July 3 is the 184th day of the year (185th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 181 days remaining until the end of the year.
Holidays
- Christian Feast Day:
- Germanus of Man
- Heliodorus of Altino
- Mucian
- Patriarch Anatolius of Constantinople
- Pope Leo II
- Feast of Saint Thomas, Apostle, one of four days in the year on which Quarter Sessions sat.
- Venerated Antonietta Meo
- 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)
History
In 324, Battle of Adrianople: Constantine I defeats Licinius, who flees to Byzantium.
In 987, Hugh Capet is crowned King of France, the first of the Capetian dynasty that would rule France until the French Revolution in 1792.
In 1035, William the Conqueror becomes the Duke of Normandy, reigns until 1087.
In 1608, Québec City is founded by Samuel de Champlain.
In 1749, William Jones, Welsh-English mathematician (b. 1675) dies. He was a Welsh mathematician, most noted for his proposal for the use of the symbol π (the Greek letter pi) to represent the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He was a close friend of Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Edmund Halley. In November, 1711 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was later its Vice-President.
In 1754, French and Indian War: George Washington surrenders Fort Necessity to French forces.
In 1767, Pitcairn Island is discovered by Midshipman Robert Pitcairn on an expeditionary voyage commanded by Philip Carteret.
In 1767, Norway’s oldest newspaper still in print, Adresseavisen, is founded and the first edition is published.
In 1775, American Revolutionary War: George Washington takes command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In 1778, American Revolutionary War: Iroquois allied to Britain kill 360 people in the Wyoming Valley massacre.
In 1819, The Bank of Savings in New York City, the first savings bank in the United States, opens.
In 1839, The first state normal school in the United States, the forerunner to today’s Framingham State College, opens in Lexington, Massachusetts with three students.
In 1844, The last pair of great auks is killed.
In 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.
In 1849, The French enter Rome in order to restore Pope Pius IX to power. This would prove a major obstacle to Italian unification.
In 1852, Congress establishes the United States’ 2nd mint in San Francisco.
In 1863, American Civil War: The final day of the Battle of Gettysburg culminates with Pickett’s Charge.
In 1866, Austro-Prussian War is decided at the Battle of Königgratz, resulting in Prussia taking over as the prominent German nation from Austria.
In 1884, Dow Jones and Company publishes its first stock average.
In 1886, Karl Benz officially unveils the Benz Patent Motorwagen: The first purpose-built automobile.
In 1886, The New York Tribune becomes the first newspaper to use a linotype machine, eliminating typesetting by hand.
In 1890, Idaho is admitted as the 43rd U.S. state.
In 1898, Spanish–American War: The Spanish fleet, led by Pascual Cervera y Topete, is destroyed by the U.S. Navy in Santiago, Cuba.
In 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.
In 1916, Hetty Green, American businesswoman and financier (b. 1834) dies at age 81 at her son’s New York City home. According to her longstanding “World’s Greatest Miser” entry in the Guinness Book of World Records, she died of apoplexy after arguing with a maid over the virtues of skimmed milk. The New York Times reported she suffered a series of strokes leading up to her death. She was nicknamed “The Witch of Wall Street”, an American businesswoman and financier known as “the richest woman in America” during the Gilded Age. Known for both her wealth and her miserliness, she was the lone woman to amass a fortune when other major financiers were men.
In 1937, Jacob Schick, American-Canadian captain and businessman, invented the electric razor (b. 1877) dies from complications due to a kidney operation. He was an American inventor and entrepreneur who patented the first electric razor and started the Schick Dry Shaver, Inc. razor company. Schick became a Canadian citizen in 1935 to avoid an investigation by the Joint Congressional Committee on Tax Evasion & Avoidance after he moved most of his wealth to a series of holding companies in the Bahamas. Smart man…..
In 1938, World speed record for a steam railway locomotive is set in England, by the Mallard, which reaches a speed of 125.88 miles per hour (202.58 km/h).
In 1938, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates the Eternal Light Peace Memorial and lights the eternal flame at Gettysburg Battlefield.
In 1939, Street Cars ran for the last time in Jackson, Tennessee.
