July 2

1494 – The Treaty of Tordesillas is ratified. This divided newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Portuguese and the Spanish along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands in the Atlantic Ocean.

1776 – The Second Continental Congress adopts a resolution offered by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, severing political ties with the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1881 – Charles J. Guiteau shoots and fatally wounds President Garfield, who dies of complications on September 19.

1890 – The U.S. Congress passes the Sherman Antitrust Act to regulate free competition in commerce.

1897 – British-Italian engineer Guglielmo Marconi obtains a patent for a radio transceiver in London.

1900 – A lighter than air ship designed and constructed by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin of Germany makes its first flight on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen.

1921 – President Harding signs the Knox–Porter Resolution formally ending the war between the United States and Germany.

1937 – Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan disappear over the Pacific ocean on their flight around the world.

1962 – The first Walmart store opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas.

1976 – Communist North Vietnam annexes the former South Vietnam to form the unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

1990 –  1,400 moslim pilgrims are suffocated to death and trampled during a stampede in a pedestrian tunnel from the ‘tent city’ of Mina into Mecca.

1994 – USAir Flight 1016,  a McDonnell Douglas DC-9, crashes near Charlotte Douglas International Airport, North Carolina, killing 37 of the 52 passengers, and injuring the other 20 passengers and crew on board.

2001 – The AbioCor self contained artificial heart is first implanted in patient Robert Tools who lives for another 151 days.

2002 – Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly solo around the world nonstop in a balloon.

2008 – Íngrid Betancourt, a member of the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia, is released from captivity after being held for six and a half years by FARC.

2013 – The International Astronomical Union names Pluto’s 4th and 5th moons, Kerberos and Styx.