Saturday, July 2

This Day In History

• 1566   French astrologer and physician Nostradamus died in Salon.
• 1776   The Continental Congress passed a resolution that ''these United Colonies are, and of right, ought to be, Free and Independent States.''
• 1850   The gas mask was patented on this day. It was an invention of B.J. Lane of Cambridge, MA.
• 1867   New York City’s first elevated railroad officially opened for business. Commuters soon called the mode of transportation the El.
• 1881   President James A. Garfield was fatally shot by Charles J. Guiteau at the Washington railroad station; he died on Sept. 19.
• 1890   Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act.
• 1908   Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court justice, was born in Baltimore.
• 1926   The U.S. Army Air Corps was created.
• 1932   Democrats nominated New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt for president at their convention in Chicago.
• 1947   An object that the Army Air Force later said was a weather balloon crashed near Roswell, N.M. Eyewitness accounts gave rise to speculation it might have been an alien spacecraft.
• 1961   Author Ernest Hemingway shot himself to death at his home in Ketchum, Idaho.
• 1964   President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law a sweeping civil rights bill.
• 1976   The Supreme Court ruled the death penalty was not inherently cruel or unusual.
• 1994   Colombian soccer player Andres Escobar was shot to death in Medellin, 10 days after accidentally scoring a goal against his own team in World Cup competition.
• 1997   Actor James Stewart died at age 89.
• 2000   Opposition candidate Vicente Fox won Mexico's presidential elections, ending the Institutional Revolutionary Party's 71-year reign.
• 2001   Robert Tools received the world's first self-contained artificial heart in Louisville, Ky. (He lived 151 days with the device.)
• 2002   American Steve Fossett became the first person to fly a balloon solo around the world.

Happy Birthday To

• 1908   Thurgood Marshall (U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice: first black to hold this office [1967-1991]; died Jan 24, 1993)
• 1922   Dan Rowan (comedian: Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In)
• 1929   Imelda Marcos (widow of exiled Philippines leader, Ferdinand Marcos; famous for her collection of hundreds of pairs of shoes)
• 1932   Dave Thomas (fast-food founder: Wendy’s [appears in Wendy’s TV commercials]; founder: Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption; died Jan 8, 2002)
• 1937   Richard Petty (auto racer: 7-time winner of Daytona 500 [1964, 1966, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1979, 1981]; 1st to win a million $$ stock car race)
• 1946   Ron Silver (actor)
• 1947   Lucy Baines Johnson (daughter of 36th U.S. President Lyndon and Ladybird Johnson)