Today in History - July 3
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(PCh, 1992, p.78)(HNQ, 4/18/02)(MC, 7/3/02)
1570 Jul 3, Antonio Paleario (67), Italian humanist, was executed by the inquisition.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1570 Jul 3, The Turks began their attack on Nicosia, Cyprus, after Venice refused to surrender the island.
(http://historicbiography.blogspot.com/2008/01/marcantonio-bragadin.html)
1608 Jul 3, The city of Quebec was founded as a trading post by Samuel de Champlain. The French adventurer Etienne Brule accompanied Champlain to North America and was reportedly eaten by the Huron Indians.
(AP, 7/3/97)(www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1608champlain.html)
1642 Jul 3, Maria de' Medici (~69), French queen-mother, died.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1683 Jul 3, Edward Young, English poet, dramatist and literary critic, was born. His work included "Night Thoughts."
(HN, 7/3/99)
1738 Jul 3, John Singleton Copley, finest colonial American artist, was born in Mass.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1754 Jul 3, George Washington surrendered the small, circular Fort Necessity (later Pittsburgh) in southwestern Pennsylvania to the French, leaving them in control of the Ohio Valley. This marked the beginning of the French and Indian War also called the 7 Years' War. In 2005 Fred Anderson authored “The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War.”
(HN, 7/13/98)(Arch, 1/05, p.46)(WSJ, 12/14/05, p.D15)
1775 Jul 3, Gen. George Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Mass.
(AP, 7/3/97)
1778 Jul 3, The Wyoming Massacre occurred during the American Revolution in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. As part of a British campaign against settlers in the frontier during the war, 360 American settlers, including women and children, were killed at an outpost called Wintermoot's Fort after they were drawn out of the protection of the fort and ambushed.
(HNQ, 11/5/98)(MC, 7/3/02)
1790 Jul 3, In Paris the Marquis of Condorcet proposed granting civil rights to women.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1799 Jul 3, In Saint-Domingue (later Haiti) Gen. Toussaint L’Ouverture formally declared Gen. Andre Rigaud, the leader of a revolutionary army in the south and west of Saint-Domingue, a rebel.
(ON, 2/10, p.8)
1801 Jul 3, Johann Nepomuk Went (56), composer, died.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1806 Jul 3, Michael Keens exhibited the 1st cultivated strawberry.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1809 Jul 3, Joseph Quesne (62), composer, died.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1816 Jul 3, Dorothea Jordan (65), French actress, mistress (William IV), died.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1844 Jul 3, Dankmar Adler, architect and engineer, was born.
(HN, 7/3/01)
1844 Jul 3, Ambassador Caleb Cushing successfully negotiated a commercial treaty with China that opened five Chinese ports to U.S. merchants and protected the rights of American citizens in China.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1848 Jul 3, Gen. Peter Von Scholten, faced with the likely destruction of towns and plantations by a slave revolt, declared the slaves of the Danish West Indies (later US Virgin Islands) to be freed.
(SSFC, 7/5/09, p.A3)
1861 Jul 3, US Colonel Jackson received his CSA commission as brigadier general.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1861 Jul 3, Pony Express arrived in SF with overland letters from NY.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1863 Jul 3, The last rebel assault was repulsed at the Battle of Gettysburg at 4 p.m. The Civil War’s Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania ended after three days in a major victory for the North as Confederate troops retreated. The last Confederate assault at Gettysburg was Pickett’s Charge against the center of the Union line that left some 7,000 of 13,000 [15,000] Confederate troops dead. Lt. Gen. James Longstreet gave Maj. Gen. George Pickett the assent. General Lee took responsibility. The Union and Confederate armies suffered an estimated 50-51 thousand casualties in the battle. It was the bloodiest battle the country had yet seen. Upon whom the responsibility for the South's failure at Gettysburg rests has been widely debated, but five months after the epic battle, Confederate General Robert E. Lee admitted, "I thought my men were invincible." The fighting in the small Pennsylvania town marked a pivotal point in the Union's ascent to victory and helped decide the outcome of the Civil War. In 1974 Michael Shaara published "The Killer Angels," a novel about the 3-day battle.
(SFC, 7/7/96, T6)(SFC,2/17/97, p.A3)(AP, 7/3/97)(SFEC, 6/21/98, p.D5)(HN, 7/3/98)(WSJ, 9/11/98, p.W10)(HNPD, 7/6/99)
1863 Jul 3, Battle of Donaldsonville, LA.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1864 Jul 3, Battle of Chattahoochee River, GA, began and lasted until Jul 9.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1864 Jul 3, At Harpers Ferry, WV, Federals evacuated in face of Early's advance.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1871 Jul 3, William Henry Davies, Welsh poet, was born.
(HN, 7/3/01)
1871 Jul 3, Jesse James robbed a bank in Corydon, Iowa, of $45,000.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1875 Jul 3, Ernst F. Sauerbruch, German Nazi surgeon, was born.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1878 Jul 3, George M. Cohan, American entertainer, was born. He wrote the songs "Over There," "You're a Grand Old Flag" and "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" and the play "Yankee Doodle-Dandy."
(HN, 7/3/99)
1878 Jul 3, John Wise flew the first dirigible in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1883 Jul 3, Franz Kafka (d.1924), Czech novelist, author of "The Metamorphosis," was born in Prague. "The Castle" and "The Trial," were both published after his death. He died of tuberculosis.
(V.D.-H.K.p.367-368)(WSJ, 10/10/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 3/14/97, p.A11)(HN, 7/3/98)
1883 Jul 3, SS Daphne sank on Clyde River in Scotland and 195 died.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1886 Jul 3, In Germany Karl Benz drove the 1st automobile. [see Jan 29]
(MC, 7/3/02)
1890 Jul 3, Idaho became the 43rd state of the US.
(HFA, ‘96, p.32)(AP, 7/3/97)
1898 Jul 3, The Spanish cruisers Cristóbal Colón, Almirante Oquendo, Vizcaya and Infanta Maria Teresa, and two torpedo-boat destroyers, lay bottled up in Santiago Harbor, with seven American ships maintaining a blockade just outside. Without warning, the Spanish squadron attempted to break out, and the Americans attacked, sinking one torpedo boat and immediately running the other aground. The Americans gave chase to Oquendo, Vizcaya and Colón. After a brief battle, all the Spanish warships were overtaken, with only two American causalities, both from the U.S. armored cruiser Brooklyn.
(AP, 7/3/98)(HNPD, 7/3/98)
1899 Jul 3, The nation's first juvenile court opened on the West Side after reformers like Jane Addams pushed the Illinois legislature to recognize that children were developmentally different from adults.
(SFEC, 6/27/99, Z1 p.1)
1901 Jul 3, Members of The Wild Bunch, including Kid Curry, committed their last American robbery near Wagner, Montana, taking $65,000 from a Great Northern train. Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and his lover Etta Place had already fled to New York where a picture of Etta and Sundance was taken. The trio by this time were settled in Argentina.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy)
1903 Jul 3, The first cable across the Pacific Ocean was spliced between Honolulu, Midway, Guam and Manila. Teddy Roosevelt placed the atoll of Midway Island under Navy supervision. The Commercial Pacific Cable Co. (later AT&T) set cable across the Pacific via Midway Island and the first around the world message was sent. The message took 9 minutes to circle the globe.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.T5)(HN, 7/3/98)
1906 Jul 3, George Sanders, actor (All About Eve-Academy Award 1950), was born in Russia.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1907 Jul 3, A Papal decree forbade the modernization of theology.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1908 Jul 3, M.F.K. Fisher, food writer, was born.
