This Day in History:

<i<JULY 1

Happy, Happies to:

*1725 Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, commander of the French contingent in the American Revolution.

*1804 George Sand [Amandine Aurore Lucile Dudevant] author

*1872 Louis Bleriot aviation pioneer

*1899 Thomas Dorsey musician, pianist, composer

*1899 Charles Laughton Academy Award-winning actor

*1902 Myron Cohen comedian, entertainer, actor

*1915 Willie Dixon blues musician, songwriter, producer

*1916 Olivia DeHavilland Academy Award-winning actress

*1936 James Cotton Blues musician

*1952 Dan Ackroyd. actor, comedian

*1967 Pamela Anderson Lee model, “actress “

Farewells to:

*1896 Harriet Beecher Stowe, US author (Uncle Tom's Cabin), died at 85

*1983 R Buckminster Fuller, inventor/philosopher, died in LA at 87

*1995 Wolfman Jack, disc jockey (Midnight Special), died at 57

*1997 Robert Mitchum “Bad Boy” movie actor

*1999 Edward Dmytryk, a member of the Hollywood Ten who served prison time during the Red Scare-era witch hunts of the 1940s, and was blacklisted until he named names of his communist comrades, died at 90 in Encino, California. He had been ill for a year and succumbed to heart and kidney failure. Films Dmytryk directed included The Caine Mutiny, Raintree Country, The Young Lions, and The Carpetbaggers.

*1999 Forrest Edward Mars, helped develop the Milky Way candy bar, created M & Ms

*2000 Walter Matthau died at age 79

*2004 Marlon Brando actor

On This Day In:

*1097 - The Crusaders defeated the Turks at Dorylaeum in the First Crusade.

*1200 - In China, sunglasses are invented

*1535 - English writer and statesman, Sir Thomas More, was tried and convicted under charges of treason. He was executed five days later. As chancellor of England, he was accused of treason for refusing to accept King Henry VIII as head of the Church of England. More is famous for his book "Utopia."

*1543 - England and Scotland signed the Peace of Greenwich, providing for the marriage of Prince Edward Tudor and Mary, Queen of Scots.

*1569 - The Union of Lublin merged Poland and Lithuania.

*1796 - The first experiment with smallpox inoculation was made by Dr Edward Jenner of Berkeley, England. He treated both arms of eight-year-old James Phipps. Jenner had previously vaccinated the boy with cowpox in May, with the result that he was not harmed by the otherwise deadly smallpox material.

*1845 - Philosopher and poet Henry David Thoreau took up residence at Walden Pond in Massachusetts.

*1847 - The very first adhesive postage stamp went on sale. Ben Franklin appeared on the nickel stamp, while George Washington was on the ten cent stamp. It cost five cents to mail a one-ounce letter.

*1859 - In the first college baseball game ever played, Amherst defeated Williams College, 73-32 (66-32 by some reports) in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

*1862 - The United States Congress established the Bureau of Internal Revenue. President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law, making it possible for the feds to collect a three percent income tax on profits ranging from $600 to $10,000, and 5% on incomes reaching over $10,000. Several laws like this were never officially enacted or enforced and this law was just temporary. In 1913, the Bureau became the Internal Revenue Service. It was then the 16th amendment was added to the United States Constitution allowing the Federal Government to once again collect an income tax. Lucky us.

*1862 – Battle of Malvern Hill, concluding battle in The Seven Days

*1863 - The Battle of Gettysburg (Pennsylvania), one of the Civil War's most crucial combats, began. In the battle Confederate troops led by Gen. Robert E. Lee fought against Union troops led by Gen. George Meade. The first day’s action ended with the Union pushed back to Cemetery Ridge.

*1874 - The first zoological gardens chartered in the United States, opened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Over 3,000 visitors paid 25 cents (adults) or 10 cents (children) to see the 1,000 animals housed in the Philadelphia Zoological Society zoo.

*1874 - First US kidnapping for ransom, 4-year-old Charles Ross, $20,000

*1898 - During the Spanish-American War, Theodore Roosevelt and his ''Rough Riders'' waged a victorious assault on San Juan Hill in Cuba.

