Historical Events and Current Affairs on July 2

626: In fear of assassination, Li Shimin ambushes and kills his rival brothers Li Yuanji and Li Jiancheng in the Incident at Xuanwu Ga On September4,Shimin's father abdicated to him, and so Shimin became Emperor Taizong of Tang, Emperor of China.
706: In China, Emperor Zhongzong of Tang had the remains of Emperor Gaozong of Tang, his wife and recently-deceased ruling empress Wuian,her sonLiXian,her grandson Li Chongrun, and granddaughter Li Xianhui all interred in a new tomb complex outside Chang'an known as the Qianling Mausoleum, located on Mount Liang.
963: The imperial army proclaims Nicephorus Phocas to be Emperor of the Romans on the plains outside Cappadocian Caesarea.
1298: The Battle of Göllheim is fought between Albert I of Habsburg and Adolf of Nassau-Weilburg.
1561: Menas, Emperor of Ethiopia defeats a revolt in Emfraz.
1578: Martin Frobisher sights Baffin Island.
1582: Battle of Yamazaki: Toyotomi Hideyoshi defeats Akechi Mitsuhide.
1613: First English expedition from Massachusetts against Acadia - led by Samuel Argall.
1644: English Civil War: Battle of Marston Moor.
1679: Europeans first visit Minnesota and see headwaters of Mississippi - led by Daniel Greysolon de Du Luth.
1698: Thomas Savery patented the first steam engine.
1776: The Continental Congress adopts a resolution severing ties with Great Britain; wording of the formal Declaration of Independence
1777: Vermont becomes the first American territory to abolish slavery.
1808: Simon Fraser reaches Pacific near New Westminster.
1823: Bahia Independence Day - the end of Portuguese rule in Brazil, with the final defeat of the diehard Portuguese crown loyalists
1839: Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, 53 rebelling African slaves led by Joseph Cinque take over the slave ship Amistad.
1850: The self-contained gas mask is patented by Benjamin J. Lane.
1853: The Russian Army invades Turkey, beginning the Crimean War.
1863: American Civil War: Second day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
1878: The Brighton Beach Line (now the BMT Brighton Line) opens in the then-city of Brooklyn.
1881: Charles J. Guiteau shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President James Garfield who eventually dies from infection on September 19.
1890: The U.S. Congress passes the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
1900: First zeppelin flight on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.
1917: Forty-eight die in rioting in East St. Louis, Illinois, as lower-paid black laborers clash with whites.
1934: The end of the Night of the Long Knives, with the death of the German Military Officer Ernst Röhm
1937: Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappear over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first equatorial round-thorldflight.
1940: Indian independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose arrested and detained in Calcutta.
1941: Nazi massacre of Jews in Lutsk, Ukraine. Jewish men were summoned for work, about 2000 of them were taken to the Lubart Fortressd murdered. Germansoldiers from rearguard units stationed in the city participated in the murder.
1947: An object speculated to be a UFO crashes near Roswell, New Mexico, though the United States Air Force claims it is a weather bal
1950: Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto, Japan was burned down.
1962: The first Wal-Mart store opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas.
1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits segregation in public places.
1966: The French military explode their nuclear test bomb codenamed Aldébaran in Mururoa, their first nuclear test in the Pacific.
1976: North and South Vietnam, divided since 1954, reunite to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
1979: The first U.S. coin to honor a woman, the Susan B. Anthony dollar, is introduced.
1985: Andrei Gromyko is appointed the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union.
1990: A stampede inside a pedestrian tunnel leads to the deaths of 1,426 pilgrims in Mecca during hajj.
2000: Vicente Fox Quesada is elected the first President of México from an opposition party, the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) after mthan 70 years of continuous rule by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI).
2001: AbioCor self contained artificial heart created.
2002: Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly solo around the world nonstop in a balloon.
2004: ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) accepts Pakistan as the 24th member.

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