July 4

It’s National Country Music Day and Sidewalk Egg Frying Day and American Independence Day

ON THIS DAY…
1054 Chinese and other astronomers saw a supernova, a violently exploding star that was visible in daylight for 23 days and at night for almost 2 years and it is believed the Crab Nebula in the constellation Taurus is the remanant of this supernova; rock paintings in North America suggest that Indians in Arizona and New Mexico saw it although there are no European records of the event
1687 An early experience of a tropical revolving storm was made by Captain William Dampier, whose ship survived what he called a “tuffoon” off the coast of China
1776 The American Continental Congress votes to approve the Declaration of Independence, in which the American colonies proclaim their separation from Britain
1802 At West Point, NY the United States Military Academy opens
1817 Construction started on the Erie canal, the first significant canal in the US
1827 Slavery is abolished in New York State
1838 The Iowa Territory is organized
1845 Writer Henry David Thoreau moves to a small hut by Walden Pond, near Concord, MA where he lives alone for two years, writing a journal that is published as Walden in 1854
1862 Lewis Carroll tells Alice Liddell a story that would grow into Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its sequels
1863 Vicksburg, Mississippi surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant after 47 days of siege; 150 miles up the Mississippi River, a Confederate Army is repulsed at the Battle of Helena, Arkansas
1865 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is published
1874 The first steel-arch bridge in the US was opened; The Mississippi River Bridge, known as the Eads Bridge after James Buchanan Eads the American engineer who designed it, is a two-tier triple-arch steel bridge over the river at St. Louis, MO
1881 In Alabama, the Tuskegee Institute opens
1883 The first three-wire central-station incandescent-lighting plant in the US started operations in Sunbury, PA built by the Edison Electric Illuminating Company
1884 In Paris, France presents the Statue of Liberty to the US
1892 Western Samoa changes the International Date Line, so that year there were 367 days in this country, with two occurrences of Monday, July 4
1892 The first double-deck streetcar in the US was operated in San Diego, CA
1894 Elwood Haynes successfully tested his one-horsepower, one-cylinder vehicle at 6 or 7 mph at Kokomo, IN
1903 President Theodore Roosevelt sent the first official message over the new cable across the Pacific Ocean between Honolulu, Midway, Guam and Manila
1910 In Reno, NV Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion, knocks out Jim Jefferies, who had retired in 1905 rather than face him; afterwards, films of the fight are banned in many US cities
1927 First flight of the Lockheed Vega
1934 Leo Szilard patents the chain-reaction design for the atomic bomb
1939 Lou Gehrig, recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, tells a crowd at Yankee Stadium that he considers himself “The luckiest man on the face of the earth” as he announces his retirement from major league baseball
1941 Mass murder of Polish scientists and writers, committed by Nazi Germans in the captured Polish city of Lwów
1946 After 381 years of colonial rule, the Philippines is granted full independence by the United States
1950 First broadcast by Radio Free Europe
1961 Lauren Bacall and Jason Robards wed; they would divorce in 1969
1966 President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Freedom of Information Act into United States law; the act goes into effect the next year
1967 George C. Scott and Colleen Dewhurst wed for a second time; they would divorce again in 1972
1969 Michael Mageau, 19, and Darlene Ferrin, 22 are shot by the Zodiac killer at the Blue Rock Springs Golf Course parking lot on the outskirts of Vallejo, CA; Darlene was DOA at Kaiser Foundation Hospital, while Michael survived
1976 A midnight Israeli commando raid at Entebbe airport in Uganda, planned by future prime minister Ehud Barak, frees more than 100 hostages from an airliner hijacked by pro-Palestinian guerrillas
1982 Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne wed
1987 In France, former Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie (aka the “Butcher of Lyon”) is convicted of crimes against humanity and is sentenced to life imprisonment
1997 The Mars Pathfinder, an unmanned space vehicle, reached the Martian atmosphere
1999 David Beckham and Victoria “Posh Spice” Adams wed

