Wednesday 3 July 2024 Calendar with holidays, observances and special days

Holidays and observances

• Belarus Independence Day (is celebrates the liberation of Minsk from Nazi occupation by Soviet troops in 1944)
• Bioengineers Day in Argentina (Día del bioingeniero)
• Breminale
• Compliment Your Mirror Day
• Day of anti-aircraft missile forces of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
• Disobedience Day
• Eat Beans Day in USA
• Idaho Statehood Day (1890)
• National Broadcaster's Day in Argentina (Día Nacional del Locutor)
• National Chocolate Wafer Day in USA
• Rockharz Festival
• Stay Out of the Sun Day
• U.S.V.I. Emancipation Day
• US International Dog Day (#IDD)
• Women's Day in Myanmar
• World No Plastic Bags Day

Events

• 1988 – United States Navy warship USS Vincennes shoots down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.
• 1979 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter signs the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.
• 1962 – Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
• 1952 – The Constitution of Puerto Rico is approved by the United States Congress.
• 1952 – The SS United States sets sail on her maiden voyage to Southampton. During the voyage, the ship takes the Blue Riband away from the RMS Queen Mary.
• 1938 – United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates the Eternal Light Peace Memorial and lights the eternal flame at Gettysburg Battlefield.
• 1898 – A Spanish squadron, led by Pascual Cervera y Topete, is defeated by an American squadron under William T. Sampson in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba.
• 1886 – Karl Benz officially unveils the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, the first purpose-built automobile.
• 1886 – The New-York Tribune becomes the first newspaper to use a linotype machine, eliminating typesetting by hand.
• 1884 – Dow Jones & Company publishes its first stock average.
• 1863 – American Civil War: The final day of the Battle of Gettysburg culminates with Pickett's Charge.
• 1852 – Congress establishes the United States' 2nd mint in San Francisco.
• 1839 – The first state normal school in the United States, the forerunner to today's Framingham State University, opens in Lexington, Massachusetts with three students.
• 1819 – The Bank of Savings in New York City, the first savings bank in the United States, opens.
• 1778 – American Revolutionary War: Iroquois allied to Britain kill 360 people in the Wyoming Valley massacre.
• 1775 – American Revolutionary War: George Washington takes command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• 1767 – Norway's oldest newspaper still in print, Adresseavisen, is founded and the first edition is published.
• 1767 – Pitcairn Island is discovered by Midshipman Robert Pitcairn on an expeditionary voyage commanded by Philip Carteret.
• 1608 – Québec City is founded by Samuel de Champlain.
• 987 – Hugh Capet is crowned King of France, the first of the Capetian dynasty that would rule France until the French Revolution in 1792.

