Today in History, July 3

July 02, 2009 06:41 pm

—

Today is Friday, July 3, the 184th day of 2009. There are 181 days left in the year.

Highlights in history on this date:

321 - Roman emperor Constantine, a Christian, proclaims Sunday a day of rest and religious observance.

1583 - Russia's Czar Ivan the Terrible kills his son Ivan in a fit of rage.

1608 - Samuel de Champlain, French explorer, lays foundation of Canadian city of Quebec.

1778 - Prussia declares war on Austria, starting War of Bavarian Succession.

1849 - French forces enter Rome despite resistance by Giuseppe Garibaldi and restore Pope Pius IX.

1863 - Confederates are forced to retreat on the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg, turning the fortunes in the American Civil War; 37,000 die on both sides in three days of battle.

1866 - Prussians defeat Austrians at Battle of Koenigraetz, deciding the Seven Weeks' War and effectively excluding Austria from a Prussian-dominated Germany.

1881 - Britain persuades Turkey to sign convention with Greece, whereby Greece gets Thessaly and parts of Epirus.

1896 - Abdul Hamid II, Sultan of Turkey, agrees to introduce self-government in Crete, but Greece continues to support insurgents.

1944 - Soviet forces retake Minsk from Germans, capturing 100,000 troops.

1950 - U.S. and North Korean troops clash for first time in Korean War.

1954 - Food rationing, imposed during World War II, ends in Britain.

1962 - Algeria becomes independent after 132 years of French rule.

1971 - Indonesians vote in their country's first national election in 16 years.

1988 - The USS Vincennes shoots down an Iran Air jetliner over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard. The crew misidentified the plane as an Iranian F-14 fighter.

1991 - Yugoslav military commanders dispatch troops and tanks toward breakaway republics of Croatia and Slovenia but order troops to hold their fire unless attacked.

1993 - Ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide signs an accord in New York with the Haitian military that will return him to office.

1994 - French troops and the rebels who oppose their presence skirmish briefly in Rwanda, the first time the French humanitarian mission has entered into combat.

1996 - Boris Yeltsin decisively defeats communist challenger Gennady Zyuganov for a second term as Russian president.

1997 - The Parliament of Western Samoa votes to amend the constitution to simplify the country's name to Samoa.

1998 - Colombia's second-largest guerrilla group, the ELN, releases 15 young women held hostage for two weeks, whom the rebels had accused of being army spies disguised as good Samaritans.

1999 - In their first matchup in three years, world chess champion Garry Kasparov bests his key rival, Anatoly Karpov, to win the Siemens Giants chess tournament.

2000 - Opposition candidate Vicente Fox is declared the winner in Mexico's presidential elections in a stunning victory that ends the ruling PRI party's 71-year lock on the presidency.

2001- Fifteen female Falun Gong followers allegedly hang themselves at a labor camp in northeastern China after being tortured by the camp staff. The Chinese government outlawed the spiritual movement in 1999.

2002 - A U.S. gunship flying over Oruzgan Province in southern Afghanistan fires on civilian targets after mistaking celebratory gunfire at a wedding for hostile fire. The incident leaves at least 40 Afghan civilians dead and wounds 100 others.

2005 - Saudi anti-terror forces kill al-Qaida's top leader in the kingdom in a dawn gun battle. But despite the Moroccan terrorist Younis Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hayari's death, the number of extremists has grown despite a two-year crackdown on militants.

2006 - At least 5,000 villagers in the southern Philippines flee their homes in nearly a week of sporadic clashes between Muslim guerrillas and pro-government militiamen.

2007 - A 10-year-old Nepalese girl is stripped of her title as a living goddess because she traveled overseas to promote a documentary about the centuries-old tradition. Because of popular support, Sajani Shakya's position is reinstated, but she retires in March 2008 at the age of 11.

2008 — Qdauebec City, Canada, celebrates its 400th birthday.

Today's Birthdays:

John Clare, English poet (1793-1864); Franz Kafka, Austrian author (1883-1924); Tom Stoppard, British playwright (1937--); Jean-Claude Duvalier, exiled President of Haiti (1951--); Ken Russell, British film director (1927--); Tom Cruise, U.S. actor (1962--).

Thought For Today:

To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer — Paul Ehrlich, American scientist.