(HN, 7/3/01)
1908 Jul 3, In San Francisco the coroner and his deputies celebrated the opening of the new morgue at 368 Fell St.
(SSFC, 6/29/08, DB p.58)
1908 Jul 3, Joel Chandler Harris (59), author and creator of Uncle Remus, died in Atlanta.
(AP, 7/3/08)
1909 Jul 3, Stavros Niachos, Greek shipping magnate, was born.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1912 Jul 3, Elizabeth Taylor, novelist and short story writer, was born.
(HN, 7/3/01)
1916 Jul 3, The 1st of 3 fatal shark attacks occurred near the NJ shore.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1916 Jul 3, Hetty Green (b.1834), American investor, died in NYC. In 2012 Janet Wallach authored “The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age.”
(SSFC, 10/21/12, p.F7)
1918 Jul 3, The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the oldest US environmental conservation law, prohibited killing or harassing birds migrating across international borders.
(SFC, 4/9/99, p.A5)(SFC, 10/23/02, p.A4)(www.fws.gov/laws/lawsdigest/migtrea.html)
1918 Jul 3, Ottoman Sultan Mehmet Resad died and Vahdettin (1861-1926) became the new Sultan.
(www.turkeyswar.com/whoswho/who-vahidettin.htm)
1921 Jul 3, Francois-Arnold Reichenbach, documentary filmmaker, was born.
(HN, 7/3/01)
1929 Jul 3, Dunlop Latex Development Laboratories made foam rubber.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1930 Jul 3, Carlos Kleiber (d.2004), conductor (Bavarian State Orchestra), was born in Berlin, Germany.
(SFC, 7/19/04, p.B6)
1930 Jul 3, Congress created the U.S. Veterans Administration. [see Jul 21]
(AP, 7/3/97)
1937 Jul 3, Tom Stoppard, British author and dramatist, was born in Czechoslovakia. His plays include "Rosencrantz and Gilderstern are Dead" and "The Real Thing."
(HN, 7/3/99)(MC, 7/3/02)
1939 Jul 3, Ernst Heinkel demonstrated an 800-kph rocket plane to Hitler.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1940 Jul 3, British Royal Navy sank a French fleet in North Africa, ten days after France had signed an armistice with Nazi Germany.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1943 Jul 3, Liberator bombers sank U-628.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1944 Jul 3, Lisa Alther, author, was born in Kingsport, Ten. "The degree of a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting attitudes she can bring to bear on the same topic."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Alther)
1944 Jul 3, The U.S. First Army opened a general offensive to break out of the hedgerow area of Normandy, France.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1944 Jul 3, During World War II, Soviet forces recaptured Minsk.
(AP, 7/3/97)
1945 Jul 3, U.S. troops landed at Balikpapan and took Sepinggan airfield on Borneo in the Pacific.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1947 Jul 3, Soviet Union didn't partake in the Marshall Plan.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1948 Jul 3, Kidnapper Caryl Chessman was sentenced to death.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1950 Jul 3, US Pres. Truman signed public law 600. It provided federal statutory authorization for the people of Puerto Rico to write their own constitution.
(www.puertorico-herald.org/issues/2004/vol8n34/CBRoadComnwlth.shtml)
1950 Jul 3, American and North Korean forces clashed for the first time in the Korean War. U.S. carrier-based planes attacked airfields in the Pyongyang-Chinnampo area of North Korea in the first air-strike of the Korean War.
(AP, 7/3/98)(HN, 7/3/98)
1951 Jul 3, Jean-Claude Duvalier, [Papa Doc], deposed Haitian president-for-life, was born.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1952 Jul 3, Dr. Forest Dewey Dodrill (1902-1997) of Wayne State Univ. used a mechanical heart pump to operate on a patient at Detroit’s Harper Hospital. This was regarded as the world’s first successful use of a mechanical pump in open-heart surgery.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodrill-GMR)
1954 Jul 3, In Salem Mass., champion female athlete Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias (1911-1956) won the US Women's Open. She had just come back from a battle with cancer, yet won the event by 12 strokes.
(www.uswomensopen.com/2004/press/whatta-gal.html)
1954 Jul 3, Food rationing ended in Britain almost nine years after the end of World War II.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1956 Jul 3, Loew's was removed from the DJIA and International Paper was added as a component of the Dow Jones.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R46)(WSJ, 4/8/04, p.C4)
1962 Jul 3, Jackie Robinson became the first African American to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1962 Jul 3, French Pres. Charles De Gaulle pronounced Algeria an independent country following the July 1 elections. De Gaulle evacuated Algeria and a million settlers flooded into France.
(WSJ, 11/16/95, p.A-18)(www.onwar.com/aced/data/alpha/falgeria1954.htm)
1965 Jul 3, Trigger (25), the golden palomino horse of Roy Rogers, died. Trigger was mounted by Bishoff's Taxidermy of California and were on display for years at the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum in Victorville, California. The original Trigger is currently on display at The Roy Rogers - Dale Evans Museum in Branson, Missouri. In 2010 Trigger, along with his saddle, took top dollar at an auction of memorabilia.
(www.surfnetinc.com/chuck/hoss-rr.htm)(SFC, 7/7/98, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/2blll9t)
1967 Jul 3, North Vietnamese soldiers attacked South Vietnam’s only producing coal mine at Nong Son.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1969 Jul 3, Brian Jones (27), founder of the Rolling Stones (1962), was found dead at the bottom of Cotchford Farm swimming pool.
(www.hotshotdigital.com/WellAlwaysRemember.4/BrianJones.html)
1970 Jul 3, A British Dan-Air charter, flying a Comet 4 turbojet, crashed near Barcelona and 112 were killed.
(www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=834)
1971 Jul 3, James Douglas Morrison (b.1943), singer for the Doors rock group, died of an apparent heart attack in Paris, France. Jim Morrison (27) was buried at Pere Lachaise cemetery.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.D2)(AP, 7/3/97)
1975 Jul 3, The US Civil Service Commission adopted new suitability regulations devoid of the previous language about "immoral" conduct or "sexual perversion." This voided Pres. Eisenhower’s 1953 executive order on firing gays.
(www.fedglobe.org/news/12now_history.html)
1976 Jul 3, Shane Lynch, Irish singer (Boyzone), was born in Dublin, Ireland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane_Lynch)
1976 Jul 3, Israel launched its daring mission to rescue 103 passengers and Air France crew members being held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda by pro-Palestinian hijackers.
(AP, 7/3/97)
1977 Jul 3, Raymond Damadian produced the 1st image of a human chest using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In 1970 he found that cancer cells could be distinguished from healthy tissues using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR).
(Econ, 12/6/03, TQp.15)
1978 Jul 3, The US Supreme Court, in Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation, upheld an FCC ban on George Carlin's "seven dirty words" and other indecencies on radio, and TV "when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience." The ban was upheld on the grounds that broadcasters had a “uniquely pervasive presence in the lives of all Americans.
(WSJ, 3/24/04, p.A4)(Econ, 7/23/05, p.14)(http://tinyurl.com/2jeh4j)
1978 Jul 3, The Amazon Pact was established. Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela signed the Amazon Pact, a Brazilian initiative designed to coordinate the joint development of the Amazon Basin.
(http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Amazon+Pact)
1978 Jul 3, China cut off economic and technical aid to Vietnam.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)
1979 Jul 3, Dan White, convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the shooting deaths of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, was sentenced to seven years and eight months in prison. He served five years.
(AP, 7/3/9)
1979 Jul 3, Helen Van Slyke, English writer, died. She left a manuscript that was completed by James Elward (1929-1996) titled "Public Smiles, Private Tears" that became a best-seller. It was about a woman’s rise in the world of retail fashion.
(SFC, 9/2/96, p.A20)(http://tinyurl.com/3bzrf3)
1980 Jul 3, The 15-year-old Berkeley Barb, founded by Max Scherr, released its final issue in Berkeley, Ca. Scherr ran the left-wing paper from 1965-1973.
