Historical Events on July 2

Events 1 - 200 of 245

• 311 St Militiades begins his reign as Catholic Pope
• 626 Incident at Xuanwu Gate: in fear of assassination, Li Shimin ambushes and kills his rival brothers Li Yuanji and Li Jiancheng

• 706 Remains of Chinese Emperor Gaozong, his wife Empress Wu Zetian and family members interred in Qianling Mausoleum by Emperor Zhongzong, outside Chang'an on Mount Liangshan
• 963 The imperial army proclaims Nicephorus Phocas to be Emperor of the Romans on the plains outside Cappadocian Caesarea
• 1140 Hartbert becomes bishop of Utrecht

• 1298 Battle on Hasenbuhl (Gollheim) between German kings Adolf and Albrecht I

• 1555 Turgut Reis sacks the Italian city of Paola
• 1561 Menas, Emperor of Ethiopia, defeats a revolt in Emfraz
• 1576 Muitende Spanish soldiers conquer Zierik Sea
• 1578 Martin Frobisher sights Baffin Island
• 1582 Battle of Yamazaki: Toyotomi Hideyoshi defeats Akechi Mitsuhide
• 1600 Battle at Newport: Earl Mauritius van Nassau beats Spanish Army
• 1613 The first English expedition from Massachusetts against Acadia led by Samuel Argall
• 1644 Battle of Marston Moor, North Yorkshire: Parliamentary forces under Lords Fairfax and Manchester defeat royalists led by Prince Rupert


• 1679 Europeans first visit Minnesota and see headwaters of Mississippi in an expedition led by Daniel Greysolon de Du Luth
• 1681 Earl of Shaftesbury arrested for high treason
• 1687 King James II disbands English parliament
• 1698 Thomas Savery patents the first steam engine
• 1776 New Jersey gives the right to vote to all adults who could show a net worth of 50 pounds
• 1776 Continental Congress resolves "these United Colonies are and of right ought to be Free and Independent States"

• 1794 Second Battle of Seneffe: France-Austria
• 1808 Simon Fraser completes his trip down Fraser River, British Columbia, lands at Musqueam
• 1816 French frigate "Medusa" runs aground off Cap Blanc.
• 1816 French frigate "La Méduse" runs aground under incompetent leadership of aristocrat Viscount of Chaumareys, forcing evacuation of 400 passengers. 150 men, 1 woman are left on "la Machine," a poorly provisioned raft. 13 days later only 15 survivors remain due to starvation, riots, madness, suicide, and cannibalism
• 1823 Bahia Independence Day: the end of Portuguese rule in Brazil, with the final defeat of the Portuguese crown loyalists in the province of Bahia
• 1839 Slaves aboard a Spanish schooner La Amistad revolt to secure their freedom while being transported from one Cuban port to another

• 1847 Envelope bearing 1st US 10 cent stamps used (still exists today)

• 1850 Benjamin Lane patents gas mask with a breathing apparatus
• 1858 Partial emancipation of Russian serfs
• 1861 Battle of Hoke's Run, WV - small Union victory


• 1862 Lincoln signs act granting land for state agricultural colleges
• 1863 Battle of Gettysburg (2nd day)
• 1863 R Morgan's: Burksville, Kentucky to Salineville, Ohio [->JUL 26]
• 1864 General Early and Confederate forces reach Winchester en route to Washington, D.C.
• 1864 Statuary Hall in US Capitol forms
• 1865 One-time Methodist Reform Church minister William Booth and his wife Catherine found the Salvation Army (Army of the Salvation) as the East London Christian Mission
• 1867 1st US elevated railroad begins service, NYC
• 1870 Jules Joseph d'Anethan is elected the tenth Prime Minister of Belgium

• 1885 Canada's North-west Insurrection ends with surrender of Big Bear
• 1890 Congress passes Sherman Antitrust Act
• 1894 Government obtains injunction against striking Pullman Workers
• 1900 Sibelius' "Finlandia" premieres in Helsinki

• 1902 John McGraw becomes manager of MLB New York Giants, 30 year tenure (1902-32)

