July 1

July is National Blueberry Month and National Anti-Boredom Month and Unlucky Month for weddings and National Hot Dog Month and National Ice Cream Month

It’s Build A Scarecrow Day and Canada Day and Creative Ice Cream Flavors Day and International Joke Day

ON THIS DAY…
0251 The Battle of Abrittus is won by Goths against Romans.Roman Emperors Decius and Herennius Etruscus are killed
1520 Joint Mexican Indian force led by Aztecs under Cuitláhuac defeat Spanish Conquistadors under Hernán Cortés
1823 The former Spanish colonies of Guatemala, San Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica form the Confederation of the United Provinces of Central America
1858 The joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace’s papers on evolution to the Linnean Society
1863 The Union army takes heavy losses on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, considered the pivotal battle in the American Civil War
1867 The British North America Act, passed by the British Parliament, goes into effect, joining four North American colonies in the Dominion of Canada
1870 The United States Department of Justice formally comes into existence
1874 The Philadelphia Zoo, the first zoological gardens in the US opened to the public in Philadelphia, PA
1873 Prince Edward Island joins the Canadian Confederation
1878 Canada joins the Universal Postal Union
1879 Charles Taze Russell publishes the first edition of the religious magazine The Watchtower
1885 United States terminates reciprocity and fishery agreement with Canada
1886 The first Linotype machine to be put into commercial use in the US was installed at the Tribune newspaper of New York City
1898 Theodore Roosevelt leads a group of volunteers known as the Rough Riders in their charge on San Juan Hill in Cuba at the beginning of the Spanish-American War
1910 The first completely automatic bread baking plant in the U.S. was opened by the Ward Baking Company of Chicago, IL; neither the dough nor the bread was touched by human hand until it exited at the wrapping machine
1916 Dwight D. Eisenhower and Mamie Doud are married
1916 In World War I on the first day of the Battle of the Somme 20,000 soldiers of the British Army are killed and 40,000 wounded
1921 The Communist Party of China is founded
1923 Canadian Parliament suspends all Chinese immigration
1934 The first X-ray photograph of the whole body taken in a one-second exposure, using ordinary clinical conditions such as would exist at an average hospital, was made at Rochester, NY
1941 Animation director Tex Avery quit his job at Warner Bros over studio cuts made to “A Wild Hare,” the first Bugs Bunny cartoon
1941 The first television commercial airs
1951 Mary Reeser, of St. Petersburg, FL spontaneously combusts (and she wasn’t even a drummer for Spinal Tap)
1956 Elvis Presley appears on The Steve Allen Show, where he is not allowed to to dance; wearing white tie and tails, Presley sings Hound Dog to a basset hound – the dog wears a top hat
1958 The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation links television broadcasting across Canada via microwave
1960 Independence of Somalia
1962 Independence of Burundi
1962 Independence of Rwanda
1962 Algeria wins independence from France
1963 ZIP Codes are introduced for United States mail
1966 First color television transmission in Canada, from Toronto
1967 Canada celebrates the 100th anniversary of the British North America Act, 1867
1972 Bewitched aired its final episode on ABC-TV, concluding eight seasons
1979 Sony introduces the Walkman
1980 “O Canada” officially becomes the national anthem of Canada
1984 The PG-13 rating is introduced by the MPAA
1986 In an interview with Playboy magazine, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke comes out as a bisexual
1987 Excavation begins on the Channel Tunnel
1990 East Germany accepts the Deutsche Mark as its currency, thus uniting the economies of East and West Germany
1991 The Warsaw Pact is officially dissolved
1997 American Airlines became the first United States air carrier to place automatic external defibrillators on its fleet of 700 aircraft
1997 At the end of its 99-year lease on the territory, Britain returns Hong Kong to Chinese control
1998 Barbra Streisand and James Brolin are married
1999 The Scottish Parliament is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth on the day powers are officially transferred from the old Scottish Office in London to the new devolved Scottish Executive in Edinburgh
2000 Vermont’s civil unions law goes into effect
2002 The International Criminal Court is established to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression
2003 In Hong Kong, 500,000 people march to protest a new anti-subversion law
2004 The Villain’s Lair, a shop in Disneyland’s Fantasyland opened since October 1998, closes
2007 Smoking in England is banned in all public indoor spaces
2007 Prince William and Prince Harry throw a concert in memory of their mother the late Diana, Princess of Wales, on what would have been her 46th birthday