*1903 - The world's premier cycling event, the Tour de France, was held for the first time. The winner of the first tour was the French cyclist Maurice Garin. The tour is staged throughout France (sometimes passing through neighboring countries) over a period of several weeks.

*1916 – In the first battle of the Somme, British forces launched a massive infantry attack during which they lost 20,000 men -- the heaviest one-day loss in British warfare.

*1940 - German troops landed on the Channel Island of Jersey.

*1940 – The Tacoma Narrows Bridge opened; the bridge collapsed five months later.

*1942 - Sevastopol in Crimea fell to German forces after an eight-month siege.

*1946 - The U.S. tested an atomic bomb over the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

*1961 - In Boise, Idaho, the first ever community air-raid shelter was built. The shelter could up to 1,000 people and for $100 a family could buy a membership.

*1963 - The U.S. Post Office introduced five-digit ZIP codes.

*1981 - The United States Supreme Court ruled that federal office candidates had an "affirmative right" to appear on national television. The ruling limited the television network’s right to decide when political campaigns could begin and who could buy time.

*1991 - Court television was born as a cable television network which broadcasts entire trials, whether about the rich or the poor.

*1997 - Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule after 156 years as a British colony.

*2008 - Build a Scarecrow Day (also Canada Day)

This Day in History:

JULY 2

Happy, Happies to:

*1810 Robert Augustus Toombs, Secy State (Confederacy), died in 1885

*1877 Hermann Hesse, Switzerland, novelist/poet (Steppenwolf, Nobel 1946)

*1894 Walter Brennan actor

*1925 Medgar Evers American civil-rights activist; assassinated in 1963

Farewells to:

*1566 Nostradamus, [Michel de Nostre-Dam], French astrologist, died at 62

*1778 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, composer, died at 66

*1850 Denmark Vesey was executed in Charleston, South Carolina, for planning what would have been the largest slave revolt in US history. A former slave who bought his freedom, Vesey began plotting the insurrection in 1818, holding secret meetings, collecting disguises and buying firearms. Word got out about the plot and the authorities arrested the insurrectionists. Vesey was hanged along with 34 other African Americans.

*1935 Alfred Dreyfus, French colonel, died

*1940 Ben[jamin] Turpin, cross-eyed US comic (Saps at Sea, His New Job), died

Allegedly, the studio took out a million-dollar insurance policy with Lloyd’s of London against Turpin’s eyes uncrossing. One of the funniest of the silent comedians (and very funny, overall)

*1961 Ernest Hemingway died at his home in Ketchum, Idaho, of a self-inflicted shotgun wound.

*1973 Betty Grable Movie star, GI pinup

*1973 Ferdinand Schorner German Field marshal (WW II)

*1991 Lee Remick, actress (Days of Wine & Roses), died of cancer at 55

*1993 Fred Gwynne, actor (Herman-Munsters), died of pancreatic cancer at 66

*1997 Jimmy Stewart died of a heart attack at age 89. He was a Hollywood favorite, and starred in such film classics as It's a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Vertigo, The Philadelphia Story, and Rear Window. Stewart won many awards during his career, including the Best Actor Oscar for The Philadelphia Story, a Golden Globe Award for Best Television Actor in a Drama Series for Hawkins; the American Film Institute Achievement Award, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Kennedy Center Honors Award, and the Cecil B. De Mille Golden Globe Award for Lifetime Achievement. He was the Number 1 Box Office film star in 1955 and on Top Ten Box Office film list 10 times during 1950s and 60s.

*1999 Mario Puzo, creator of the fictional Corleone mob family and winner of two Oscars for his screen adaptations of his book, "The Godfather," died in New York at age 78. Puzo died, apparently of heart failure, at his Bay Shore home on Long Island, said his literary agent. Puzo had just finished work on his latest book, Omerta. Puzo, who wrote seven other novels in addition to The Godfather, was born in New York, the son of illiterate Italian immigrants. After serving in World War II, he began his writing career - starting out doing pulp stories for men's magazines.

On This Day In:

*1644 - Battle of Marston Moor: Parliamentary forces defeated the Royalists

*1747 - Marshal de Saxe defeated the Duke of Cumberland at the Battle of Lauffeld.