(SFC, 7/1/05, p.F2)
1982 Jul 3, Mumia Abu-Jamal (b.1954), radio reporter and former Black Panther, was convicted for the 1981 murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner in Pittsburgh. Jamal supporters said he was framed. Prosecutors said Jamal shot Faulkner after seeing the officer struggling with Jamal’s brother, William Cook, who had been stopped for a traffic violation. In 1996 Jamal was still on death row. In 1999 Gov. Tom Ridge signed a 2nd death warrant for lethal injection on Dec 2. In December, 2001, a federal judge affirmed his murder conviction but ordered that Abu-Jamal should either receive a new sentencing hearing or have his sentence commuted to life in prison because of an error by the trial judge in presenting rules of sentencing to the jury (see March 27, 2008).
(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Mumia_Abu-Jamal)
1984 Jul 3, The US Supreme Court ruled that Jaycees may be forced to admit women as members.
(http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=468&invol=609)
1984 Jul 3, Raoul Salan (b.1899), French general, OAS leader (Algeria), died. Salan was one of the four Generals who organized the 1961 Algiers Putsch operation, and then founded the Organization armée secrète (OAS) terrorist group.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Salan)
1986 Jul 3, President Reagan presided over a gala ceremony in New York Harbor that saw the relighting of the renovated Statue of Liberty.
(AP, 7/3/97)
1986 Jul 3, Rudy Vallee (b.1901), singer (Vagabond Dreams), died.
(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=4143)
1987 Jul 3, Two men became the first hot-air balloon travelers to cross the Atlantic. British millionaire Richard Branson and Swedish-born Per Lindstrand, the balloon's designer, were forced to jump into the sea as their craft went down off the coast of Scotland.
(AP, 7/3/97)
1988 Jul 3, The US Navy USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian Airbus A-300 in the Persian Gulf from the cruiser ship Vincennes shortly after it took off from Bandar Abbas for Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. All 290 people aboard were killed after the crew of the Vincennes misidentified the plane as an Iranian F-14 fighter. In 1996 the US paid $131.8 million in compensation of which half would go directly to the families of the people killed. Iran filed suit in World Court in 1989 and settled out of court in Feb, 1996.
(WSJ, 2/23/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 4/26/96, p.A-14)(AP 7/3/97)(AP, 7/03/10)
1989 Jul 3, By a 5-4 decision, the US Supreme Court upheld abortion restrictions in the state of Missouri. The court ruled that states do not have to provide funds for abortions.
(AP, 7/3/9)
1989 Jul 3, The movie "Batman," set a record of quickest $100 million (10 days).
(www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/fastest.htm?page=100&p=.htm)
1989 Jul 3, Jim Backus (76), actor (Magoo, Gilligan's Island), died of pneumonia.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0000822/bio)
1990 Jul 3, In Moscow, Kremlin hard-liner Yegor K. Ligachev received an enthusiastic reception at a Communist Party congress as he criticized reforms by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, saying perestroika had been marred by "limitless radicalism."
(AP, 7/3/00)
1990 Jul 3, Maurice Girodias (b.1919), French publisher, died.
(wwwa.britannica.com/eb/article-9000838?hook=170089)
1991 Jul 3, Former corporate enemies Apple Computer and IBM publicly joined forces in a broad pact to swap technologies and develop new machines.
(AP, 7/3/01)
1991 Jul 3, A Fort Worth, Texas, police officer was videotaped beating a handcuffed prisoner in his patrol car. The officer was suspended, but later reinstated after a grand jury refused to indict him.
(AP, 7/3/01)
1992 Jul 3, The president of Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel, was voted out of office as lawmakers from Slovakia blocked his re-election in parliament.
(AP, 7/3/97)
1992 Jul 3, Rabbi Marc Tannenbaum, the only Jew to attend Vatican II, died.
(www.worldofquotes.com/history/7_3/9/)
1993 Jul 3, Steffi Graf of Germany won her third consecutive Wimbledon title as she defeated Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic.
(AP, 7/3/98)
1993 Jul 3, Hall of Fame pitcher Don Drysdale died in Montreal, Canada, at age 56.
(AP, 7/3/98)
1993 Jul 3, Ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Haiti's military chief, Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, separately signed an accord designed to return Aristide to power.
(AP, 7/3/98)
1994 Jul 3, Pete Sampras defeated Goran Ivanisevic to win the Wimbledon men's championship, 7-6, 7-6, 6-0.
(AP, 7/3/9)
1994 Jul 3, Thirty-one people died in three separate crashes on Texas highways.
(AP, 7/3/9)
1995 Jul 3, Irish Republican Army sympathizers rioted in Northern Ireland’s two largest cities in outrage over the early parole of a British soldier convicted of killing a Roman Catholic woman.
(AP, 7/3/00)
1995 Jul 3, Richard "Pancho" Gonzalez (b.1928), tennis great, died of stomach cancer in Las Vegas, Nevada.
(www.tennisfame.org/enshrinees/pancho_gonzales.html)
1996 Jul 3, The Clinton administration awarded a $1 mil grant to the Univ. of Alabama for an experiment that would test for illicit drug use of everyone arrested in Birmingham.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A3)
1996 Jul 3, US Secret Service agents claimed to have broken up an operation by a New York couple that used monitoring equipment to steal 80,000 cellular phone numbers and id codes from motorists on an expressway that passed their apartment building.
(WSJ, 7/3/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 3, Lockheed Martin Corp. won a $1 bil federal contract to build the next-generation space shuttle.
(WSJ, 7/3/96, p.A3)
1996 Jul 3, A jokester lit firecrackers in a fireworks store in Scottown, Ohio. A blaze erupted and 9 people were killed and 11 injured as they stampeded out.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A3)(AP, 7/3/97)
1996 Jul 3, A federal agency approved the Union Pacific $5.4 bil acquisition of San Francisco based Southern Pacific Rail Corp. The merger will eliminate about 3,500 jobs.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 3, Chad’s Pres. Idriss Deby won 70% of the vote. He defeated Abdelkader Wadal Kamougue, a southern leader who led coup in 1975. The election was widely seen as flawed.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/29/01, p.A1)
1996 Jul 3, Russians went to the polls to re-elect Boris Yeltsin president over his Communist challenger, Gennady Zyuganov. Boris Yeltsin won the presidential elections with about 53.7% of the vote. Zyuganov received about 40.4%.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/3/97)
1997 Jul 3, In his first formal response to Paula Jones' charges of sexual harassment, President Clinton denied all allegations in her lawsuit and asked a judge to dismiss the case.
(AP, 7/3/02)
1997 Jul 3, Mississippi became the 1st state to settle its tobacco suit, less than one week before the 1st scheduled trial.
(http://tinyurl.com/amlhg)
1997 Jul 3, Lockheed Martin Corp., the nation's biggest defense contractor, announced its purchase of Northrop Grumman Corp. for $11.2 billion [$7.9 billion]. However, the merger fell apart over antitrust concerns.
(SFC, 7/4/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/3/02)
1997 Jul 3, The Rainbow Family, founded in 1971, began their 25th gathering in Ochoco National Forest in Oregon. 20-30,000 were expected to participate.
(SFC, 7/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 3, Blues guitarist Johnny Copeland (b.1937), the "Texas Twister," died. His 1985 "Showdown" album with Albert Collins (d.1993) and Robert Cray won a Grammy for best traditional blues recording.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.C3)
1998 Jul 3, Pres. Clinton ended his trip to China and praised Pres. Zemin as a man with "good imagination." Clinton concluded his Far East tour in Hong Kong, where he challenged leaders to set the pace for rescuing Asia from the region's financial crisis.
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.A1)(AP, 7/3/9)
1998 Jul 3, A Western Water Policy Review Commission reported that farms and ranches, which soak up to 78% of the West’s available water, must give some up to the growing cities and restore degraded ecosystems.
