Today in History - July 3
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987 Jul 3, The
count of Paris, Hugh Capet (49), became king of France. Paris soon
emerged as the center of French political, cultural and religious life,
once again becoming the capital.
(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)
1915 Jul 3, US military forces
occupied Haiti, and remained until 1934. [see Jan 27, Jul 29]
(MC, 7/3/02)
1916 Jul 3, The Battle of the
Somme began. More than 100,000 men were killed in the first day.
(HN, 7/3/01)
1916 Jul 3, The 1st of 3 fatal
shark attacks occurred near the NJ shore.
(MC, 7/3/02)
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)
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, 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 (89),
former governor and US senator from Wisconsin, 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)
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)
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