• 1903 National League MLB batting champion Ed Delahanty, disappears after being removed from a train by force, found dead at bottom of Niagara Falls 2 weeks later
• 1903 Pitcher Jack Doscher, debuts for the Chicago Cubs, the first son of a major leaguer to play MLB, father Herm 1882-92
• 1906 Yanks win by forfeit for the 1st time
• 1907 US National Championship Women's Tennis, Philadelphia CC: Evelyn Sears beats fellow American Carrie Neely 6-3, 6-2 for her lone major singles title
• 1909 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Dora Boothby earns her only Wimbledon title with a 6-4, 4-6, 8-6 win over Agnes Morton

• 1915 Erich Muenter, an instructor in German at Cornell University, explodes a bomb in the US Senate reception room

• 1916 Russian offensive in Armenia
• 1917 Riots in East St Louis, Missouri
• 1921 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Bill Tilden beats South African Brian Norton 4-6, 2-6, 6-1, 6-0, 7-5 for the third of 10 Grand Slam singles titles

• 1926 US Army Air Corps created; Distinguished Flying Cross authorized, to award "heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight"
• 1926 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Frenchman Jean Borotra wins his second Wimbledon singles title 8-6, 6-1, 6-3 over American Howard Kinsey
• 1927 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Helen Wills Moody beats Spaniard Lilí Álvarez 6-2, 6-4 for her first of 8 Wimbledon titles
• 1927 Jericho Earthquake in Palestine kills about 500
• 1927 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: In an all-French final Henri Cochet wins first of 2 Wimbledon singles crowns; beats Jean Borotra 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5
• 1928 British parliament reduces the age at women can vote to 21 - the same as men (Representation of the People Act 1928)
• 1928 The Jenkins Television Corporation (owned by Charles Jenkins) goes on air with W3XK, the first television broadcasting station in the USA
• 1930 Carl Reynolds becomes only the 2nd player in MLB history to hit home runs in 3 consecutive innings in 15-4 White Sox victory at Yankee Stadium
• 1932 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: American Ellsworth Vines beats hometown favourite Bunny Austin 6-4, 6-2, 6-0 for his only Wimbledon title

• 1933 NY Giants pitcher Carl Hubbell works 18 innings of shutout ball without a walk to beat St Louis Cardinals 1-0
• 1934 General Lazaro Cardenas elected president of Mexico
• 1935 Great Britain amateur boxing team beats United States in the first International Golden Gloves tournament
• 1937 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Don Budge beats Germany's Gottfried von Cramm 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 for first of back-to-back titles

• 1938 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Helen Wills Moody beats Helen Jacobs 6-4, 6-0 in 4th final between the pair (Wills Moody won all 4)
• 1940 Dutch PM Colijn publishes "Borders of 2 Worlds" (German victory)
• 1940 Lake Washington (Seattle) Floating bridge dedicated

• 1940 Indian independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose is arrested and detained in Calcutta

• 1941 Nazi mass murder in Lvov/Lemberg (7,000 dead)
• 1941 Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit" premieres in London
• 1943 Gulf of Biskaje: Liberator bombers sinks U-126


• 1943 Lieutenant Charles Hall becomes 1st African American pilot to shoot down a Nazi plane
• 1944 German Field Marshal Günther von Kluge replaces General von Rundstedt
• 1946 Dutch Beel government forms
• 1946 Harbor workers end strike at Rotterdam and Amsterdam
• 1947 Military coup discovered in France
• 1948 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: American Bob Falkenburg beats John Bromwich of Australia 7-5, 0-6, 6-2, 3-6, 7-5 for his only Grand Slam singles title
• 1948 British Open Men's Golf, Muirfield: England's Henry Cotton wins by 5 strokes from Irishman Fred Daly for his third Open victory

