Historical Events on Thursday, 3rd July

03/07/2013

President of Egypt Mohamed Morsi is removed from office by the military after four days of protests all over the country calling for his resignation, to which he did not respond. The president of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt, Adly Mansour, is declared acting president until further elections are held.

The president of the Arab Republic of Egypt is the head of state of Egypt. Under the various iterations of the Constitution of Egypt following the Egyptian revolution of 1952, the president is also the Supreme commander of the Armed Forces, and head of the executive branch of the Egyptian government.

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03/07/2006

The Valencia Metro derailment kills 41 people.

The Valencia Metro derailment occurred in Valencia, Spain's third largest city, on 3 July 2006 at 1 p.m. CEST between Jesús and Plaça d'Espanya stations on the Line 1 of the Metrovalencia mass transit system. At least 43 people were killed and more than ten were seriously injured.

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03/07/1996

British Prime Minister John Major announced the Stone of Scone would be returned to Scotland.

Sir John Major is a British retired politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. He previously held various Cabinet positions under Margaret Thatcher. Major was Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon, formerly Huntingdonshire, from 1979 to 2001. Since stepping down, Major has focused on writing and his business, sporting, and charity work, and commentating on political developments.

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03/07/1988

United States Navy warship USS Vincennes shoots down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.

The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and is designated as the navy of the United States in the Constitution. With 290 combat vessels, it is the world's second largest navy, behind the People's Liberation Army Navy, and by far the largest by displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, one undergoing trials, two new carriers under construction, and six other carriers planned as of 2024. The U.S. Navy is a part of the United States Department of Defense and is one of six armed forces of the United States and one of eight uniformed services of the United States.

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The Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey is completed, providing the second connection between the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosphorus.

The Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, also known as the Second Bosphorus Bridge, is a bridge in Istanbul, Turkey spanning the Bosphorus strait. When completed in 1988, it was the 5th-longest suspension bridge span in the world.

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03/07/1979

U.S. President Jimmy Carter signs the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.

James Earl Carter Jr. was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, Carter served from 1971 to 1975 as the 76th governor of Georgia and from 1963 to 1967 in the Georgia State Senate. He lived longer than any other president in US history, reaching age 100.

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03/07/1973

David Bowie retires his stage persona Ziggy Stardust with the surprise announcement that it is "the last show that we'll ever do" on the last day of the Ziggy Stardust Tour.

David Robert Jones, known as David Bowie, was an English singer, songwriter and actor. Regarded as among the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Bowie received particular acclaim for his work in the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, and his music and stagecraft have had a significant impact on popular music.

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03/07/1970

The Troubles: The "Falls Curfew" begins in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed to have ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Although the Troubles mostly took place in Northern Ireland, at times violence spilled over into parts of the Republic of Ireland, England, and mainland Europe.

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Dan-Air Flight 1903 crashes into the Les Agudes mountain in the Montseny Massif near the village of Arbúcies in Catalonia, Spain, killing all 112 people aboard.

Dan-Air Flight 1903 was an unscheduled international passenger service from Manchester to Barcelona, operated by Dan Air Services Limited under contract with British tour operator Clarksons Holidays, which arranged for the flight to carry a group of holidaymakers who had booked an all-inclusive package holiday with the operator.

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03/07/1967

The Aden Emergency: The Battle of the Crater in which the British Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders retake the Crater district following the Arab Police mutiny.

The Aden Emergency, also known as the 14 October Revolution or the Aden Insurgency, was an armed rebellion led mainly by the National Liberation Front (NLF) and the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY) against the British Protectorate and Federation of South Arabia. It began on 14 October 1963 when tribes from Radfan attacked British troops and ended with the proclamation of independence of the People's Republic of Southern Yemen.

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03/07/1952

The Constitution of Puerto Rico is approved by the United States Congress.

The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is the primary organizing law for the unincorporated U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, describing the duties, powers, structures, and functions of the local government of Puerto Rico and its relation with the U.S. in nine articles. Established under the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1950, it was approved by the residents of the archipelago and island in a constitutional referendum on March 3, 1952, ratified by the U.S. Congress as per Pub. L. 82–447 on July 3, 1952, and proclaimed into effect by Governor Luis Muñoz Marín on July 25, 1952, which is celebrated as Constitution Day. As the constitution of a U.S. territory, it is bound by the U.S. Constitution.