*1857 - New York City’s first elevated railroad officially opened. It was soon dubbed the "El".

*1881 - After only four months in office, President James A. Garfield was shot as he entered the railway station in Washington, DC. He died three months later as a result of his wound. Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau who apparently was incensed that his application to become US ambassador to France had been denied.

*1890 - Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act.

*1900 - Finnish composer Jean Sibelius's "Finlandia" premiered in Helsinki, Finland. Written the year before, "Finlandia" became the battle cry of Finnish independentists against Tsarist Russia. "Finlandia" is believe to echo the cadences of the Finnish language.

*1922 - A day before his 19th birthday, Ralph W. Samuelson became the first person to ride on water skis as they are used today, at Lake Pepin, Minnesota.

*1941 - Dick Wakefield became baseball's first 'bonus baby' when he signed with the Tigers for $52,000 and a new car. The University of Michigan standout hit .143 in seven at-bat this season.

*1947 - An object crashed near Roswell, NM. The U.S. Army Air Force insisted it was a weather balloon, but eyewitness accounts led to speculation that it might have been an alien spacecraft.

*1959 - Plan 9 From Outer Space, voted one of the worst films ever, premiered in theaters

*1964 - United States President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed into law the "Civil Rights Act of 1964." The law prohibited discrimination on the basis of race where the registration of voters was involved, in public accommodations, in publicly owned or operated facilities, and in employment and union membership.

*1998 - CNN retracted a story alleging U.S. commandos had used nerve gas to kill American defectors during the Vietnam War.

Talk about oddities as I know all about Roswell.

I knew Garfield was assassinated, but knew none of this, "After only four months in office, President James A. Garfield was shot as he entered the railway station in Washington, DC. He died three months later as a result of his wound. Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau who apparently was incensed that his application to become US ambassador to France had been denied."

Thanks, Nick~~sign me another typical American

This Day in History:

JULY 3

Happy, Happies to:

*1567 Samuel de Champlain, French explorer

*1878 George M. Cohan actor, singer, composer. Born on this day and not the fourth)

*1883 Franz Kafka Czech-born German author

*1886 Raymond A Spruance, US admiral/fleet commander/ambassador

*1906 George Sanders Academy Award-winning actor

*1937 Tom Stoppard [Straussler] playwright

*1949 Paul Barrere musician, guitarist (Little Feat)

*1949 Jan Smithers actress (Bailey Quarters – WKRP)

*1962 Tom Cruise [Mapother] actor

Farewells to:

*1863 Lewis Armistead, William Barksdale, Richard Garnett, Samuel Zook generals, died in Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg

*1908 Joel Chandler Harris, created Uncle Remus, died at 59

*1920 William Crawford Gorgas, U.S. Army surgeon who contributed greatly to the building of the Panama Canal by introducing mosquito control to prevent yellow fever and malaria, died at 66

*1965 Trigger, horse (Roy Rogers), died at 25

*1969 Brian Jones, guitarist (Rolling Stones), drowned to death at 25

*1971 Jim Morrison, lead singer and composer for the rock group The Doors, died at the age of 27, while in a hot bath in the middle of the night at a Paris, France hotel room. His death was attributed to heart failure, although popular speculation blamed an overdose of heroin. As there was no autopsy, the truth may never be known. Before his death, Morrison had a series of arrests which critics linked to his drug abuse problem. His popularity with fans was waning, only to be rekindled after his death. Some critics felt he was a mediocre rock singer whose star was falling fast, and who was catapulted undeservedly into rock 'n' roll legend. Hit songs by the Doors include Light My Fire and Riders On the Storm.

*1981 Ross Martin, actor (Mr Lucky, Wild Wild West), died at 61

*1986 Rudy Vallee, popular crooner, died at 84

On This Day In:

*1754 – During the Seven Years’ War, George Washington surrendered to the French at Ft Necessity

*1819 - The United States first bank opened in New York City. The first day saw deposits totaling $2,807.

*1863 – The Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania ended after three days in a major victory for the North as Confederate troops retreated.

*1884 - Journalists Charles Dow and Edward Jones published the first average of US stocks. The first Dow-Jones average included mostly railroads because they were the biggest and sturdiest companies at the time. Dow and Jones founded their financial news company next to the New York Stock Exchange, on Wall Street.