• 1949 "High Button Shoes" closes at Century Theater NYC after 727 performances
• 1949 "Red Barber's Clubhouse" sports show premieres on CBS (later NBC) TV
• 1949 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Louise Brough beats fellow American Margaret Osborne duPont 10-8, 1-6, 10-8 for the second of 3 straight Wimbledon titles
• 1950 Cleveland Indians' pitcher Bob Feller wins his 200th MLB game, 5-3 v Detroit Tigers
• 1950 Kinkaku-ji, a Zen Buddihst temple in Kyoto, Japan, burns down
• 1950 Henri Queuille is elected the seventh Prime Minister of the Fourth French Republic
• 1951 Bill Veeck buys St Louis Browns from Bill & Charlie DeWitt; after 1953 season sells franchise to Clarence Miles, team moves to Baltimore (Orioles)
• 1951 "Bob & Ray show" premieres on NBC radio
• 1951 Worcestershire cricket wicket-keeper Hugo Yarnold makes a record 6 stumpings in an innings in a 1st-class match vs Scotland at Dundee
• 1951 Island advisor of Curacao installed
• 1951 Leidse astronomers discover radio signal out of Milky Way system
• 1952 Princess Beatrice opens miniature city of Madurodam
• 1954 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Czech Jaroslav Drobný beats Ken Rosewall of Australia 13-11, 4-6, 6-2, 9-7 for his only Wimbledon singles title
• 1954 England cricket batsman Denis Compton scores career best 278 in 287 mins in 2nd Test win over Pakistan at Nottingham
• 1955 "7th Heaven" closes at ANTA Theater NYC after 44 performances
• 1955 "Almost Crazy" closes at Longacre Theater NYC after 16 performances
• 1955 "Lawrence Welk Show" premieres on ABC

• 1955 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Louise Brough beats fellow American Beverly Fleitz 7-5, 8-6 for her 4th Wimbledon singles title

• 1956 US performs nuclear test at Enwetak (atmospheric tests)
• 1957 1st submarine designed to fire guided missiles launched, Grayback


• 1957 Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical Le pelerinage De Lourdes
• 1958 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Bikini Island
• 1958 Musical drama Film "King Creole" starring Elvis Presley based on a novel by Harold Robbins premieres
• 1960 "Once Upon a Mattress" closes at Alvin Theater NYC after 460 performances
• 1960 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Defending champion Maria Bueno of Brazil beats South African Sandra Reynolds 8–6, 6–0

• 1964 Grand jury indicts Byron De La Beckwith in murder of Medger Evers

• 1965 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Roy Emerson scores second consecutive title win over fellow Australian Fred Stolle 6-2, 6-4, 6-4
• 1966 1st France nuclear test on Mururoa atoll
• 1966 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: American Billie Jean King beats Maria Bueno of Brazil 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 for the first of her 12 Grand Slam singles titles
• 1966 West Indian cricket batsman Basil Butcher scores career best 209 not out to guide tourists to a 139-run 3rd Test win over England at Trent Bridge
• 1967 US Open Women's Golf, The Homestead: Catherine Lacoste wins by 2 strokes from Susie Maxwell & Beth Stone (youngest [22], 1st amateur winner)
• 1968 An El Al Israeli airliner is hijacked and diverted to Algeria by three armed members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
• 1969 Leslie West & Felix Pappalardi form rock group Mountain
• 1969 Ireland cricketers dismiss West Indies for just 25 (Dougie Goodwin 5 for 6, Alec O'Riordan 4 for 18) to set up a huge upset in Londonderry
• 1970 1st Boeing 747 to land in Amsterdam & Brussels
• 1970 NY Yankees infielder Horace Clarke breaks up a potential no-hitter in the 9th inning for 3rd time in 28 days
• 1970 The Prevention of Incitement to Hatred Act (Northern Ireland) is introduced; it proves difficult to secure convictions under its provisions, seldom enforced
• 1970 Neil Blaney is found not guilty of illegal arms importation to the Irish Republican Army by a Dublin jury
• 1971 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: In an all-Australian final Evonne Goolagong beats Margaret Court 6-4, 6-1 for the first of 2 Wimbledon singles titles
• 1971 USSR performs underground nuclear test
• 1972 "Fiddler on the Roof" closes at Imperial Theater NYC after 3242 performances
• 1972 US Open Women's Golf, Winged Foot GC: American Susie Maxwell Berning wins by 1 from Judy Rankin, Kathy Ahern & Pam Barnett