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul 3, Residents in northeastern Florida continued to evacuate because of wildfires closing in from three directions.
(AP, 7/3/9)
1998 Jul 3, The 12th World AIDS Conference ended in Geneva.
(AP, 7/3/9)
1998 Jul 3, In Colombia rebels of the ELN freed 15 hostages, members of the army backed civic group called "Girls of Steel" in a deal brokered by Jose Ramos-Horta of East Timor.
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.A11)
1998 Jul 3, In Indian-held Kashmir Pakistani shelling forced over 2,000 villagers to flee and 7 people were reported killed in Dawar.
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.A11)
1998 Jul 3, Serbian forces in Kosovo broke through a stone blockade near Kijevo.
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.A8)
1998 Jul 3-5, 1998 Vienna celebrated the 400th anniversary of opera.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, p.T3)
1999 Jul 3, President Clinton, acting to head off potential problems with the safety of imported food, said in his weekly radio address he was ordering inspectors at American ports to brand all unsafe and rejected food products, "Refused US."
(AP, 7/3/00)
1999 Jul 3, Benjamin Nathaniel Smith fired at Asians and Blacks in Springfield, and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois.
(SFC, 7/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Jul 3, In Beijing talks between the North and South Korea collapsed.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.A22)
1999 Jul 3, A boat smuggling 11 people out of Cuba capsized and one person was killed. Joel Dorta Garcia (27) and David Garcia Capote (33) were arrested and accused of charging $8,000 for smuggling each passenger.
(SFC, 8/28/99, p.A11)
1999 Jul 3, In Kosovo British NATO troops killed 2 ethnic Albanians and wounded 2 others during a street celebration marking the 9th anniversary of Kosovo's unrecognized declaration of independence.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.A15)
1999 Jul 3, In Kuwait elections were held for seats in the 50-member parliament. Only some 113,000 men of the 1.8 million population were allowed to vote. Liberals raised their number of seats from 4 to 14.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.A20)(SFC, 7/5/99, p.A12)
2000 Jul 3, President Clinton made a congratulatory telephone call to Mexican President-elect Vicente Fox, a day after Fox’s election.
(AP, 7/3/01)
2000 Jul 3, A 1970’s steel observation tower that preservationists said had desecrated the battlefield of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania was demolished.
(AP, 7/3/01)
2000 Jul 3, Harold Nicholas, younger member of the tap-dancing Nicholas Brothers, died at age 79. In 2000 Constance Valis Hill authored "Brotherhood in Rhythm: The Jazz Tap Dancing of the Nicholas Brothers."
(SFC, 7/5/00, p.A19)
2000 Jul 3, In Mexico the elections showed 42.7% for Vincente Fox, 35.8% for Labastida, and 16.5% for Cardenas.
(SFC, 7/4/00, p.A11)
2000 Jul 3, The Palestinian leadership said that a Palestinian state would be declared by September 13.
(SFC, 7/5/00, p.A8)(WSJ, 7/5/00, p.A1)
2001 Jul 3, In Columbus, Ohio, Brian Dalton (22) was sentenced to 10 years in prison for fiction writing in his journal about sexually abusing and torturing children.
(SFC, 7/5/01, p.A4)
2001 Jul 3, General Electric's $41 billion purchase of Honeywell International was vetoed by the European Union. It was the first time a merger of two U.S. companies was stopped solely by European regulators.
(AP, 7/3/02)
2001 Jul 3, The last parts of the US spy plane in China were flown out.
(SFC, 7/4/01, p.A12)
2001 Jul 3, Mordecai Richler, Canadian social critic and novelist, died at age 70. His work included the novel "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" (1959).
(SFC, 7/5/01, p.D3)
2001 Jul 3, In Indonesia a Christian gang killed 18 Muslims, including women and children, on the island of Sulawesi.
(SFC, 7/5/01, p.A10)
2001 Jul 3, Muhammad al-Humaimidi, a high-ranking Iraqi diplomat, asked for asylum in NYC.
(SFC, 7/4/01, p.A10)
2001 Jul 3, In his first appearance before a U.N. tribunal at The Hague, Netherlands, former Yugoslav Pres. Milosevic refused to respond to charges and called the tribunal illegitimate.
(SFC, 7/4/01, p.A1)(AP, 7/3/02)
2001 Jul 3, In the Philippines Abu Sayyaf rebels freed 2 hostages and warned the government to withdraw from Muslim-majority islands or face more kidnappings.
(SFC, 7/4/01, p.A12)
2001 Jul 3, In the Philippines 53 people were left dead in landslides from Typhoon Utor as the storm moved toward Taiwan.
(WSJ, 7/5/01, p.A1)(SFC, 7/6/01, p.D3)
2001 Jul 3, In Russia Flight TD-352, a Tu-154 operated by Vladivostok Avia, crashed in Siberia near the village of Burdakovka. All 143 people aboard were killed.
(SFC, 7/4/01, p.A10)(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1421072.stm)
2001 Jul 3-2001 Jul 4, A Russian roundup operation sent an estimated 26,000 Chechen refugees fleeing to Ingushetia. Lt. Gen. Vladimir Moltenskoi, acting commander of Russian forces, later acknowledged that his troops committed widespread crimes during the operation.
(SFC, 7/10/01, p.A8)(SFC, 7/12/01, p.A12)
2001 Jul 3, In Ukraine TV director Ihor Alexandrov was beaten to death by unknown assailants in Slaviansk. In 2000 a European court on Human Rights had cleared him of charges for violating laws on campaign coverage.
(WSJ, 7/9/01, p.A1)(SFC, 7/11/01, p.A8)
2002 Jul 3, The Tennessee Legislature passed a 1-cent sales tax increase, the highest in state history, and ended a partial government shutdown.
(SFC, 7/4/02, p.A4)
2002 Jul 3, It was reported that Operation Xtermination, a drug investigation at Camp Lejeune, NC, seized over $1.4 million in drugs and convicted over 80 marines and sailors.
(SFC, 7/3/02, p.A5)
2002 Jul 3, Jean-Marie Messier, the much-maligned chairman of Vivendi Universal, was formally removed from his post and replaced by Jean-Rene Fourtou of the pharmaceutical company Aventis.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2002 Jul 3, Over Australia balloonist Steve Fossett was forced to spend an extra night in the air as the winds that helped him become the first person to fly solo around the world bedeviled the final stage of his voyage.
(Reuters, 7/3/02)
2002 Jul 3, Brazil and Mexico signed a trade agreement that reduced import duties on some 800 products.
(WSJ, 7/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 3, Chinese police found Wang Bingzhang, a pro-democracy activist and US resident, in Guangxi Province. He had been recently kidnapped with 2 others in Vietnam.
(SFC, 12/21/02, p.A10)
2002 Jul 3, It was reported that up to 40,000 companies might collapse in Germany this year.
(SFC, 7/3/02, p.A12)
2002 Jul 3, In Georgetown, Guyana, police opened fire on demonstrators who broke into the presidential compound, killing two people and wounding six others during a protest timed to coincide with the start of a Caribbean summit.
(AP, 7/4/02)
2002 Jul 3, An oil tanker was reported to have run aground in stormy seas on a reef near Fiji's popular tourist islands, threatening an ecological disaster if the cargo leaks.
(Reuters, 7/3/02)
2002 Jul 3, In western Mexico 5 people returning from a political rally, among them a 101-year-old man, were ambushed and shot to death.
(AP, 7/3/02)
2002 Jul 3, At least 39 people were killed and more feared dead when landslides caused by Typhoon Chata'an destroyed houses on the western Pacific island of Chuuk in Micronesia.
