6/29/2021:
Today in history, Ferdinand III (see picture below) of Castile and Leon take Cordoba in Spain in 1236.
Today in history, Massachusetts declares itself an independent commonwealth in 1652.
Today in history, France annexes Tahiti in 1880.
Today in history, The Ukraine proclaims independence from Russia in 1917.
Today in history, Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, and Olympic National Park, Washington, are founded in 1938.
Today in history, President Harry S. Truman (see picture below) authorizes a sea blockade of Korea in 1950.
Today in history, Israel removes barricades, re-unifying Jerusalem in 1967.
6/30/2021:
Today in history, Charles Dickens reads from A Christmas Carol at St. Martin’s Hall in London–his first public reading in 1857.
Today in history, Jean Francois Gravelet aka Emile Blondin, a French daredevil, becomes the first man to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope in 1859.
Today in history, A mysterious explosion, possibly the result of a meteorite, levels thousands of trees in the Tunguska region of Siberia with a force approaching twenty megatons in 1908.
Today in history, Margaret Mitchell’s novel, Gone With the Wind (see picture below), is published in 1936.
Today in history, John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley demonstrate their invention, the , for the first time in 1948.
Today in history, Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Psycho (see picture below), opens in 1960.
7/1/2021:
Today in history, Vespasian, a Roman army leader, is hailed as a Roman emperor by the Egyptian legions in 69.
Today in history, England and Scotland sign the Peace of Greenwich in 1543.
Today in history, Napoleon Bonaparte takes Alexandria, Egypt in 1798.
Today in history, Charles Darwin (see picture below) presents a paper on his theory of evolution to the Linnean Society in London in 1838.
Today in history, The Battle of the Somme (see picture below) begins. Approximately 30,000 men are killed on the first day, two-thirds of them British in 1916.
Today in history, The New York State Commission Against Discrimination is established–the first such agency in the United States in 1945.
Today in history, The U.S. postmaster introduces the ZIP code in 1963.
7/2/2021:
Today in history, Oliver Cromwell (see picture below) crushes the Royalists at the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644.
Today in history, The Continental Congress resolves with the Declaration of Independence that the American colonies “are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States” in 1776.
Today in history, Czar Alexander II (see picture below) frees the serfs working on imperial lands in 1858.
Today in history, Congress establishes the Army Air Corps in 1926.
Today in history, American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart disappears in the Central Pacific during an attempt to fly around the world in 1937.
Today in history, President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act into law in 1964.
Today in history, President Jimmy Carter reinstates draft registration for males 18 years of age in 1980.
7/3/2021:
Today in history, George Washington takes command of the Continental Army in 1775.
Today in history, American ambassador Caleb Cushing successfully negotiates a commercial treaty with China in 1844.
Today in history, Confederate forces attack the center of the Union line at Gettysburg, but fail to break it in 1863.
Today in history, The Wild Bunch, led by Butch Cassidy (see picture below), commits its last American robbery near Wagner, Montana, taking $65,000 from a Great Northern train in 1901.
Today in history, The U.S. First Army opens a general offensive to break out of the hedgerow area of Normandy, France in 1944.
Today in history, Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
7/4/2021:
Today in history, The amended Declaration of Independence, prepared by Thomas Jefferson, is approved and signed by John Hancock–President of the Continental Congress–and Charles Thomson, Congress secretary. The state of New York abstains from signing in 1776.
Today in history, Two of America’s founding fathers–Thomas Jefferson and John Adams–die in 1826.
Today in history, The fifth president of the United States, James Monroe, dies at the age of 73 in 1831.
Today in history, Henry David Thoreau (see picture below) begins his 26-month stay at Walden Pond in 1845.
Today in history, Walt Whitman publishes the first edition of Leaves of Grass at his own expense in 1855.
Today in history, The poem America the Beautiful is first published in 1895.
Today in history, Boxer Joe Louis wins his first professional fight in 1934.
Today in history, The United States grants the Philippine Islands their independence in 1946.
Today in history, The 50-star flag makes its debut in Philadelphia in 1960.
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