• 1972 American pole vaulter Bob Seagren breaks world record for the 4th and final time with 5.63m in Eugene, Oregon
• 1972 India and Pakistan sign Simla Agreement peace accord
• 1972 Two Catholic civilians are shot and killed in Belfast by Loyalist paramilitaries, probably the Ulster Defence Association (UDA)
• 1973 James R Schlesinger ends term as 9th director of CIA
• 1973 Nation Black Network begins operation on radio
• 1973 "You've Never Been This Far Before" single released by Conway Twitty (Billboard Song of the Year 1973)
• 1974 Fernando Mameda of Portugal sets record for 10,000 m (27:13.81)
• 1976 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: American Chris Evert beats Evonne Goolagong Cawley of Australia 6-3, 4-6, 8-6 for second of 3 Wimbledon singles titles
• 1976 Formal reunification of North and South Vietnam
• 1976 US Supreme Court rules death penalty not inherently cruel or unusual
• 1976 Ramble Inn attack: the Ulster Volunteer Force killed 6 civilians (5 Protestants, 1 Catholic) in a gun attack at a pub near Antrim; the pub was targeted because it was owned by Catholics
• 1977 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Sweden's Björn Borg beats American Jimmy Connors 3-6, 6-2, 6-1, 5-7, 6-4 for the second of 5 consecutive Wimbledon singles titles
• 1978 MLB pitcher Ron Guidry beats Detroit 3-2 for a NY Yankee record 13-0 start to the season

• 1980 Grateful Dead's Bob Weir and Mickey Hart are arrested for incitement
• 1980 Julie Marie Bryan, 18, of Georgia, crowned America's Young Woman of Yr
• 1980 Comedy film "Airplane!" written and directed by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker and starring Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty premieres
• 1982 Larry Walters using lawn chair & 42 helium balloons, rose to 16,000'
• 1982 Soyuz T-6 returns to Earth
• 1982 In South Africa, the Internal Security Act is passed, giving massive powers to the authorities to investigate any organization or publication
• 1983 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Martina Navratilova beats Andrea Jaeger 6-0, 6-3 for the 4th of 9 Wimbledon singles titles
• 1985 Andrei Gromyko appointed president of USSR
• 1985 European Space Agency launches Giotto (Halley's Comet Flyby)

• 1986 US Supreme Court upholds affirmative action in 2 rulings
• 1987 KC Royals outfielder Jim Eisenreich hits 1st HR since 1982, in MLB comeback process, retired 1984 (Tourette syndrome)
• 1987 Nilde Iotti is named as the first female President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.
• 1988 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Germany's Steffi Graf beats Martina Navratilova 5-7, 6-2, 6-1 for the 3rd leg of her Golden Slam
• 1988 Lester Dumakude, commander of an Umkhonto we Sizwe special operations unit, detonate a car bomb by remote control outside Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa


• 1989 US Open Senior Men's Golf, Laurel Valley GC: Orville Moody wins by 2 from Frank Beard, 20 years after his US Open triumph in 1969

• 1989 American jockey Steve Cauthen wins Irish Derby on Old Vic to become the first rider in history to sweep the world's 4 major Derbies (Kentucky, Epsom, French, Irish)

• 1990 1,426 pilgrims trampled to death after a panic in a tunnel in Mecca, Saudi Arabia
• 1991 Riot at Guns N' Roses concert in St Louis

• 1992 Braniff Airlines goes out of business
• 1993 Boat sinks at Bocaue Philippines, 325 die
• 1993 F-28 crashes at Sorong Irian Barat, 41 die
• 1993 Muslim fundamentalists in Sivas, Turkey, set hotel on fire, kill 36

• 1993 Royals Stadium is renamed Kauffman Stadium shortly before the death of Kansas City Royals owner Ewing Kauffman
• 1994 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Conchita Martínez of Spain upsets Martina Navratilova 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 for her only Grand Slam title
• 1994 John Wayne Bobbitt & Kristina Elliot arrested for domestic battery
• 1994 Middlesex cricket seam bowler Richard Johnson takes all 10 Derbyshire wickets for 45 runs at the County Ground in Derby
• 1994 US Air DC-9 crash in North Carolina, 37 killed
• 1995 "Rose Tattoo" closes at Circle in the Square NYC after 80 performances

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