BORN:
1753 Jean-Pierre-François Blanchard, balloonist who made the first aerial crossing of the English Channel
1804 Nathaniel Hawthorne, 19th century American novelist and short story writer (and if you ever have trouble sleeping might I suggest The House of the Seven Gables…)
1826 Stephen Foster, known as the “father of American music,” was the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of the 19th century; his songs, such as “Oh! Susanna”, “Camptown Races”, “My Old Kentucky Home”, “Old Black Joe”, “Beautiful Dreamer” and “Old Folks at Home” (“Swanee River”) remain popular over 150 years after their composition
1847 James Anthony Bailey, creator of the modern circus
1872 Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States (1923-1929), 29th Vice President of the United States (1921-1923), 48th Governor of Massachusetts (1919-1921), 53rd Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts (1916-1919)
1878 George M. Cohan, entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer, director, and producer; known as “the man who owned Broadway” in the decade before World War I, he is considered the father of American musical comedy
1883 Rube Goldberg, cartoonist, best known for his outrageous diagrams for simple tasks
1885 Louis B. Mayer, early film producer, most famous for his stewardship and co-founding of the Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
1902 George Murphy, dancer, actor, president of the Screen Actors Guild (1944-1946), and politician (For Me and My Gal, Little Miss Broadway, Broadway Melody of 1938)
1910 Gloria Stuart, stage, television and film actress (The Invisible Man, Titanic, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, My Favorite Year)
1918 Ann Landers (Esther Pauline Friedman), syndicated advice columnist
1918 Abigail Van Buren (Pauline Esther Friedman), advice columnist who founded the “Dear Abby” in 1956
1924 Eva Marie Saint, Academy and Emmy Award-winning actress (On the Waterfront, People Like Us, Hatful of Rain, How the West Was Won)
1927 Neil Simon, Pulitzer and 3-time Tony Award-winning playwright and screenwriter (The Odd Couple, Biloxi Blues, Lost in Yonkers, Barefoot in the Park, The Goodbye Girl)
1927 Gina Lollobrigida, actress and photojournalist (Trapeze, Beat the Devil, Hotel Paradiso)
1943 Geraldo Rivera, attorney, Emmy Award-winning reporter, and former talk show host
1962 Neil Morrissey, actor (Waterloo Road, Men Behaving Badly, Bob the Builder, The Bounty)
1971 Koko, a lowland gorilla who, according to scientists at Stanford University, is able to understand more than 1,000 signs based on American Sign Language and understand approximately 2,000 words of spoken English

DIED:
1826 Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States (1801-1809), 2nd Vice President of the United States (1797-1801), 1st United States Secretary of State (1789-1793), United States Ambassador to France (1785-1789), 2nd Governor of Virginia (1779-1781), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and one of the most influential Founding Fathers for his promotion of the ideals of republicanism in the United States, dies at 83
1826 John Adams, 2nd President of the United States (1797-1801), 1st Vice President of the United States (1789-1797), United States Ambassador to Great Britain (1785-1788), United States Ambassador to the Netherlands (1782-1788), dies at 90
1831 James Monroe, fifth President of the United States (1817-1825), seventh Secretary of State (1811-1814, 1815-1817), eighth Secretary of War (1814-1815), and the 12th and 16th Governor of Virginia (1799-1802, 1811), dies at 73
1934 Marie Curie, who discovered radium, dies of leukemia, a disease caused by prolonged exposure to radiation during her pioneering work before the need for protection was known, at 66
1975 Georgette Heyer, historical romance and detective fiction novelist, dies at 71
1995 Eva Gabor, actress (Gigi, The AristoCats, Green Acres, The Rescuers), dies at 76
1995 Bob Ross, painter and television host who was known for calm, patient nature came to prominence as the creator and host of The Joy of Painting, dies at 52
1997 Charles Kuralt, 3-time Peabody Award-winning journalist (“On the Road,” CBS News Sunday Morning), dies at 62
2003 Barry White, multiple Grammy Award-winner known for his deep bass voice and romantic image (sometimes referred to as “The Walrus of Love”), dies at 58