*1886 - Karl Benz drove the first automobile in the world in Mannheim, Germany, reaching a top speed of 10 mph.

*1898 – The US Navy defeated the Spanish Navy at the Battle of Santiago

*1901 - The Wild Bunch, led by Butch Cassidy, committed its last American robbery near Wagner, MT. They took $65,000 from a Great Northern train.

*1929 - Foam rubber was developed at the Dunlop Latex Development Laboratories in Birmingham. England. British scientist E.A. Murphy whipped up the first batch in 1929, using an ordinary kitchen mixer to froth natural latex rubber. His colleagues were unimpressed - until they sat on it.

*1934 - The United States Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) made its first payment ever to Lydia Losiger of East Peoria, Illinois.

*1939 - "Blondie," Chic Young’s comic strip character, made her debut on CBS radio. Later, the comic strip would become a television favorite.

*1940 – The Royal Navy attacked the French Fleet at Mers el Kebir

*1942 – Japanese troops landed on Tulagi

*1945 - Since February 1942, the first civilian passenger car to be built was driven off the Ford Motor Company's assembly line at their plant in Detroit, Michigan. Automotive production had been diverted to military production for World War II efforts.

*1950 - U.S. carrier-based planes attacked airfields in the Pyongyang-Chinnampo area of North Korea in the first air-strike of the Korean War.

*1971 - The reputation of the Newport Jazz Festival’s was tarnished when crashers advanced on the stage. The unruliness of the crowd forced the show to abandon Newport, Rhode Island for New York City. The crowd got unruly over singer Dionne Warwick. At the time of the incident she was singing "What the World Needs Now is Love."

*1976 - An Israeli commando unit rescued 103 hostages after a raid on Entebbe airport in Uganda. The 106 hostages originally taken were snatched from a hijacked Air France airliner on its way to Paris from Tel Aviv. During the raid, seven pro-Palestinian guerrilla hijackers, 20 Ugandan soldiers and 3 hostages were killed.

*1988 - The Unites States Navy warship USS Vincennes mistakenly shot down Iran Air flight 655, destroying the plane and killing all 290 passengers and crew aboard. The Vincennes, boasting the world's most sophisticated radar detection equipment, mistook the civilian airbus for a hostile F-14 fighter jet. A military inquiry blamed the disaster on human failure.

This Day in History:

JULY 4

Happy, Happies to:

*1804 Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mass, author (House of Seven Gables, Scarlet Letter)

*1807 Giuseppe Garibaldi, freedom fighter (Risorgimento)/unified Italy

*1826 Stephen Foster song writer

*1847 James Anthony Bailey, Detroit, circus impresario (Barnum & Bailey)

*1883 Rube Goldberg American cartoonist who satirized the American preoccupation with technology. His name became synonymous with any simple process made outlandishly complicated because of his series of "Invention" cartoons which use a string of outlandish tools, people, plants and steps to accomplish everyday simple tasks in the most complicated way.

*1902 Meyer Lansky [Maier Suchowljansky], mobster, eminence grise of the Mob (the model for Hyman Roth in The Godfather)

*1906 Vincent Joseph Schaefer, U.S. research chemist who invented "cloud-seeding," artificially causing rain or snow using dry ice pellets.

*1918 Ann Landers [Esther Pauline Friedman] and Abigail Van Buren [Pauline Esther Friedman] advice columnists

*1918 Edward Craven Walker, WW II veteran, exuberant nudist, and inventor of the lava lamp. (in 1963)

*1927 Neil Simon Tony Award-winning playwright

*1928 Gina Lollobrigida actress

*1929 Al Davis football general manager (Oakland Raiders)

*1930 George Steinbrenner shipping magnate, baseball team owner (NY Yankees)

Farewells to:

*1826 John Adams, 2nd president (1797-1801), died at 90

*1826 Thomas Jefferson, 3rd president (1801-09), died at 83

*1831 James Monroe, 5th president (1817-25), died at 73

*1971 Thomas C Hart, US admiral, submarine pioneer, commander of the US Asiatic Fleet, died at 94

