July 4

1054 – A supernova, SN 1054, is seen by Chinese Song dynasty, Arab, and possibly Amerindian observers near the star Zeta Tauri. For several months it remains bright enough to be seen during the day. Its remnants form the Crab Nebula.

1187 – At the Battle of Hattin, the Saracen army of Saladin defeats the Crusader army of Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem.

1584 – Under direction of Sir Walter Raleigh to find land in North America to colonize, 2 ships commanded by Captains Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe arrive at Roanoke Island

1744 – Under terms of The Treaty of Lancaster, the Iroquois cede lands between the Allegheny Mountains and the Ohio River to the British.

1774 – The Orangetown Resolutions are adopted in New York, protesting against the British Parliament’s Coercive Acts.

1776 – The United States Declaration of Independence is published by the Second Continental Congress.

1778 – U.S. forces under George Clark capture Kaskaskia during the Illinois campaign of the Revolution.

1802 – The United States Military Academy opens at West Point, New York

1803 – The Louisiana Purchase is announced

1817 – Construction on the Erie Canal begins in Rome, New York

1826 – Revolutionaries, Founders and Presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson die within hours of each other at their respective homes.

1827 – Slavery is abolished in the State of New York.

1831 – Samuel Smith writes the lyrics to the song “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee”

1838 – The Iowa Territory is organized.

1862 – Lewis Carroll tells Alice Liddell a story that would grow into Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its sequels.

1863 – Vicksburg, Mississippi surrenders to U.S. forces under Ulysses S. Grant after 47 days of siege.
Confederate forces are repulsed at the Battle of Helena, Arkansas.
The Army of Northern Virginia withdraws from the battlefield after losing the Battle of Gettysburg

1898 – The Newlands Act to annex Hawaii and organize it as a territory is passed by the Senate and sent to President McKinley to be signed into law.

1903 – The Philippine–American War is officially concluded.

1911 – A massive heat wave strikes the northeastern states, killing 380 people in 11 days and breaking temperature records in several cities.

1934 – Leo Szilard patents the chain reaction reactor design that would later be used in the design of the atomic bomb.

1939 – Lou Gehrig announces his retirement from major league baseball at Yankee Stadium due to the effects of the illness, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

1950 – Radio Free Europe begins broadcasting

1951 – At Bell Labs, William Shockley announces the invention of the junction transistor.

1960 – The 50 star Flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia, due to the post Independence Day admission of Hawaii as the 50th state on August 21 of the previous year.

1966 – President Johnson signs the Freedom of Information Act

1976 – The U.S. celebrates its Bicentennial.
Israeli commandos execute Operation Thunderbolt, raiding Entebbe airport in Uganda, rescuing all but 4 of the passengers and crew of an Air France jetliner seized by Palestinian terrorists, suffering only 1 casualty, the commander of the force, Yonatan Netanyahu.

1997 – NASA’s Pathfinder space probe lands on the surface of Mars.

2004 – The cornerstone of the Freedom Tower is laid on the World Trade Center site in New York City.

2005 – NASA’s Deep Impact collider hits comet Tempel 1 as planned.

2009 – The Statue of Liberty’s crown reopens to the public after eight years of closure for repairs.

2012 – The discovery of the Higgs boson, which is fundamentally how things have ‘mass’, by experiments performed at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva Switzerland, is announced at CERN.