Friday, July 1

This Day In History

• 1847   The first adhesive postage stamps went on sale. Ben Franklin graced the nickel stamp while George Washington was pictured on the ten-cent stamp. The cost of mailing a one-ounce letter was 5 cents. That’s more than it cost one hundred years later.
• 1862   To help pay for the Civil War, the U.S. Congress established the Bureau of Internal Revenue on this day. President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law, making it possible for the feds to collect a three percent tax on incomes ranging from $600 to $10,000, and five percent on incomes over $10,000.
• 1863   The Civil War Battle of Gettysburg began.
• 1867   Canada became a self-governing dominion of Great Britain.
• 1898   Theodore Roosevelt and his ''Rough Riders'' waged a victorious assault on San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish-American War.
• 1916   Dwight D. Eisenhower married Mary ''Mamie'' Geneva Doud in Denver.
• 1943   ''Pay-as-you-go'' income tax withholding began.
• 1946   The United States exploded a 20-kiloton atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
• 1961   Diana, the Princess of Wales, was born near Sandringham, England.
• 1963   The U.S. Post Office introduced five-digit ZIP codes.
• 1966   The Medicare federal insurance program went into effect.
• 1968   The United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and 58 other nations signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
• 1969   Britain's Prince Charles was invested as the Prince of Wales.
• 1980   ''O Canada'' was proclaimed the national anthem of Canada.
• 1987   President Ronald Reagan nominated federal appeals court judge Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court. Bork was rejected by the Senate.
• 1991   President George H.W. Bush nominated federal appeals court judge Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.
• 1994   PLO chairman Yasser Arafat drove from Egypt into Gaza, returning to Palestinian land after 27 years in exile.
• 1995   Disc jockey Wolfman Jack died at age 57.
• 1997   Actor Robert Mitchum died at age 79.
• 2000   Vermont's civil unions law went into effect, granting gay couples most of the rights, benefits and responsibilities of marriage.
• 2000   The Confederate flag was removed from atop South Carolina's Statehouse.
• 2000   Actor Walter Matthau died at age 79.
• 2002   Chile's Supreme Court ruled that former dictator General Augusto Pinochet was suffering from dementia and dropped all charges against him for human rights violations during his regime.
• 2003   Bishop Sean O'Malley was named by Pope John Paul II the new archbishop of Boston, succeeding Cardinal Bernard Law, who'd resigned in the wake of a clerical sex abuse scandal.

Happy Birthday To

• 1908   Estee Lauder (cosmetics mogul)
• 1936   Wally Amos Jr. (entrepreneur: originated Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies, [sold name], now makes Uncle Noname chocolate chip cookies)
• 1936   Jamie Farr (Jameel Joseph Farah) (actor: M*A*S*H)
• 1945   Karen Black (Karen Blanche Ziegler) (actress)
• 1945   Debbie (Deborah Ann) Harry (singer: group: Blondie)
• 1952   Dan Aykroyd (comedian, actor)
• 1961   Princess Diana (Spencer) (Princess of Wales; killed in car crash in Paris, France, August 31, 1997)
• 1967   Pamela Anderson (actress)