History of 4 July
1901 – William H. Taft became the American governor of the Philippines.
1910 – Race riots broke out all over the United States after African-American Jack Johnson knocked out Jim Jeffries in a heavyweight boxing match.
1934 – Boxer Joe Louis won his first professional fight.
1934 – At Mount Rushmore, George Washington’s face was dedicated.
1939 – Lou Gehrig retired from major league baseball.
1946 – The Philippines achieved full independence for the first time in over four hundred years.
1955 – The first king cobra snakes born in captivity in the U.S. hatched at the Bronx Zoo in New York City.
1957 – The U.S. Postal Service issued the 4¢ Flag stamp.
1959 – The 49-star U.S. flag became official.
1960 – The 50-star U.S. flag made its debut in Philadelphia, PA.
1966 – U.S. President Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act, which went into effect the following year.
1976 – The U.S. celebrated its Bicentennial.
1982 – The Soviets performed a nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh Semipalitinsk.
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.
1997 – The Mars Pathfinder, an unmanned spacecraft, landed on Mars. A rover named Sojourner was deployed to gather data about the surface of the planet.
1997 – Ferry service between Manhattan and Staten Island was made free of charge. Previously, the charge had ranged from 5 cents to 50 cents.
2004 – In New York, the cornerstone of the Freedom Tower (One World Trade Center) was laid on the former World Trade Center site.
2005 – NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft took pictures as a space probe smashed into the Tempel 1 comet. The mission was aimed at learning more about comets that formed from the leftover building blocks of the solar system. The Deep Impact mission launched on January 12, 2005.
2009 – North Korea launched seven ballistic missiles into waters off its east coast that defied U.N. resolutions.
2009 – The Statue of Liberty’s crown reopened to visitors. It had been closed to the public since 2001.
2012 – The discovery of particles consistent with the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider is announced at CERN.
2015 – Chile claims its first title in international soccer by defeating Argentina in the 2015 Copa América Final.
Celebrating Birthday’s Today
- 1981 – Dedé, Angolan footballer
- 1981 – Brock Berlin, American football player
- 1981 – Christoph Preuß, German footballer
- 1981 – Francisco Cruceta, Dominican baseball player
- 1981 – Will Smith, American football player (d. 2016)
- 1982 – Vladimir Boisa, Georgian basketball player
- 1982 – Vladimir Gusev, Russian cyclist
- 1982 – Jeff Lima, New Zealand rugby league player
- 1982 – Michael “The Situation” Sorrentino, American model, author, and television personality
- 1983 – Melanie Fiona, Canadian singer-songwriter
- 1983 – Amantle Montsho, Botswanan sprinter
- 1983 – Miguel Pinto, Chilean footballer
- 1983 – Amol Rajan, Indian-English journalist
- 1983 – Mattia Serafini, Italian footballer
- 1984 – Jin Akanishi, Japanese singer-songwriter
- 1984 – Miguel Santos Soares, Timorese footballer
- 1985 – Kane Tenace, Australian footballer
- 1985 – Dimitrios Mavroeidis, Greek basketball player
- 1985 – Wason Rentería, Colombian footballer
- 1986 – Ömer Aşık, Turkish basketball player
- 1986 – Nguyen Ngoc Duy, Vietnamese footballer
- 1986 – Rafael Arévalo, a Salvadoran tennis player
- 1986 – Willem Janssen, Dutch footballer
- 1986 – Terrance Knighton, American football player
- 1986 – Marte Elden, Norwegian skier
- 1987 – Wude Ayalew, Ethiopian runner
- 1987 – Guram Kashia, Georgian footballer
- 1988 – Angelique Boyer, French-Mexican actress
- 1989 – Benjamin Büchel, English footballer
- 1990 – Jake Gardiner, American ice hockey player
- 1990 – Richard Mpong, Ghanaian footballer
- 1990 – Naoki Yamada, Japanese footballer
- 1990 – Ihar Yasinski, Belarusian footballer
- 1992 – Ángel Romero, Paraguayan footballer
- 1992 – Óscar Romero, Paraguayan footballer
- 1993 – Tom Barkhuizen, English footballer
- 1995 – Post Malone, American singer, rapper, songwriter and record producer
- 1999 – Moa Kikuchi, Japanese musician
- 2003 – Polina Bogusevich, Russian singer