EVENTS
- 1775 – George Washington becomes commander of the Continental Army.
- 1819 – The Bank of Savings becomes the first savings bank in the US.
- 1844 – The Great Auks go extinct. The last known pair of Great Auks, members of a species of flightless birds, were killed off the coast of Iceland at the request of a collector. It is believed that the extinction of these birds was caused by human activities and hunting due to the high demand for their feathers.
Great Auks - 1863 – The Battle of Gettysburg ends.
- 1884 – The first stock average is posted by Dow Jones.
- 1890 – Idaho becomes the 43rd US State.
- 1962 – Algeria gains its independence from France. Algeria’s independence from France, after 132 years of French rule, was finalized after the signing of the Évian Accords in the spa town of Évian-les-Bains. The accords ended a 7-year long voilent war of independence. Independence was finally achieved after the July 1, 1962, referendum favored complete Algerian independence. Ahmed Ben Bella became the first President of the country.
- 1976 – The raid on Entebbe airport in Uganda occurred as an Israeli commando unit rescued 103 hostages on a hijacked Air France airliner. The jet had been en route from Tel Aviv to Paris when it was hijacked by pro-Palestinian guerrillas. Three hostages, seven hijackers and twenty Ugandan soldiers were killed during the rescue.
- 1988 – Iran Air Flight 655 was destroyed while flying over the Persian Gulf after the U.S. Navy Warship Vincennes fired two surface-to-air missiles, killing all 290 passengers aboard. A subsequent U.S. military inquiry cited stress related human failure for the mistaken identification of the civilian airbus as an enemy F-14 fighter jet.
- 2013 – Coup in Egypt. Egyptian defense minister Abdul Fatah al-Sisi staged a coup and forced out President Mohamed Morsi, just over a year after he was elected.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1423 – Louis XI (King of France)
- 1883 – Franz Kafka (Czech/German writer)
- 1947 – Dave Barry (Writer)
- 1949 – Bo Xilai (Chinese politician)
- 1956 – Montel Williams (TV talk show host)
- 1962 – Tom Cruise (Actor)
- 1971 – Julian Assange (Australian journalist, publisher, activist, founder of WikiLeaks)
Julian Assange - 1980 – Harbhajan Singh (Indian cricketer)
DEATHS
- 1904 – Theodor Herzl (Austrian journalist, author)
- 1935 – André Citroën (French engineer, businessman, founded Citroën)
- 1971 – Jim Morrison (American singer-songwriter, poet)
Jim Morrison - 1995 – Pancho Gonzales (American tennis player)
- 2012 – Andy Griffith (American actor, singer, producer, screenwriter)