BORN:
1804 George Sand (Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin, Baronne Dudevant), novelist and feminist
1818 Karl von Vierordt, physician and professor of medicine who invented the sphygmograph, the first instrument to trace a human pulse by a non-invasive measurement of blood pressure
1872 Louis Blériot, aviator who made the world’s first over-the-ocean flight in a heavier-than-air craft
1899 Charles Laughton, Academy Award-winning actor (The Private Life of Henry VIII, Mutiny on the Bounty, Witness for the Prosecution, Advise & Consent)
1902 William Wyler, 3-time Academy Award-winning director (Ben Hur, The Best Years of Our Lives, Mrs. Miniver, Wuthering Heights, Roman Holiday)
1916 Olivia de Havilland, 2-time Academy Award-winning actress (To Each His Own, The Heiress, The Snake Pit, Gone with the Wind, Hold Back the Dawn)
1931 Leslie Caron, actress (Gigi, Lili, Chocolat, Valentino, Father Goose, Fanny, An American in Paris)
1934 Jean Marsh, actress (The Pale Horse, Willow, Upstairs, Downstairs, Doctor Who, Return to Oz)
1934 Jamie Farr, actor (M*A*S*H, Port Charles, The Cannonball Run, With Six You Get Eggroll, The Greatest Story Ever Told)
1934 Sydney Pollack, actor, Academy Award-winning producer and director (Out of Africa, Michael Clayton, Tootsie)
1935 David Prowse, actor (Star Wars, A Clockwork Orange, Doctor Who, Jabberwocky)
1939 Karen Black, actress (Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Family Plot, Burnt Offerings, Invaders from Mars)
1942 Geneviève Bujold, actress (Dead Ringers, The Moderns, Murder by Decree, Coma, Swashbuckler, Earthquake)
1945 Deborah Harry, musician and sometimes actress (Blondie, Hairspray)
1952 Dan Aykroyd, actor, producer, musician and Emmy Award-winning writer (Saturday Night Live, The Blues Brothers, Driving Miss Daisy, Ghostbusters, Grosse Pointe Blank)
1956 Alan Ruck, actor (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Speed, Spin City, Twister, Star Trek: Generations)
1956 Matthew Jacobs, screenwriter (The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Doctor Who: The Movie, The Emperor’s New Groove)
1961 Diana, Princess of Wales, the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales; their sons, Princes William and Henry (Harry), are second and third in line to the thrones of the United Kingdom and fifteen other Commonwealth Realms
1962 Andre Braugher, 2-time Emmy Award winning actor (Homicide: Life on the Street, Thief, 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Mist)
1967 Pamela Anderson, actress and Playboy model (Baywatch, Home Improvement V.I.P., Stacked, Stripperella)
1977 Liv Tyler, actress (That Thing You Do!, Incredible Hulk, Lord of the Rings, Plunkett & Macleane)

DIED:
1894 Allan Pinkerton, detective and spy, best known for creating the Pinkerton Agency, the first detective agency of the United States, dies at 65
1912 Harriet Quimby, aviator, the first American woman to become a licensed pilot and the first female pilot to fly across the English Channel, dies in a plane crash at 37
1973 Laurens Hammond, businessman and inventor of the electronic Hammond organ, dies at 78
1983 R. Buckminster Fuller, engineer and architect who developed the geodesic dome, the only large dome that can be set directly on the ground as a complete structure, and the only practical kind of building that has no limiting dimensions, dies at 97
1991 Michael Landon, actor, director, writer (Highway to Heaven, Little House on the Prairie, Bonanza, High School Confidential!), dies at 54
1995 Wolfman Jack (Robert Weston Smith), gravelly-voiced disc jockey who became world famous in the 1960s and 1970s, dies at 57
1997 Robert Mitchum, actor (Ernie Pyle’s Story of G.I. Joe, The Night of the Hunter, Cape Fear, The Longest Day, Mr. North), dies at 79
1999 Sylvia Sidney, actress (Dead End, Blood on the Sun, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Damien: Omen II, Beetle Juice), dies at 88
1999 Forrest Edward Mars, candy manufacturer who led Mars Inc., one of the world’s largest confectionery companies, dies at 95
2000 Walter Matthaw, Academy Award-winning actor (The Fortune Cookie, The Sunshine Boys, The Odd Couple, JFK), dies at 79
2004 Marlon Brando, Emmy Award and 2-time Academy Award-winning actor (The Godfather, On the Waterfront, Roots: The Next Generations, Guys and Dolls, A Streetcar Named Desire, Julius Caesar, Superman), dies at 80
2004 Peter Barnes, Olivier Award-winning playwright and screenwriter whose most famous work is the play The Ruling Class, dies at 73
2005 Luther Vandross, R&B and soul singer-songwriter, and record producer who sold over twenty-five million albums and won eight Grammy Awards, dies at 54