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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