(Reuters, 7/3/02)(WSJ, 7/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 3, In Pakistan security forces killed 4 al Qaeda fighters near the Afghan border at Germa. 3 security men were killed. A land dispute broke out in Northern Waziristan near the Afghan border and 21 people were killed.
(SFC, 7/4/02, p.A10)(SFC, 7/6/02, p.A14)
2002 Jul 3, Peru temporarily suspended programs to eradicate coca fields and encourage farmers to grow alternative crops, moves that jeopardize U.S.-backed efforts to fight the cocaine trade.
(AP, 7/3/02)(SFC, 7/4/02, p.A12)
2002 Jul 3, Swiss authorities said a collision-warning system was out of service in the Zurich tower when it took control of a Russian airliner and a cargo jet shortly before they collided on July 1 at 35,000 feet, killing 71 people, including 45 children headed for an end-of-school beach holiday. One of 2 required air controllers was on a break.
(AP, 7/3/02)(SFC, 7/4/02, p.A8)
2002 Jul 3, Turkey's jittery stock market fell again following reports that officials discussed a moratorium on the nation's $30 billion foreign debt.
(AP, 7/3/02)
2003 Jul 3, The US jobless rate was reported to have surged to a nine-year high in June as employers cut 30,000 workers from their payrolls.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, Astronomers said they have found a Jupiter-like body circling a distant star, dubbed HD 70642 some 94 light years from Earth, in a planetary system like ours. The finding was presented at a conference at the Paris Astrophysics Institute.
(AP, 7/4/03)
2003 Jul 3, The US military commander in Europe was ordered to begin planning for possible American intervention in Liberia.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, London's Trafalgar Square reopened to the public after a $42 million facelift.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, Tens of thousands of South Korean auto and metal workers staged a half-day walkout to demand a 40-hour workweek and better working conditions. Most people worked half a day on Saturdays.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, Indonesia's military said it killed 15 insurgents in new fighting in Aceh province, and the rebels said they have detained two local journalists.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, The US government put a $25 million bounty on Saddam Hussein and $15 million on his sons. US troops killed 11 Iraqis who ambushed a convoy outside Baghdad.
(AP, 7/3/03)(AP, 7/4/03)
2003 Jul 3, Yuri Shchekochikhin (b.1950), a deputy editor for Russia’s Novaya Gazeta and member of parliament, died of a mysterious allergic reaction. He had long campaigned against Boris Yeltsin's war in Chechnya. Friends and relatives were convinced that he was poisoned.
(WSJ, 12/8/06, p.A12)
2003 Jul 3, In Suweir, Saudi Arabia, Turki Nasser al-Dandani, the top suspect wanted in the May 12 Riyadh suicide bombing, was killed along with three other militants in a gunbattle when police raided their hideout.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, Slovakia's parliament approved an amendment to make abortion legal until the 24th week of pregnancy.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2004 Jul 3, Two Estonian students clinched the country's seventh straight wife-carrying world championship on Saturday, winning the "wife's" weight in beer and a sauna.
(AP, 7/4/04)
2004 Jul 3, Insurgents attacked an Iraqi checkpoint south of the capital, killing five national guard soldiers and wounding five more.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 3, A statement attributed to an Iraqi militant group claimed on a Web site that a captive US Marine had been beheaded. However, the group later denied the claim; Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun turned up alive five days later.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2004 Jul 3, In the Indian portion of Kashmir a mountain gunbattle, a time bomb hidden in a fruit seller's hand cart and a grenade lobbed in a busy market killed 8 people and wounded 44.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 3, Israeli troops shot and killed a 9-year-old Palestinian boy in the 5th day of an army operation meant to prevent militants from firing rockets at Israeli towns by the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 3, In Nicaragua a week of heavy rains caused floods and mudslides that claimed 25 lives.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 3, Tropical storm Mindulle, the Korean word for dandelion, pushed toward South Korea after killing at least 31 people in the Philippines and 18 in Taiwan.
(Reuters, 7/3/04)(AP, 7/4/04)
2004 Jul 3, Andrian Nikolayev (74), former Soviet cosmonaut died in Cheboksary, Chuvash Autonomous Republic.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2004 Jul 3, Rwanda reopened its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, further reducing tension between the two countries.
(AFP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 3, Sudan pledged to disarm Arab militias, known as Janjaweed.
(Reuters, 7/3/04)
2005 Jul 3, Roger Federer won his third consecutive Wimbledon title by beating Andy Roddick 6-2, 7-6 (2), 6-4.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2005 Jul 3, NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft collided with the comet Tempel 1, half the size of Manhattan, creating a brilliant cosmic smashup that capped a risky voyage to uncover the building blocks of life on Earth.
(Reuters, 7/4/05)(SFC, 7/4/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 3, Gaylord Nelson (b.1916), former Wisconsin governor (1959-1963) and US senator (1963-1981), died. He founded Earth Day (1970), and helped spawn the modern environmental movement. Nelson was at the center of legislation that resulted in the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1968), the Clean Air Act (1970), and passage of the Endangered Species Act.
(AP, 7/3/05)(SFC, 7/4/05, p.A2)(http://www.nelsonearthday.net/)
2005 Jul 3, Albanians held elections for a new parliament.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 3, One of Australia's 12 Apostles has disappeared. One of nine limestone stacks that made up the famous landmark off Australia's southern coast collapsed into the Indian Ocean.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 3, In India's Gujarat state the death toll from floods was raised to 132 people, where 25 million people were affected by the floods.
(AFP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 3, A car bomb killed three Iraqi policemen north of Baghdad. 2 US soldiers were wounded in a suicide attack near a checkpoint in the western city of Ramadi.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 3, In Mexico State the former ruling party (PRI) added momentum for the upcoming presidential race with a crushing victory.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 3, In Saudi Arabia security forces killed al-Qaida leader Younis Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hayari (36), during a fierce gunbattle in eastern Riyadh. The Moroccan topped the nation's list of most-wanted militants.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 3, In St. Lucia leaders of the Caribbean Community, began to hold a four-day summit with only three of 15 members, Trinidad, Jamaica and Barbados, saying they are ready to join a single market that would eliminate tariffs and ease migration for skilled workers and professionals in the region.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 3, Syrian’s new agency SANA reported that security forces had killed an Arab extremist who was trying to illegally cross into neighboring Lebanon with other suspected militants. 2 Syrian soldiers were also killed in the clash.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2006 Jul 3, Former Private Steven D. Green was charged in federal court in Charlotte, N.C., with raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl (Abeer Qassim al-Janabi) and killing her (March 11), her parents and sister. Four members of Green's unit were charged as well; one later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 100 years in prison.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2006 Jul 3, A US federal judge issued a temporary retraining order barring the Navy from using a type of high-intensity sonar that could harm marine animals during war games that began last week in the Pacific Ocean. On July 7 the US Navy and environmental groups agreed on a settlement which prevented the Navy from using the sonar within 25 miles of the newly established Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument during the exercises.
(SFC, 7/3/06, p.A3)(SFC, 7/8/06, p.A4)
2006 Jul 3, Benjamin Hendrickson (55), an Emmy Award-winning actor on the "As the World Turns" soap opera, was found dead of suicide with a gunshot to the head in his Long Island home.
(AP, 7/7/06)
2006 Jul 3, Jack Smith (b.1913), singer and TV host for “You Asked for It,” died at his home in southern California. In 1958 he replaced Art Baker, who created the show in 1950.
(SFC, 7/11/06, p.B4)
2006 Jul 3, A US general said the United States is giving $2 billion worth of military weapons and vehicles to modernize Afghanistan's national army.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, Judges and prosecutors from Cambodia and abroad were sworn in to begin the UN-backed judicial process to try former Khmer Rouge leaders for genocide and crimes against humanity.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, China's new train from Beijing to Tibet arrived in the ancient capital of Lhasa, ending its maiden journey after climbing to elevations so high that ballpoint pens and packaged foods burst.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, It was reported that 579 Cubans had entered the US over the last 9 months by landing on Puerto Rico’s Mona Island, 40 miles from the coast of the Dominican Rep.
