Historical Events and Current Affairs on July 4

836: Pactum Sicardi, peace between the Principality of Benevento and the Duchy of Naples
993: Saint Ulrich of Augsburg canonized.
1054: A supernova is observed by the Chinese, the Arabs and possibly Amerindians near the star ? Tauri. For several months imainsbrightenoughtobe seen during the day. Its remnants form the Crab Nebula.
1120: Jordan II of Capua anointed as prince after his infant nephew's death
1187: The Crusades: Battle of Hattin - Saladin defeats Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem.
1253: Battle of West-Capelle: John I of Avesnes defeats Guy of Dampierre.
1359: Francesco II Ordelaffi of Forlì surrenders to the Papal commander Gil de Albornoz.
1634: The city of Trois-Rivières is founded in New France, later to become the Canadian province of Quebec.
1636: City of Providence, Rhode Island forms.
1754: Lt-Col. George Washington surrenders Fort Necessity to French Capt. Louis Coulon de Villiers.
1776: American Independence Day: The United States Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress declaring lf free of Britishrule.
1778: Forces under George Rogers Clark capture Kaskaskia during the Illinois campaign.
1802: At West Point, New York the United States Military Academy opens.
1803: The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people.
1810: The French occupy Amsterdam.
1817: At Rome, New York, United States, construction on the Erie Canal begins.
1827: Slavery is abolished in New York State.
1837: Grand Junction Railway, world's first long-distance railway, opens between Birmingham and Liverpool.
1838: The Iowa Territory is organized.
1840: The Cunard Line's 700 ton wooden paddle steamer RMS Britannia departs from Liverpool bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia on firsttransatlantic crossing with a scheduled end.
1845: Near Concord, Massachusetts, Henry David Thoreau embarks on a two-year experiment in simple living at Walden Pond seeden
1855: In Brooklyn, New York, the first edition of Walt Whitman's book of poems titled Leaves of Grass is published.
1859: Austro-Sardinian War: The Battle of Magenta.
1862: Lewis Carroll tells Alice Liddell a story that would grow into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequels.
1863: American Civil War: Siege of Vicksburg - Vicksburg, Mississippi surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant after 47 days of siege.milesupthe Mississippi River, a Confederate Army is repulsed at the Battle of Helena, Arkansas.
1865: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is published.
1881: In Alabama, the Tuskegee Institute opens.
1886: First scheduled Canadian transcontinental train arrives in Port Moody, British Columbia.
1887: Founder of Pakistan, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah joined Sindh-Madrasa-tul-Islam, Karachi.
1892: Western Samoa changes the International Date Line, so that year there were 367 days in this country, with two occurren of Monday, July 4.
1894: The short-lived Republic of Hawaii is proclaimed by Sanford B. Dole.
1910: African-American boxer Jack Johnson knocks out white boxer Jim Jeffries in a heavyweight boxing match sparking race riacrossthe United States.
1918: Bolsheviks kill Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family (Julian calendar date).
1918: Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI ascends to the throne.
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 lf The luckiest man on the face of the earth as he announces his retirement from major league baseball.
1940: Robert Pershing Wadlow, the tallest man on Earth, died in his sleep.
1941: Mass murder of Polish scientists and writers, committed by Nazi Germans in the captured Polish city of Lwów.
1946: After 381 years of near-continuous colonial rule, the Philippines is granted full independence by the United States.
1947: Indian Independence Bill is presented before British House of Commons, suggesting bifurcation of British India in to sovereigncountries-India and Pakistan.
1950: First broadcast by Radio Free Europe.
1959: With the admission of Alaska as the 49th U.S. state earlier in the year, the 49-star flag of the United States debuts hiladelphia,Pennsylvania.
1960: Due to the post-Independence Day admission of Hawai'i as the 50th U.S. state on August 21, 1959, the 50-star flag of t
1987: In France, former Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie (aka the Butcher of Lyon) is convicted of crimes against humanity and intenced to life imprisonment.
1992: USS George Washington (CVN-73), a Nimitz Class aircraft carrier of the United States Navy is commissioned at Norfolk,
1992: USS George Washington (CVN-73), a Nimitz Class aircraft carrier of the United States Navy is commissioned at Norfolk,inia.
1993: Sumitomo Chemical's resin plant in Nihama explodes killing one and injuring three workers.
1997: NASA's Pathfinder space probe lands on the surface of Mars.
2004: The cornerstone of the Freedom Tower is laid on the site of the World Trade Center in New York City. This was largely mbolic event; actualconstruction would not start for several weeks
2005: The Deep Impact collider hits the comet Tempel 1.
2006: North Korea tests four short-range missiles, one medium-range missile, and a long-range Taepodong-2. The long-range Taong-2reportedly failsin mid-air over the Sea of Japan.
2006: Space Shuttle program: STS-121 Mission - Space Shuttle Discovery launches at 18:37:55 UTC.
2007: Zaca Fire Starts in Santa Barbara, California becomes second largest fire in California history.

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