Today in History July 2
HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY ON THIS DATE:
1502 - Conflict between French and Spanish over partition of Naples breaks out in open warfare in Italy.
1566 - French astrologer, physician and prophet Nostradamus dies in Salon-de-Provence.
1778 - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swiss-born French philosopher who introduced the concept of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity", dies.
1800 - The Union Jack is adopted as the flag of Australia.
burma map 1819 - The Factory Act is passed in Britain, prohibiting employment of children under nine in textile factories.
1853 - The Russian army crosses the Pruth burma map River, invading Turkey and beginning the Crimean War.
1890 - The Brussels Act is passed by an international conference to eradicate African slave trade and liquor traffic with primitive peoples.
1900 - A naval contingent leaves Sydney to help the British suppress China's Boxer Rebellion.
1937 - US aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappear during an attempt to cross the Pacific.
1940 - More than 750 prisoners and crew die when the liner Arandora Star is torpedoed by a German submarine while transporting German and Italian prisoners to Canada.
1947 - An object crashes near Roswell, New Mexico. The Army Air Force insist it was a weather balloon, but eyewitness accounts give rise to speculation it might have been an alien spacecraft.
1961 - American novelist Ernest Hemingway shoots himself dead at his home.
1964 - US President Lyndon B Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act against racial discrimination.
1966 - France explodes an atomic bomb at a Pacific atoll in first of six tests.
1973 - Betty Grable, US actress, singer and World War II pin-up girl, dies.
1976 - North and South Vietnam, divided since 1954, are reunited as one country with Hanoi the capital following the Vietnam War.
1989 - Tourists return to Tiananmen Square in China after a military crackdown on a pro-democracy movement; Andrei Gromyko dies, exactly four years after he became president of the Soviet Union.
1990 - 1400 Hajj pilgrims are trampled to death during a stampede in a pedestrian tunnel linking Mecca and a tent city.
1993 - Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop, an Australian army surgeon who worked tirelessly to help Australian POWs on the Thai-burma map Railway in World War II, dies aged 85.
1994 - Colombian soccer player Andres Escobar is slain in Medellin 10 days after he accidentally scored a goal against his team during a World Cup game against the US.
1997 - Oscar winning US actor James Stewart dies aged 89.
1999 - Mario Puzo, the US author whose bestseller The Godfather spawned the Mafia film trilogy, dies.
2002 - US millionaire Steve Fossett becomes the first solo balloonist to circle the globe nonstop. He had flown nearly 31,380km around the southern hemisphere.
2004 - Marlon Brando, the reclusive Oscar-winning star of The Godfather and On the Waterfront, dies aged 80.
2007 - Indian-born Dr Mohamed Haneef is arrested at Brisbane airport over suspected links to a failed British terrorism plot. Charges against him are later dropped.
2008 - Colombia tricks rebels into freeing 15 hostages, including ex-presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.
2011 - Hezbollah's leader vows never to turn over four members of his Shi'ite militant group who have been indicted in the 2005 murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri.
2012 - Physicists say they have all but proven the Higgs boson or "God particle" exists.
2014 - Louis Zamperini, Olympic distance runner who, during World War II, survived 47 days on a raft in the Pacific Ocean then endured two years in Japanese prison camps, dies age 97; Lance Corporal Todd John Chidgey becomes the 41st Australian soldier to die in Afghanistan.
2015 - Five hikers with vision problems cross a mountain range in France using GPS; an Afghan appeals court overturns death sentences for four men over the killing of a woman who was beaten and set alight after she was wrongly accused of blasphemy.
2016 - Australian federal election is held with the result in doubt for a few days, before Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is eventually returned with a much-reduced majority for the coalition.
2017 - Australian boxer Jeff Horn beats Manny Pacquiao to claim the WBO world welterweight title in a points decision in Brisbane, in one of the greatest upsets in boxing history.
Today's Birthdays:
Christoph Willibald von Gluck, German composer (1714-1787); Sir Charles Tupper, Canadian prime minister (1822-1915); Sir William Bragg, British scientist and Nobel laureate (1862-1942); Herman Hesse, German writer and Nobel laureate (1877-1962); King Olaf V of Norway (1903-1991); Sir Alec Douglas-Home, British Prime Minister (1903-1995); Imelda Marcos, former Philippines first lady (1929-); Ron Silver, US actor (1946-2009); Roy Bittan, US musician (1949-); Jerry Hall, US model-actress (1956-); Jimmy McNichol, US actor (1961-); Matthew Reilly, Australian author (1974-); Daniel Kowalski, Australian Olympic swimmer (1975-); Lindsay Lohan, US actress (1986-); Margot Robbie, Australian actress (1990-).
Thought For Today:
The soul has more diseases than the body - Henry Wheeler Shaw, US author (1818-1885).
Advertisement