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The SS United States sets sail on her maiden voyage to Southampton. During the voyage, the ship takes the Blue Riband away from the RMS Queen Mary.

SS United States is a retired American ocean liner that was built during 1950 and 1951 for United States Lines. She is the largest ocean liner to be entirely constructed in the United States and the fastest ocean liner to cross the Atlantic Ocean in either direction, earning the Blue Riband for the highest average speed since her maiden voyage in 1952, a title that remains uncontested.

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03/07/1944

World War II: The Minsk Offensive clears German troops from the city.

The Minsk offensive was part of the second phase of the Belorussian strategic offensive of the Red Army in summer 1944, commonly known as Operation Bagration.

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03/07/1940

World War II: The Royal Navy attacks the French naval squadron in Algeria, to ensure that it will not fall under German control. Of the four French battleships present, one is sunk, two are damaged, and one escapes back to France.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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03/07/1938

World speed record for a steam locomotive is set in England, by the Mallard, which reaches a speed of 125.88 miles per hour (202.58 km/h).

A steam locomotive is a type of locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material to heat water in the locomotive's boiler to the point where it becomes gaseous and its volume increases 1,600 to 1,700 times. Functionally, it is a self-propelled steam engine on wheels.

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United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates the Eternal Light Peace Memorial and lights the eternal flame at Gettysburg Battlefield.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president and the only one to have served more than two terms. His first two terms were centered on combating the Great Depression, while his third and fourth focused on US involvement in World War II. A member of the Democratic Party, Roosevelt served in the New York State Senate from 1911 to 1913 and as the 44th governor of New York from 1929 to 1932.

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03/07/1913

Confederate veterans at the Great Reunion of 1913 reenact Pickett's Charge; upon reaching the high-water mark of the Confederacy they are met by the outstretched hands of friendship from Union survivors.

The Confederate States of America (CSA), also known as the Confederate States (C.S.), the Confederacy, or the South, was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States from 1861 to 1865. It comprised 11 U.S. states that declared secession: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. These states fought against the United States during the American Civil War.

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03/07/1898

A Spanish squadron, led by Pascual Cervera y Topete, is defeated by an American squadron under William T. Sampson in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba.

Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete was a Spanish Navy officer and politician who served in a number of high-ranking positions within the Navy and fought in several wars during the 19th century. Having served in Morocco, the Philippines, and Cuba, he went on to serve as Minister of the Navy, Chief of Staff of the Navy, naval attaché in London, the captain of several warships, and most notably, commander of the Cuba Squadron during the Spanish–American War. Although he believed that the Spanish Navy was suffering from multiple problems and that there was no chance for victory over the United States Navy, Cervera took command of the squadron and fought in a last stand during the Battle of Santiago de Cuba, where he was decisively defeated.

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03/07/1890

Idaho is admitted as the 43rd U.S. state.

Idaho is a landlocked state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington and Oregon to the west; the state shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border to the north with the Canadian province of British Columbia. Idaho's state capital and largest city is Boise. With an area of 83,569 square miles (216,440 km2), Idaho is the 14th-largest state by land area. The state has a population of approximately two million people; it ranks as the 13th-least populous and the seventh-least densely populated of the 50 U.S. states.

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03/07/1886

Karl Benz officially unveils the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, the first purpose-built automobile.

Carl Friedrich Benz was a German engine designer and automotive engineer. His Benz Patent-Motorwagen from 1885 is considered the first practical, modern automobile and the first car to be put into series production. He received a patent for the motorcar in 1886, the same year he first publicly drove the Benz Patent-Motorwagen.

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The New-York Tribune becomes the first newspaper to use a linotype machine, eliminating typesetting by hand.

