1776 – US Congress proclaims the Declaration of Independence and independence from Britain
1785 – James Hutton, geologist, publicly reads an abstract of his theory of uniformitarianism for the first time at the meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
1802 – The United States Military Academy opened in West Point, New York.
1803 – The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people by President Thomas Jefferson
1838 – Huskar Colliery Mining Disaster in Silkstone England: mining pit floods drown 26 children, leads to 1842 ‘Mines and Collieries Act’ bans women and children working underground
1865 – Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was published, though the first print run was soon recalled because of quality issues; a new first edition was released in November.
1884 – The Statue of Liberty was presented to the United States by the French in Paris.
1934 – Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard patents the chain-reaction design for the atomic bomb
1976 – An Israeli commando squad completed its raid on Entebbe, Uganda, rescuing 103 hostages from a French jet airliner that had been hijacked en route from Israel to France.
2012 – Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN announced that they had detected an interesting signal that was likely from a Higgs boson.
2017 – North Korea tests first successful intercontinental ballistic missile into Sea of Japan
Births & Deaths: 1902 – Vivekananda best known for his speech which began with the words – “Sisters and brothers of America …,” in which he introduced Hinduism at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago and founding the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission, died.
Sport: 1939 – Lou Gehrig is first MLB player to have his number (4) retired on his “Appreciation Day” at Yankee Stadium, makes iconic “luckiest man” speech
Music: 1831 -“America (My Country ‘Tis of Thee)” is 1st sung in Boston
TV & Film: 1970 – Casey Kasem’s “American Top 40” debuts on LA radio
