July 3
July 3rd is the 184th day of the year (185th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 181 days remaining.
Events
- 323 - Battle of Adrianople Constantine the Great defeats Licinius, who flees to Byzantium
- 1608 - Quebec City founded by Samuel de Champlain.
- 1844 - The last pair of Great Auks is killed.
- 1866 - Austro-Prussian War decided at Battle of Königgratz, resulting in Prussia taking over as the prominent German nation from Austria.
- 1890 - Idaho is admitted as the 43rd U.S. state.
- 1938 - World record for a steam railway locomotive is set in England, by the "Mallard", which reaches a speed of 203 km/h (126 mph).
- 1962 - Algeria becomes independent after 132 years of French rule.
- 1964 - President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits segregation in public places.
- 1970 - A British chartered jetliner crashes near Barcelona, Spain killing 112
- 1988 - United States Navy warship USS Vincennes shoots down an Iran Air Airbus A300 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.
- 2001 - A Vladivostokavia Tupolev TU-154 jetliner crashes on approach to landing at Irkutsk, Russia killing 145
Births
- 1728 - Robert Adam, architect (d. 1792)
- 1854 - Leos Janacek, Czech composer (d. 1928)
- 1870 - Richard Bedford Bennett, eleventh Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1947)
- 1875 - Ferdinand Sauerbruch, surgeon (d. 1951)
- 1883 - Franz Kafka, writer (d. 1924)
- 1893 - Mississippi John Hurt (d. 1966)
- 1906 - George Sanders, actor (d. 1972)
- 1909 - Stavros Spiros Niarchos, ship owner (d. 1996)
- 1913 - Dorothy Kilgallen, newspaper columnist, early television personality (d. 1965)
- 1927 - Ken Russell, director: Altered States, Gothic, Tommy
- 1928 - Günter Bruno Fuchs, writer (d. 1977)
- 1934 - Manfred Bieler, writer
- 1935 - Harrison Schmitt, astronaut
- 1937 - Tom Stoppard, playwright: The Real Thing, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,, screenwriter: Billy Bathgate, Shakespeare in Love
- 1946 - Leszek Miller, Prime Minister of Poland
- 1947 - Betty Buckley, actress
- 1951 - Richard Hadlee, New Zealand cricketer
- 1962 - Tom Cruise, actor: Mission Impossible, Jerry Maguire, Eyes Wide Shut, Magnolia
- 1964 - Joanne Harris, author
- 1964 - Yeardley Smith, actress (Lisa on The Simpsons)
- 1966 - Moises Alou, Major League Baseball player
Deaths
- 1914 - Joseph Chamberlain, British politician
- 1918 - Sultan Mehmed V of the Ottoman Empire
- 1935 - André Citroën, automobile pioneer
- 1969 - Brian Jones, rock and roll musician, member of the Rolling Stones found dead in his swimming pool. He had probably died the previous night.
- 1971 - Jim Morrison, singer - The Doors
- 1979 - Louis Durey, composer, member of Les Six
- 1981 - Arthur Leighton Denchfield Jr., Anti-Communist Patriot & Pater Familias in South Florida. Played football under Knute Rockne at Notre Dame University. Worked 35 years in South America. In US Headed national grass-roots movement to keep US control & ownership of Panama Canal in 1970s (b. November 13, 1906)
- 1986 - Rudy Vallee, singer
- 1989 - Jim Backus, actor
- 1993 - Joe DeRita, AKA "Curly Joe", member of the Three Stooges
- 1995 - Pancho Gonzales, tennis professional
- 1998 - Danielle Bunten Berry, a.k.a. Dan Bunten, software developer
- 2001 - Mordecai Richler, author
Holidays and observances
July 2 - July 4 - June 3 - August 3 -- listing of all days