The New-York Tribune was an American newspaper founded in 1841 by editor Horace Greeley. It bore the moniker New-York Daily Tribune from 1842 to 1866 before returning to its original name. From the 1840s through the 1860s it was the dominant newspaper first of the American Whig Party, then of the Republican Party. The paper achieved a circulation of approximately 200,000 in the 1850s, making it the largest daily paper in New York City at the time.

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03/07/1884

Dow Jones & Company publishes its first stock average.

Dow Jones & Company, Inc. is an American publishing firm owned by News Corp, and led by CEO Almar Latour. The company publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch, Mansion Global, Financial News and Private Equity News.

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03/07/1866

Austro-Prussian War is decided at the Battle of Königgrätz, enabling Prussia to exclude Austria from German affairs.

The Austro-Prussian War was fought in 1866 between the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia, with each also being aided by various allies within the German Confederation. Prussia had also allied with the Kingdom of Italy, linking this conflict to the Third Independence War of Italian unification. The Austro-Prussian War was part of the wider rivalry between Austria and Prussia, and resulted in Prussian dominance over the German states, having confirmed Prussia's superior military organization and technology compared to Austria at the time.

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03/07/1863

American Civil War: The final day of the Battle of Gettysburg culminates with Pickett's Charge.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war lasted a little over four years, ending with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

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03/07/1852

Congress establishes the United States' 2nd mint in San Francisco.

The San Francisco Mint is a branch of the United States Mint. Opened in 1854 to serve the gold mines of the California gold rush, in twenty years its operations exceeded the capacity of the first building. It moved into a new one in 1874, now known as the Old San Francisco Mint. In 1937 Mint operations moved into a third building, the current one, completed that year.

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03/07/1849

France invades the Roman Republic and restores the Papal States.

The Roman Republic was a short-lived state declared on 9 February 1849, when the government of the Papal States was temporarily replaced by a republican government due to Pope Pius IX's departure to Gaeta. The republic was led by Carlo Armellini, Giuseppe Mazzini, and Aurelio Saffi. Together they formed a triumvirate, a reflection of a form of government during the first century BC crisis of the Roman Republic.

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03/07/1848

Governor-General Peter von Scholten emancipates all remaining slaves in the Danish West Indies.

Peter Carl Frederik von Scholten was a Danish army officer and colonial administrator who served as Governor-General of the Danish West Indies from 1827 to 1848.

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03/07/1839

The first state normal school in the United States, the forerunner to today's Framingham State University, opens in Lexington, Massachusetts with three students.

A normal school or normal college trains teachers in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. Other names include teacher training colleges or teachers' colleges. In Argentina and Mexico, they continue to be called normal schools with student-teachers in the latter country being known as normalistas, where schools require a high school diploma for entry, and may be part of a comprehensive university. Normal schools in the United States, Canada, and Argentina trained primary teachers, while in Europe equivalent colleges trained teachers for primary and secondary schools.

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03/07/1819

The Bank for Savings in the City of New-York, the first savings bank in the United States, opens.

The Bank for Savings in the City of New-York (1819–1982) was one of the earliest banks in the United States and the first savings bank in New York City. Founded in 1816, it was first advertised as "a bank for the poor". It was merged with the Buffalo Savings Bank in 1982. It failed in 1991 and is no longer in existence.

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03/07/1814

War of 1812: American forces capture Fort Erie from British troops in Upper Canada.

The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States declared war on Britain on 18 June 1812. Although peace terms were agreed upon in the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent, the war did not officially end until the peace treaty was ratified by the United States Congress on 17 February 1815.

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03/07/1778

American Revolutionary War: The Iroquois, allied with Britain, massacre 360 Patriot soldiers during the Battle of Wyoming.

The Battle of Wyoming, also known as the Wyoming Massacre, was a military engagement during the American Revolutionary War between Patriot militia and a force of Loyalist soldiers and Iroquois warriors. The battle took place in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania on July 3, 1778, in what is now Luzerne County. The result was an overwhelming defeat for the Americans. The battle is often referred to as the "Wyoming Massacre" because of the roughly 300 Patriot casualties, many of whom were killed by the Iroquois as they fled the battlefield or after they had been taken prisoner.

