – Idaho is admitted as the 43rd U.S.
state.
1898 – Spanish-American War: The Spanish
fleet, led by Pascual Cervera y Topete,
is destroyed by the U.S. Navy in Santiago,
Cuba.
1913 – Confederate veterans at the Great
Reunion of 1913 reenact Pickett's Charge;
upon reaching the high-water mark of the
Confederacy they are met by the outstretched
hands of friendship from Union survivors.
1938 – World speed record for a steam railway
locomotive is set in England, by the Mallard,
which reaches a speed of 126 miles per hour
(203 km/h).
1938 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates
the Eternal Light Peace Memorial and lights
the eternal flame at Gettysburg Battlefield.
1940 – World War II: the French fleet of
the Atlantic based at Mers el Kébir, is
bombarded by the British fleet, coming from
Gibraltar, causing the loss of three battleships:
Dunkerque, Provence and Bretagne. One thousand
two hundred sailors perish.
1944 – World War II: Minsk is liberated
from Nazi control by Soviet troops during
Operation Bagration.
1952 – The Constitution of Puerto Rico is
approved by the Congress of the United States.
1952 – The SS United States sets sail on
her maiden voyage to Southampton. During
the voyage, the ship takes the Blue Riband
away from the RMS Queen Mary.
1962 – The Algerian War of Independence
against the French ends.
1969 – The biggest explosion in the history
of rocketry occurs when the Soviet N-1 rocket
explodes and subsequently destroys its launchpad.
1970 – The Troubles: the "Falls Curfew"
begins in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
1979 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter signs
the first directive for secret aid to the
opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.
1988 – United States Navy warship USS Vincennes
shoots down Iran Air Flight 655 over the
Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.
1988 – The Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge in
Istanbul, Turkey is completed, providing
the second connection between the continents
of Europe and Asia over the Bosporus.
1994 – The deadliest day in Texas traffic
history, according to the Texas Department
of Public Safety. Forty-six people are killed
in crashes.
1996 – Stone of Scone is returned to Scotland.
2001 – A Vladivostok Avia Tupolev Tu-154
jetliner crashes on approach to landing
at Irkutsk, Russia killing 145 people.
2005 – Same-sex marriage in Spain becomes
legal.
2006 – Valencia metro accident leaves 43
dead in Valencia, Spain.
Holidays
and observances
Christian
Feast Day:
Heliodorus of Altino
Mucian
Patriarch Anatolius of Constantinople
Pope Leo II
Translation of Saint Thomas, one of four
days in the year on which Quarter Sessions
sat.
July 3 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Emancipation Day (United States Virgin Islands)
Independence Day, celebrates the liberation
of Minsk from Nazi occupation by Soviet
troops in 1944. (Belarus)
The start of the Dog Days according to The
Old Farmer's Almanac but not according to
established meaning in most European cultures.
Women's Day (Myanmar)
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