*1995 Bob Ross, TV artist (The “Happy, Little Trees” Guy), died at 52

*2003 Barry White, singer

On This Day In:

*1187 – Battle of the Horns of Hattin: The Crusaders were routed by Saladin, which led to the loss of the Holy Land to the Saracens

*1708 – Battle of Holowczyn; Charles XII defeated Peter the Great

*1776 - Americans celebrated their independence from Britain. July 4th remembers the approval of writing the "Declaration of Independence" in 1776. (see below) The actual signing of the document did not occur until a month later. Most of the delegates signed the Declaration on August 2, 1776, the first signature being that of John Hancock. Several signatures were obtained later ... George Wythe (Virginia) on August 27; Richard Henry Lee (Virginia), Elbridge Gerry (Massachusetts), Oliver Wolcott (Connecticut) signed in September; Matthew Thornton (New Hampshire) in November. Thomas McKean, representing Delaware, was serving in the army and was unavailable to add his ‘John Hancock’ until 1781.

*1802 - The U.S. Military Academy officially opened at West Point, N.Y

*1828 - The first U.S. hotel to install bathrooms was the Tremont House, Boston, Mass., for which the cornerstone was laid today.

*1832 - At Boston's Park Street Church, the song, America, was publicly sung for the first time. The words were written by Dr. Samuel Francis Smith who borrowed the tune from a German songbook. Unknown to Dr. Smith, the melody was the same as the British national anthem.

*1845 - Writer and naturalist Henry David Thoreau went to live in a shack adjacent to Walden Pond, Massachusetts. During his two-year stay he kept a journal of his thoughts and encounters with nature. His journal became the basis for "Walden," one of the most important treasures of US literature. Walden Pond later became a state reservation.

*1862 - English mathematician and writer Lewis Carroll (real name Charles Dodgson) narrated parts of the story Alice in Wonderland to the children of a colleague. Among the children was Alice Liddell who provided Carroll with inspiration in creating the story's heroine. The complete version of "Alice in Wonderland," one of the most beloved children's stories of all time, was first published three years later. Carroll wrote "Alice in Wonderland" while working at Christ Church, Oxford.

*1863 - Vicksburg surrendered to Union forces

*1881 - Tuskegee Institute opened its doors to students who had built it with bricks made in their own kilns. An abandoned plantation in Tuskegee, Alabama was chosen as the site for the institution for academic and vocational training desired by Booker T. Washington.

*1895 - The famous song, sometimes heralded as the true United States national anthem, America the Beautiful, was originally a poem written by Katherine Lee Bates. A professor at Wellesley College, Bates' poem was first published today in the "Congregationalist," a church newspaper.

*1905 - With the A's scoring two runs in the top of the 20th inning, Rube Waddell beat Cy Young and the Boston Americans (Red Sox), 4-2. Each starter went the distance without issuing a base-on-balls in the Huntington Ave Baseball Grounds contest.

*1910 - Race riots broke out all over the United States after African-American Jack Johnson knocked out Jim Jeffries in a heavyweight boxing match

*1939 - At an emotional ceremony at New York City's Yankee Stadium, Lou Gehrig retired from baseball. Fans totaling some 60,000 came out to say goodbye to the "Iron Horse". (''Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.''. )

*1946 - The Philippines became independent.

*1985 - In a 19 inning game, which goes until just before 4 a.m. the next day, the Mets beat the Braves, 16-13. After the 6 hours, 10 minutes game, the 1000 fans left in Atlanta Fulton County Stadium are treated to pre-dawn fireworks which awaken and frighten many of the ball park’s neighbors.

*1987 - Klaus Barbie, the former Gestapo chief known as the ''Butcher of Lyon,'' was convicted by a French court of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison.

*2003 - Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault after a woman accused him of sexual misconduct at a hotel near Vail, Colo. (The charge was later dropped because the woman did not want to go ahead with a trial.)

"Declaration of Independence" the completion of the signing is news to me.

How is that for historically remembering nothing?

I was thinking that the document was approved on July 2nd, and that the first signatures were applied on the 4th (which made the Declaration official), with the others signing in the following months. I had better go back to the history books too.

Nick, thanks again for doing this everyday. I love it!