(SFC, 7/3/06, p.A8)
2006 Jul 3, Iraq’s parliament convened despite a boycott by Sunni Arab legislators protesting a colleague's abduction. Bombs struck markets north and south of Baghdad, with nationwide attacks killing at least 10 people and wounding dozens.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, Nissan Motor Co. approved opening talks with General Motors Corp. over a possible alliance.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, In India's Jammu-Kashmir state clashes between Indian government forces and suspected Islamic separatist militants killed 13 people.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, Two bitter rivals declared themselves Mexico's next president, sparking fears of violence. Electoral officials said they wouldn't name a winner until a vote-by-vote hand count.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, In northwestern Pakistan an explosion hit a bus carrying paramilitary troops, killing at least 6 soldiers and wounding 5 others.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, Palestinian militants holding an Israeli soldier gave Israel less than 24 hours to start releasing 1,500 Palestinian prisoners and implied that he would be killed if it did not comply, but Israel said it would not negotiate.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, A subway train derailed in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia, killing 43 people. "Initial investigations show it was an accident," said Vicente Rambla, spokesman for the Valencia regional government.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2006 Jul 3, At least seven people were killed and dozens wounded in three Claymore mine attacks carried out by Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka's northern and eastern regions.
(AFP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, Sudan's foreign minister rejected calls by the top UN envoy in the country to make additions to a peace deal for Darfur after widespread rejection of the accord. A group of Sudanese rebels in more than 50 cars attacked the town of Hamarat Sheikh in the Kordofan region of Darfur. At least a dozen people were killed. In southern Sudan at least six people were killed and 11 wounded when gunmen ambushed a German aid agency vehicle. Witnesses said the attackers, some of whom were uniformed, were rebel fighters with the LRA.
(Reuters, 7/3/06)(AP, 7/5/06)(AFP, 7/5/06)
2007 Jul 3, President Bush refused to rule out an eventual pardon for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby after already commuting his prison sentence in the CIA leak case.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2007 Jul 3, A Los Angeles jury awarded $6.2 million to firefighter Brenda Lee, who said she was harassed by colleagues because she is black and a lesbian. The harassment she said included someone mixing urine with her mouthwash.
(AP, 7/4/07)
2007 Jul 3, Hilton Hotels Corp. said it has agreed to be acquired by the Blackstone Group LP for $18.5 billion in cash. The deal was valued at $26 billion including debt.
(SFC, 7/4/07, p.C1)
2007 Jul 3, Boots Randolph (80), tenor sax player, died in Nashville, Tenn. His 1963 hit “Yakety Sax, written with guitarist James Rich,” became the theme song for television’s “The Benny Hill Show.”
(SFC, 7/4/07, p.B5)
2007 Jul 3, Afghan and NATO forces clashed with Taliban militants in the southern Zhari district of Kandahar overnight, leaving 33 suspected insurgents dead. US-led coalition troops killed a suspected militant and detained two others during an operation in eastern Afghanistan. Yousuf Ibrahim (35), from Saudi Arabia, was detained after a brief scuffle with police in Kabul. He had spent the last 8 years in Afghanistan, fighting alongside the Taliban.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, British police focused on at least four physicians with roots outside Britain, including a doctor seized at an Australian airport with a one-way ticket, in the investigation into failed car bombings in Glasgow and London.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, The US-made film "Nanking," documenting eyewitness accounts of atrocities committed by Japanese troops in China during World War Two, opened in Beijing.
(Reuters, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, China issued guidelines restricting organ transplants for foreigners, giving priority to Chinese patients in the government's latest effort to regulate procedures that have been criticized as profit-driven and unethical. Officials said that Chinese inspectors have found excessive amounts of additives and preservatives in dozens of children's snacks and seized hundreds of bottles of fake human blood protein from hospitals.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, In Germany striking train drivers brought parts of the rail network to a standstill, backing their demands for a large pay increase with a walkout that affected tens of thousands of commuters.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, In Ghana African leaders vowed to speed up the economic and political integration of their continent to pursue the goal of a United States of Africa, but they also agreed to study more closely how to achieve it.
(Reuters, 7/4/07)
2007 Jul 3, Indonesia barred Eni Faleomavaega, the Democrat congressman for American Samoa, from visiting Papua, but has denied the move is to cover up alleged human rights abuses in the remote region. Faleomavaega has been a critic of Jakarta's policies in Papua.
(Reuters, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, Iran's leading reformist daily newspaper was ordered closed, less than two months after it was allowed to resume publishing.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, PM Nouri al-Maliki's Cabinet approved a draft oil law. In Baghdad, an Iraqi army lieutenant colonel and an Interior Ministry intelligence officer were killed in separate drive-by shootings. A car bomb hit the convoy of an Iraqi police colonel in Kirkuk, killing two passers-by and wounding 17. Oras Mohammed Abdul-Aziz was executed by hanging for his role in the August, 2003, blast that killed Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim and 84 other people.
(AP, 7/3/07)(AP, 7/6/07)
2007 Jul 3, A human rights group said Kurdish security forces in northern Iraq routinely torture detainees with methods including electric shock and hold them in overcrowded facilities without formal charges or access to legal aid.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, Fumio Kyuma, Japan's defense minister, resigned under an avalanche of criticism for suggesting that the United States was justified in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because the attacks saved Japan from a Soviet invasion.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, Pakistani security forces clashed with militants outside the radical Lal Masjid mosque in Islamabad, where students have carried out a string of kidnappings of police officers and alleged prostitutes, killing at least 9 people.
(SFC, 7/4/07, p.A5)
2007 Jul 3, South Korea enacted legislation to remove bureaucratic barriers in the security industry and help brokers, banks and insurers to consolidate. To date no foreign had listed on the Seoul stock exchange.
(Econ, 7/14/07, p.78)
2007 Jul 3, Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero promised that every child born in Spain would receive a baby bonus of €2,500, according to national press reports.
(Econ, 2/16/08, p.59)(http://piurl.com/5i)
2007 Jul 3, The Alinghi team from Switzerland successfully defended sailing's coveted America's Cup, beating Emirates Team New Zealand 5-2.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2007 Jul 3, Venezuela’s energy minister said in newly published comments that Venezuela has agreed to sell gasoline to Iran.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, President Hugo Chavez said his government will nationalize Venezuela's privately owned hospitals and clinics if they fail to reduce health care costs.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2008 Jul 3, Phillip Bennett, the former chief executive of Refco, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for fleecing investors of more than $2.4 billion in a fraud that destroyed the world's largest independent commodities broker.
(Reuters, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, Larry Harmon (83) wasn't the original Bozo the Clown, but he was the real one. Harmon, who portrayed the wing-haired clown for more than half a century, died of congestive heart failure.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 3, US employers cut payrolls by 62,000 in June, the sixth straight month of nationwide job losses, underscoring the economy's fragile state. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.5 percent.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, Vodafone Group PLC said it planned to acquire a 70% stake in Ghana Telecom Co. for $900 million.
(WSJ, 7/5/08, p.B6)
2008 Jul 3, In Afghanistan gunmen lobbed a grenade and sprayed a police checkpoint with gunfire in the southern Kandahar province, killing eight officers. A roadside blast next to a police vehicle in central Ghazni province killed two officers and wounded five others. In eastern Paktika province, Afghan and foreign troops killed seven suspected militants during a clash near the Pakistan border. Afghan security forces seized 1.4 tons of opium in western Afghanistan near the border with Iran.
