July 3
1863: The pivotal three-day Civil War Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania ended in a major victory for the North as Confederate troops failed to breach Union positions during an assault known as Pickett’s Charge.
1775: Gen. George Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1944: Soviet forces recaptured Minsk from the Germans during World War II.
1971: Singer Jim Morrison of The Doors died in Paris at age 27.
July 4
1776: The Declaration of Independence was adopted by delegates to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
1802: The United States Military Academy officially opened at West Point, New York.
1817: Construction of the Erie Canal began in Rome, New York.
1826: Former presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
1855: The first edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was published.
July 5
1687: Isaac Newton first published his Principia Mathematica, outlining his mathematical principles of natural philosophy.
1811: Venezuela became the first South American country to declare independence from Spain.
1852: Frederick Douglass delivered his speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” in Rochester, New York.
1975: Arthur Ashe became the first Black man to win a Wimbledon singles title, defeating Jimmy Connors.
1996: Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell, was born at the Roslin Institute in Scotland.
July 6
1483: England’s King Richard III was crowned in Westminster Abbey.
1933: The first All-Star baseball game was played at Chicago’s Comiskey Park; the American League defeated the National League 4–2 behind winning pitcher Lefty Gomez of the New York Yankees.
1957: Althea Gibson became the first Black tennis player to win a Wimbledon singles title as she defeated fellow American Darlene Hard 6–3, 6–2.
July 7
1846: U.S. annexation of California was proclaimed at Monterey after the surrender of a Mexican garrison.
1930: Construction began on Boulder Dam (later Hoover Dam).
1948: Six female U.S. Navy reservists became the first women to be sworn in to the regular Navy.
1981: President Ronald Reagan announced he was nominating Arizona Judge Sandra Day O’Connor to become the first female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
July 8
1776: Col. John Nixon gave the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, outside the State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia.
1853: An expedition led by Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Edo Bay, Japan, on a mission to seek diplomatic and trade relations with the Japanese.
1889: The first issue of The Wall Street Journal was published.
July 9
1868: The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, granting citizenship and “equal protection under the laws” to anyone “born or naturalized in the United States,” including formerly enslaved people.
1896: William Jennings Bryan delivered his famous “Cross of Gold” speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
1918: 101 people were killed in a train collision in Nashville, Tennessee—the deadliest rail disaster in U.S. history.
