Tag: July 1

This Day in History | July 1st

On July 1, 1863, the pivotal, three-day Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, resulting in a Union victory, began in Pennsylvania.

In 1867, Canada became a self-governing dominion of Great Britain as the British North America Act took effect.

In 1903, the first Tour de France began. (It ended on July 19; the winner was Maurice Garin.)

In 1944, delegates from 44 countries began meeting at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, where they agreed to establish the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

In 1946, the United States exploded a 20-kiloton atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

In 1962, the African nations of Burundi and Rwanda became independent of Belgium.

In 1963, the U.S. Post Office inaugurated its five-digit ZIP codes

This Day in History | July 2nd

On July 2, 1867, New York’s first elevated rail line, a single track between Battery Place and Greenwich Street, went into operation.

In 1917, in East St. Louis, Illinois, white mobs attacked Black residents; nearly 50 people are believed to have died in the violence.

In 1937, aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first round-the-world flight along the equator.

In 1961, author Ernest Hemingway shot himself to death at his home.

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy met Pope Paul VI at the Vatican, the first meeting between a Catholic U.S. chief executive and the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Gregg v. Georgia, ruled 7-2 the death penalty was not inherently cruel.

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