(AP, 7/4/08)(AFP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 3, Top Bolivian and US officials sought to heal their nations' strained relations in their first meeting since a raucous protest outside the American embassy sent the US ambassador back to Washington for security consultations.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, Former Congolese rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba arrived in the Netherlands to face war crimes charges before the International Criminal Court.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, The Cypriot parliament approved the European Union treaty, making Cyprus the 20th EU member to ratify the document aimed at streamlining decision-making in the bloc.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 3, In El Salvador a bus carrying members of an evangelical church was swept off a bridge in San Salvador. 29 bodies were recovered the next day.
(SFC, 7/4/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 3, Lydia Lassen-Berge (69), a former prostitute dubbed the "Black Widow" by the German press, was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of four wealthy but frail elderly male companions. Siegmund Schlufter (53), her accomplice, was sentenced to 12 years in jail for carrying out the killings.
(AFP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, In Indonesia a police source said that a group of 10 suspected Muslim militants detained in raids on Sumatra island by Indonesia's anti-terrorism unit was plotting to attack Western targets. The raids followed the capture of a suspected militant after a tip-off by authorities in Singapore.
(Reuters, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, It was reported that Italian authorities have started fingerprinting tens of thousands of Gypsies living in nomad camps across the country, brushing aside accusations of racism by human rights advocates and international organizations. The Interior Ministry said prints will only be taken from people who do not have a valid Italian or EU document.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, In the southern Philippines suspected communist guerrillas launched a series of attacks, lobbing a grenade that killed three people and raiding a police station and a gold mining company.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, In southeastern Slovenia two canoes were crushed running over a dam. The next day divers pulled seven bodies out of the Sava River and fought strong currents to search for five other people still missing.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 3, South Korea's president called for an end to a long-running dispute over American beef imports, saying it was time for the nation to concentrate instead on overcoming its economic difficulties.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, In Sri Lanka a wave of battles in Mannar, Vavuniya and Welioya killed 32 rebels and two soldiers.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 3, A group of around 200 Zimbabweans gathered outside the US embassy in Harare, pleading for political asylum and food after being displaced in recent election violence.
(AFP, 7/3/08)
2009 Jul 3, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced her decision to leave office more than a year early, effective July 26. The announcement left open the possibility of a presidential run.
(AP, 7/4/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Washington state federal agents said they have arrested 31 people and busted a drug trafficking ring that was directed by a cartel in Jalisco, Mexico. The 2-week Operation Arctic Chill seized 23 guns including a .50 Desert Eagle pistol and an AK-47-type assault rifle.
(SFC, 7/4/09, p.A5)
2009 Jul 3, The “Dog Days of Summer” officially begin and continue to August 11. This period got its name from the Egyptian belief that the Dog Star, Sirius, added heat to Earth as it rose and fell with the sun during this period.
(SFC, 7/3/09, p.D8)
2009 Jul 3, US Marines moved into villages in Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan, meeting little resistance as they tried to win over local chiefs on the second day of the biggest military operation here since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001. In southeast Afghanistan two US soldiers were killed when their base came under attack. The attack included an attempted suicide truck bombing of the base in the Zirok district of southeastern Paktika province. As many as 30 Taliban insurgents might have been killed when troops called in air strikes.
(AP, 7/3/09)(AP, 7/6/09)
2009 Jul 3, Algeria, Niger and Nigeria signed an accord to build a 10-billion-dollar trans-Saharan gas pipeline linking vast reserves in Nigeria to Europe.
(AFP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 3, Australia announced a 155 million US dollar package for isolated Aboriginal communities, after a new report revealed shocking levels of child abuse among the downtrodden minority.
(AFP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Brazil prison guards foiled a new attempt to smuggle a cell phone into Danilo Pinheiro prison near the city of Sorocaba by a carrier pigeon wearing a tiny backpack. Police said that the practice is becoming almost commonplace.
(AP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 3, In London a fire ripped through the 12-story Lakanal House block of Sceaux Gardens Estate, a 1960s-era public housing block in south London, killing six people including a newborn baby.
(AFP, 7/4/09)
2009 Jul 3, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a top Iranian cleric, said that some of the detained Iranian staffers of the British Embassy in Tehran will be put on trial, and he accused Britain of a role in instigating widespread protests that erupted over the country's disputed presidential election.
(AP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Kashmir police used batons and tear gas to break up fresh anti-India protests, with more than two dozen people injured in the clashes in Srinagar and Baramullah.
(AFP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Libya peacekeepers in Somalia and the war crimes warrant for Sudan's president dominated the final day of an African Union summit, after a late-night compromise on a new regional authority. Africa's leaders agreed to denounce the International Criminal Court and refuse to extradite Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, who has been indicted for crimes against humanity in Darfur.
(AFP, 7/3/09)(AP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Mexico City kidnappers opened fire with AK-47 assault rifles during an attempted rescue of the victim. The rescue failed with catastrophic errors. When police fired back, two commanders, including the chief of the city's elite rapid response force, were shot from behind by their own officers. Meanwhile, one of the kidnappers inside the home fatally shot Yolanda Ceballos (50) before killing himself. Seven other kidnappers were captured. Anti-kidnapping chief Juan Maya Aviles was later suspended.
(AP, 8/21/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Pakistan US missiles slammed into the hideout of Taliban commander Noor Wali, allied to warlord Baitullah Mehsud in the tribal belt in South Waziristan. Another missile strike hit an insurgent communications center in Kokat Khel. The strikes reportedly killed a total of 17 people. Pakistani warplanes bombed suspected militant hide-outs, killing at least four insurgents and wounding seven others. The Pakistani military said at least 13 militants and four local tribesmen were killed over the last 24 hours in the districts of Swat and Dir. A Pakistani helicopter crash killed 26 security personnel on the mountainous border of the Orakzai and Khyber ethnic Pashtun tribal regions. The Taliban claimed responsibility, but a senior security official said the military MI-17 helicopter had crashed due to a technical fault. Ehsan, alias Abu Jandal, a mid-level Taliban commander, was killed in Qambar area.
(AFP, 7/3/09)(AP, 7/3/09)(AFP, 7/4/09)(SFC, 7/4/09, p.A3)(AFP, 7/5/09)
2009 Jul 3, A top Kremlin aide said Russia will allow the US to ship weapons across its territory to Afghanistan, in a gesture aimed at bolstering US military operations and improving strained ties between Washington and Moscow.
(AP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Sudan gunmen kidnapped an Irish and Ugandan women from the office of the Irish aid group Goal in the North Darfur city of Kutum. A Sudanese watchman was also seized before being released later. Arab tribes supported by the government were implicated. Sharon Commins (33) and her Ugandan colleague, Hilda Kuwuki (42), were released on Oct 18.
(AFP, 7/4/09)(AP, 10/18/09)(AFP, 10/24/09)
2009 Jul 3, Sudanese police arrested 13 women in a raid on a Khartoum cafe for wearing trousers in violation of the country's strict Islamic law. 10 of them were flogged inside a Khartoum police station. One of those arrested, journalist Lubna Hussein, said she is challenging the charges, which can be punishable by up to 40 lashes.
(AP, 7/13/09)(AP, 7/21/09)
2009 Jul 3, The head of Venezuela's telecommunications regulatory agency said that 240 radio stations will have their licenses revoked for failing to update their registrations with the government. The government now controls six television channels, including the Caracas-based international network Telesur, two national radio networks and other smaller media outlets including 600 radio stations and 72 community TV stations.
(AP, 7/3/09)
2010 Jul 3, The US government said it is handing out nearly $2 billion for new solar plants that President Barack Obama says will create thousands of jobs and increase the use of renewable energy sources.
(AP, 7/3/10)
2010 Jul 3, In the Gulf of Mexico a Taiwanese converted tanker, dubbed "A Whale" and billed as the world's largest oil skimmer, arrived from Portugal in the Gulf of Mexico for testing. Officials hoped it would scrub 21 million gallons of oil-tainted seawater per day. The US Coast Guard later said it was too big to maneuver around the smaller patches and ribbons of oil.