In 1940, World War II: In order to stop the ships from falling into German hands 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.
In 1944, World War II: Minsk is liberated from Nazi control by Soviet troops during Operation Bagration.
In 1952, The Constitution of Puerto Rico is approved by the Congress of the United States.
In 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.
In 1965, Trigger, American horse (b. 1932) dies. He was a palomino horse made famous in American Western films with his owner and rider, cowboy star Roy Rogers. Though often mistaken for a Tennessee Walking Horse, his sire was a Thoroughbred and his dam a grade (unregistered) mare who, like Trigger, was a palomino. Movie director William Witney, who directed Roy and Trigger in many of their movies, claimed a slightly different lineage, that his sire was a “registered” Palomino stallion, though no known Palomino registry existed at the time of Trigger’s birth, and his dam was by a Thoroughbred and out of a “cold-blood” mare. Horses other than Golden Cloud also portrayed “Trigger” over the years, none of which were related to Golden Cloud, the two most prominent of which were palominos known as “Little Trigger” and “Trigger Jr.” (who was a Tennessee Walking Horse listed as “Allen’s Gold Zephyr” in the Tennessee Walking Horse registry). Though Trigger remained a stallion his entire life, he was never bred and has no descendants. On the other hand, Roy Rogers used “Trigger Jr.”/”Allen’s Golden Zephyr” at stud for many years, and the horse named “Triggerson” that actor Val Kilmer led on stage as a tribute to Rogers and his cowboy peers during the Academy Awards show in March 1999 was reportedly a grandson of “Trigger Jr.”
Golden Cloud made an early appearance as the mount of Maid Marian, played by Olivia de Havilland in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). A short while later, when Roy Rogers was preparing to make his first movie in a starring role, he was offered a choice of five rented “movie” horses to ride and chose Golden Cloud. Rogers bought him eventually in 1943 and renamed him Trigger for his quickness of both foot and mind. Trigger learned 150 trick cues and could walk 50 feet on his hind legs (according to sources close to Roy Rogers). They were said to have run out of places to cue Trigger.
Trigger was ridden by Rogers in many of his motion pictures, becoming much loved by the youthful audience that saw him on film and in Rogers’ 1950s television series with his wife Dale Evans, who rode her trusty buckskin Quarter Horse Buttermilk.
Trigger became the most famous horse in film entertainment, even having his own Dell comic book recounting his exploits.
In 1967, The Aden Emergency: The Battle of the Crater in which the British Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders retake the Crater district following the Arab Police Mutiny.
In 1969, Space Race: The biggest explosion in the history of rocketry occurs when the Soviet N-1 rocket explodes and subsequently destroys its launchpad.
In 1970, The Troubles: The “Falls Curfew” begins in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
In 1979, U.S. President Jimmy Carter signs the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.
In 1988, United States Navy warship USS Vincennes shoots down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.
In 1988, The Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey is completed, providing the second connection between the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosphorus.
In 1995, Saint Kitts and Nevis Labour Party wins the general elections and is restored to power after being in opposition for 15 years.
In 1996, Stone of Scone is returned to Scotland.
In 2012, Andy Griffith, American actor, singer, and producer (b. 1926) dies on July 3, 2012, from a heart attack at the age of 86 at his coastal home in Manteo, Roanoke Island, in Dare County, North Carolina. He was buried in the Griffith family cemetery on the island within five hours of his death. He was an American actor, comedian, television producer, Southern gospel singer, and writer, whose career spanned seven decades of music and television.
Known for his southern drawl, his characters with a folksy-friendly personality, and his gruff, gregarious voice, Griffith was a Tony Award nominee for two roles, and gained prominence in the starring role in director Elia Kazan‘s film A Face in the Crowd (1957) before he became better known for his television roles, playing the lead roles of Andy Taylor in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968) and Ben Matlock in the legal drama Matlock (1986–1995).
In 2013, Egyptian coup d’état: President of Egypt Mohamed Morsi is overthrown by the military after four days of protests all over the country calling for Morsi’s resignation, to which he didn’t respond. President of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt Adly Mansour is declared acting president.
