more events on July 4
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1976
An Israeli raid at Entebbe airport in Uganda rescues 105 hostages.
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1960
The 50-star flag makes its debut in Philadelphia.
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1946
The United States grants the Philippine Islands their independence.
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1934
Boxer Joe Louis wins his first professional fight.
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1931
Novelist James Joyce and Nora Barnacle are married in London after being together for 26 years.
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1927
Neil Simon, American playwright (The Odd Couple, The Prisoner of Second Avenue).
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1910
Race riots break out all over the United States after African American Jack Johnson knocks out Jim Jeffries in a heavyweight boxing match.
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1905
Lionel Trilling, literary critic and educator.
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1901
William H. Taft becomes the American governor of the Philippines.
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1898
Gertrude Lawrence, English actress.
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1895
The poem America the Beautiful is first published.
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1894
After seizing power, Judge Stanford B. Dole declares Hawaii a republic.
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1883
Rube Goldberg, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist.
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1881
Billy the Kid is shot dead in New Mexico.
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1872
Calvin Coolidge, 30th president of the United States (1923-1929).
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1863
The Confederate town of Vicksburg, Mississippi, surrenders to General Ulysses S. Grant.
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1862
Charles Dodgson first tells the story of Alice’s adventures down the rabbit hole during a picnic along the Thames.
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1861
Union and Confederate forces skirmish at Harpers Ferry.
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1855
Walt Whitman publishes the first edition of Leaves of Grass at his own expense.
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1845
Henry David Thoreau begins his 26-month stay at Walden Pond.
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1831
The fifth president of the United States, James Monroe, dies at the age of 73.
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1826
Stephen Foster, American composer.
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Two of America’s founding fathers–Thomas Jefferson and John Adams–die.
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1817
Construction begins on the Erie Canal, to connect Lake Erie and the Hudson River.
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1807
Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian military leader and unifier of modern Italy.
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1804
Nathaniel Hawthorne, American writer (The Scarlet Letter).
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1776
The amended Declaration of Independence, prepared by Thomas Jefferson, is approved and signed by John Hancock–President of the Continental Congress–and Charles Thomson, Congress secretary. The state of New York abstains from signing.
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1712
12 slaves are executed for starting an uprising in New York that killed nine whites.