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03/07/1775

American Revolutionary War: George Washington takes command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and commanded by George Washington defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation.

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03/07/1767

Pitcairn Island is discovered by Midshipman Robert Pitcairn on an expeditionary voyage commanded by Philip Carteret.

Pitcairn Island is the only inhabited island of the Pitcairn Islands, in the southern Pacific Ocean, of which many of the 40 inhabitants are descendants of mutineers of HMS Bounty.

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Norway's oldest newspaper still in print, Adresseavisen, is founded and the first edition is published.

Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country comprising the western and northernmost parts of the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe, the remote Arctic island Jan Mayen and the archipelago Svalbard. Bouvet Island, located in the Subantarctic, is a dependency, and not a part of the Kingdom; Norway also claims the Antarctic territories of Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land. Norway has a population of approximately 5.6 million, and a total area of 385,207 square kilometres (148,729 sq mi). Its capital and largest city is Oslo. The country shares a long eastern border with Sweden, and is bordered by Finland and Russia to the northeast. Norway has an extensive coastline facing the Skagerrak strait, the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea, and the Barents Sea.

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03/07/1754

French and Indian War: George Washington surrenders Fort Necessity to French forces.

The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a conflict in North America between Great Britain and France, along with their respective Indigenous allies. Historians generally consider it part of the global Seven Years' War, which lasted from 1756 to 1763, although in the United States it is often viewed as a distinct conflict unassociated with any larger European war.

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03/07/1608

Québec City is founded by Samuel de Champlain.

Quebec City is the capital city of the Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Census Metropolitan Area had a population of 839,311. It is the twelfth-largest city and the seventh-largest metropolitan area in Canada. It is also the second-largest city in the province, after Montreal. It has a humid continental climate with warm summers coupled with cold and snowy winters.

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03/07/1535

Diego de Almagro leaves the recently conquered Inca capital of Cuzco to lead an expedition to Chile.

Diego de Almagro, also known as El Adelantado and El Viejo, was a Spanish conquistador known for his exploits and killings in western South America. He participated with Francisco Pizarro in the Spanish conquest of Peru. While subduing the Inca Empire he laid the foundation for Quito and Trujillo as Spanish cities in present-day Ecuador and Peru, respectively. From Peru, Almagro led the first Spanish military expedition to central Chile. Back in Peru, a longstanding conflict with Pizarro over the control of the former Inca capital of Cuzco erupted into a civil war between the two bands of conquistadores. In the battle of Las Salinas in 1538, Almagro was defeated by the Pizarro brothers and months later he was executed.

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03/07/1035

William the Conqueror becomes the Duke of Normandy, reigning until 1087.

William the Conqueror, sometimes called William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England, reigning from 1066 until his death. A descendant of Rollo, he was Duke of Normandy from 1035 onward. By 1060, following a long struggle, his hold on Normandy was secure. In 1066, following the death of Edward the Confessor, William invaded England, leading a Franco-Norman army to victory over the Anglo-Saxon forces of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings. He suppressed subsequent English revolts in what has become known as the Norman Conquest. The rest of his life was marked by struggles to consolidate his hold over England and his continental lands, and by difficulties with his eldest son, Robert Curthose.

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03/07/0987

Hugh Capet is crowned King of France, the first of the Capetian dynasty that would rule France until the French Revolution in 1792.

Hugh Capet was the King of the Franks from 987 to 996. He is the founder of and first king from the House of Capet. The son of the powerful duke Hugh the Great and Hedwige of Saxony, he was elected as the successor of the last Carolingian king, Louis V. Hugh was descended from Charlemagne's son Pepin of Italy through his paternal grandmother Béatrice of Vermandois, and was also the nephew of Otto the Great.

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03/07/0324

Battle of Adrianople: Constantine I defeats Licinius, who flees to Byzantium.

The Battle of Adrianople was fought in Thrace on July 3, 324, during a Roman civil war, the second to be waged between the two emperors Constantine I and Licinius. Licinius was soundly defeated and his army suffered heavy casualties. Constantine built up military momentum, winning further battles on land and sea, eventually leading to the final defeat of Licinius at Chrysopolis.

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