Events

• Michigan Territory was established– 1805
• The Gadsden Purchase Treaty, signed on this day, transferred territory to the United States making southern Arizona and New Mexico part of the nation– 1854
• Jean Francois Gravelet, a Frenchman known professionally as Emile or Charles Blondin, became the first to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope– 1859
• London’s Tower Bridge opened– 1894
• The Meat Inspection Act became law– 1906
• Tunguska fireball in sky, Russia– 1908
• Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind was published– 1936
• New York Yankee Joe Dimaggio and Boston Red Sox Dom Dimaggio hit home runs in the same game. It was the first time brothers had hit home runs in the same game in the majors in 15 years.– 1950
• General Motors unveiled the Corvette, the first sports car with a fiberglass body– 1953
• The 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, lowering the voting age to 18, ratified as Ohio became the 38th state to approve it– 1971
• George Harrison’s “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)” topped the charts– 1973
• The famous July 4th scene from the Steven Spielberg movie Jaws was filmed at Martha’s Vineyard– 1974
• Canada’s loonie coin entered circulation– 1987
• Tonya Harding was banned from the U. S. Figure Skating Association for life– 1994
• The international space station’s two astronauts hustled through a risky spacewalk and successfully replaced a bad circuit breaker– 2004
• Chester Arthur Reed, the oldest U.S. postal worker, retired at the age of 95. He accrued 3,856 hours of sick leave due to not missing a shift in 37 years.– 2010
• A leap second was added to the world’s atomic clocks to keep up with the slowing rotation of the earth– 2012
• The first photo of a confirmed baby planet (PDS 70b) was announced– 2018