(AP, 7/03/10)(SSFC, 7/4/10, p.A8)(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 3, The US Drug Enforcement Administration said it has helped seize a submarine capable of transporting tons of cocaine. DEA officials said that the diesel electric-powered submarine was constructed in a remote jungle and captured near a tributary close to the Ecuador-Colombia border. Ecuadorean authorities seized the sub before it could make its maiden voyage. The sophisticated camouflaged vessel has a conning tower, periscope and air-conditioning system. It measured about nine-feet-high from the deck plates to the ceiling and stretched nearly a 100 feet long. The DEA says it was built for trans-oceanic drug trafficking.
(AP, 7/3/10)
2010 Jul 3, The British government said it has ordered many ministries to plan for spending cuts of up to 40%, far greater than announced in an emergency budget. As Britain bid to slash a record budget deficit, departments had been warned to expect spending cuts of about 25%, but many ministries have now been asked to identify where cuts of 40% could be made.
(AFP, 7/3/10)
2010 Jul 3, In Northumbria, England, Raoul Moat (37), a nightclub bouncer and bodybuilder, seriously injured a policeman and his ex-girlfriend and killed her new partner in and around Newcastle, before apparently fleeing to the nearby Northumbria National Park. One of Britain's biggest ever manhunts ended dramatically on July 10 when Raoul Moat shot himself dead after a six-hour stand-off with armed police.
(AP, 7/9/10)(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 3, It was reported that checkpoints in Iraq, set up for fighting insurgents, have turned into shady customs stations where police demand a $9 bribe if a lorry driver’s papers are in order and multiples of that if not.
(Econ, 7/3/10, p.46)
2010 Jul 3, In Kyrgyzstan Roza Otunbayeva was sworn in as president. She would hold office for 18 months and would be ineligible to stand for election.
(SSFC, 7/4/10, p.A3)(Econ, 7/3/10, p.42)
2010 Jul 3, In Nigeria gunmen attacked two cargo vessels off the coast of the oil-producing Niger Delta, killing one crew member and kidnapping 12 foreign workers. The crew members were seized near Bonny in southern Rivers state. The military believe they were from eastern Europe. The workers were freed 2 days later along with three sailors taken hostage in May.
(Reuters, 7/3/10)(AFP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 3, In Syria, Mohammed Oudeh (73), the key planner of the 1972 Munich Olympics attack that killed 11 Israeli athletes, died.
(AP, 7/3/10)
2011 Jul 3, A San Francisco BART officer shot and killed a man at the Civic Center Station who had used a bottle as a weapon and drew a knife on an officer.
(SFC, 7/5/11, p.C1)
2011 Jul 3, The Erik, a 100-foot (32-meter) tourist fishing boat, capsized about 60 miles (100 km) south of the Baja California port of San Felipe. A US tourist died and 7 US tourists were missing along with one Mexican crew member.
(AP, 7/4/11)
2011 Jul 3, In north Afghanistan a suspected militant on a motorbike threw a hand grenade at the gates of a school in Maimana, Faryab province, injuring 17 children. Police arrested the gunman.
(AFP, 7/3/11)
2011 Jul 3, A Bangladesh court issued an arrest warrant for Tarique Rahman, a son of ex-premier Khaleda Zia, over a 2004 grenade attack that killed 24 people at an opposition rally. Rahman has been living in London since 2008.
(AP, 7/3/11)
2011 Jul 3, Belarus blocked access to Facebook, Twitter and a major Russian social networking site in an attempt to prevent opposition protests on a national holiday. Thousands of police and special forces were deployed in the center of Minsk, the capital.
(AP, 7/3/11)
2011 Jul 3, In Egypt the trial began of 48 people accused of involvement in deadly Muslim-Christian clashes on May 7 that left 12 people dead. Police and soldiers arrested around 50 people from the shanty town of Ezbet Abu Qarn in a drugs raid.
(AFP, 7/3/11)(AFP, 7/5/11)
2011 Jul 3, Egypt's Nabil al-Arabi formally replaced his compatriot Amr Mussa as secretary general of the Arab League.
(AFP, 7/3/11)
2011 Jul 3, In Indonesia the Mount Soputan volcano erupted on Sulawesi island.
(SFC, 7/4/11, p.A2)
2011 Jul 3, In Iraq gunmen wearing police uniforms kidnapped and killed five Iraqi policemen in Anbar province, a former insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad.
(AP, 7/3/11)
2011 Jul 3, In Italy some 45 police and carabinieri officers were injured west of Turin as demonstrators protested construction of a high-speed rail linking Italy to France. At least five people were arrested.
(AP, 7/3/11)
2011 Jul 3, In Mexico the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) won a decisive victory in voting for governor of Mexico state, the country's most populous state. PRI also scored wins in two other states.
(AP, 7/4/11)
2011 Jul 3, In southern Mexico unidentified gunmen killed the widow of legendary Mexican guerrilla leader Lucio Cabanas. Isabel Anaya Nava (54) was shot to death along with her sister Reyna (58) as they left a church in the community of Xaltianguis, Guerrero state. Jesus Rejon Aguilar, ranked as the #3 leader of the Zetas, was captured in Atizapan de Zaragoza, Mexico state.
(AP, 7/3/11)(SFC, 7/5/11, p.A3)
2011 Jul 3, In Morocco thousands of pro-democracy activists protested across the country to demand more reforms two days after voters overwhelmingly approved a new constitution the king said will expand freedoms.
(AP, 7/3/11)
2011 Jul 3, In Nigeria assailants threw a bomb at drinking spot near a police barracks in Maiduguri. At least 8 people were killed and 15 others wounded.
(AP, 7/4/11)
2011 Jul 3, In Syria security police reportedly shot dead two protesters in a Damascus suburb that has seen expanding protests against Pres. Assad. Armed troops returned to Hama. At least 24 people were killed in widespread demonstrations over the next 2 days.
(Reuters, 7/4/11)(Econ, 7/9/11, p.45)
2011 Jul 3, Turkey's foreign minister visited Libya and recognized the rebel leaders as the country's legitimate representatives and promised them an additional $200 million in aid.
(AP, 7/3/11)
2011 Jul 3, Thailand held elections. PM Abhisit Vejjajiva conceded his party lost national elections to the opposition led by Yingluck Shinawatra (44), the sister of ousted former leader Thaksin Shinawatra. Her Pheu Thai party won a majority of 265 seats in the 500-seat lower house of parliament outright. The Democrat party won 159 seats. The apparent election result paved the way for Yingluck to become Thailand's first female prime minister. An international monitoring group later said up to one million Thais were disenfranchised ahead of the kingdom's crucial recent election because of outdated lists of voters.
(AP, 7/3/11)(AP, 7/4/11)(AFP, 7/5/11)(Econ, 7/9/11, p.23)
2011 Jul 3, In Uganda a motorized canoe left Panyimur on the Ugandan side of the 20-km-wide Lake Albert with 31 passengers aboard. It sank as it approached Mahagi on the Congolese side. In northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) 30 people were missing and one was rescued when a motorized boat sank on Lake Albert.
(AFP, 7/5/11)(AFP, 7/6/11)
2011 Jul 3, A Yemeni cabinet official said Pres. Saleh, in hospital in Riyadh, will not cede power until he returns to oversee a transition. Some 15 militants and 10 soldiers were killed and dozens injured during clashes outside a military base near Zinjibar. Tribesmen have blockaded oil-producing areas of Maarib province, costing the government millions of dollars a day in lost exports and sparking a severe fuel crisis, hours-long power outages, and rocketing prices.
(Reuters, 7/3/11)