Births

• 1993 – Mathias Anderle, American singer-songwriter and actor. Anderle's stylistic influences include reggae, pop, rock, folk, jazz, and hip hop.
• 1989 – Elle King, American singer, songwriter, and actress. In 2012, King released her debut EP, The Elle King EP, on RCA.
• 1984 – Manny Lawson, American football player. Lawson also played for the Cincinnati Bengals and Buffalo Bills.
• 1983 – Steph Jones, American singer-songwriter. He was signed to Def Jam, through Ludacris' Disturbing tha Peace but left the label. He has since acquired a position in the Herbalife brand and is known as being one of the faces of Herbalife
• 1977 – David Bowens, American football player. David Walter Bowens (born July 3, 1977) is a former American football linebacker who played twelve seasons in the National Football League.
• 1976 – Wanderlei Silva, Brazilian-American mixed martial artist. Black prajiad in Muay Thai
• 1971 – Julian Assange, Australian journalist, publisher, and activist, founded WikiLeaks. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
• 1970 – Audra McDonald, American actress and singer. She has performed in musicals, operas, and dramas such as A Moon for the Misbegotten, 110 in the Shade, Carousel, Ragtime, Master Class and Porgy and Bess.
• 1969 – Ishmael Butler, American rapper, musician, and songwriter. He is best known for his work with such groups as Digable Planets and Shabazz Palaces.
• 1969 – Shawnee Smith, American actress and musician. She co-starred as Jennifer Goodson, the ex-wife of Charlie Goodson (Charlie Sheen), on the FX sitcom Anger Management (2012–2014).
• 1967 – Brian Cashman, American businessman. Brian McGuire Cashman (born July 3, 1967) is an American baseball executive for the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball.
• 1966 – Moisés Alou, American baseball player. Moisés Rojas Alou Beltre (/ˈmɔɪzɪs əˈluː/; Spanish: ; born July 3, 1966) is a Dominican-American former outfielder in Major League Baseball who played for 17 seasons in the National League.
• 1965 – Connie Nielsen, Danish-American actress, was a supporting role in The Devil's Advocate (1997). Her films include Gladiator (2000), Mission to Mars (2000), One Hour Photo (2002), Basic (2003), The Hunted (2003), The Ice Harvest (2005), and Nymphomaniac (2014).
• 1964 – Tom Curren, American surfer. Tom Curren is an American surfer.
• 1964 – Yeardley Smith, French-American actress and voice artist. She is known for her long-running role as Lisa Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons.
• 1962 – Thomas Gibson, American actor. He portrayed Daniel Nyland in the CBS television series Chicago Hope, Greg Montgomery in the ABC television series Dharma & Greg and Aaron Hotchner in the CBS television series Criminal Minds (2005–2016).
• 1962 – Tom Cruise, American actor and producer. Cruise is one of the best-paid actors in the world, and his films have grossed over $4 billion in North America and over $10.1 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing box-office stars of all time.
• 1959 – Ian Maxtone-Graham, American screenwriter and producer. He has formerly written for Saturday Night Live (1992–1995) and The Simpsons (1995–2012), as well as serving as a co-executive producer and consulting producer for the latter.
• 1959 – Stephen Pearcy, American singer-songwriter, and guitarist. He has also created the bands Firedome, Crystal Pystal, Mickey Ratt and Ratt Arcade, Vicious Delite, Vertex.
• 1958 – Aaron Tippin, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer. His debut single, "You've Got to Stand for Something" became a popular anthem for American soldiers fighting in the Gulf War and helped to establish him as a neotraditionalist country act with songs that catered primarily to the American working class.
• 1956 – Montel Williams, American talk show host and television personality. Williams is active with the nonprofit MS Foundation, which he founded after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999.
• 1952 – Carla Olson, American singer-songwriter and music producer. Carla Olson (born July 3, 1952) is a Los Angeles-based songwriter, performer and record producer.
• 1952 – Laura Branigan, American singer-songwriter (d. 2004), was an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Her signature song, the platinum-certified 1982 single "Gloria", stayed on the U.S.
• 1950 – James Hahn, American judge and politician, 40th Mayor of Los Angeles. He served until 2005, at which time he was defeated in his bid for re-election.
• 1949 – Johnnie Wilder, Jr., American R&B/funk singer (Heatwave) (d. 2006), was the co-founder and lead vocalist of the international R&B/funk group Heatwave, who were popular during the late 1970s with hits such as "Boogie Nights", "Mind Blowing Decisions" (which Wilder wrote), "Always and Forever", and "The Groove Line", on which Wilder sang co-lead vocals.
• 1948 – Paul Barrere, American singer-songwriter and guitarist, was an American musician most prominent as a member of the band Little Feat, which he joined in 1972 some three years after the band was created by Lowell George.
• 1947 – Betty Buckley, American actress and singer. She went on to play Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard (1994–96) in both London and New York, receiving a 1995 Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical, and was nominated for the 1997 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for Triumph of Love.
• 1947 – Dave Barry, American journalist and author. David McAlister Barry (born July 3, 1947) is an American author and columnist who wrote a nationally syndicated humor column for the Miami Herald from 1983 to 2005.
• 1943 – Kurtwood Smith, American actor. He also starred in the seventh season of 24.
• 1943 – Norman E. Thagard, American astronaut. Norman Earl Thagard (born July 3, 1943), (Capt, USMC, Ret.), is an American scientist and former U.S.
• 1941 – Gloria Allred, American lawyer and activist. Gloria Rachel Allred (née Bloom; born July 3, 1941) is an American women's rights attorney known for taking high-profile and often controversial cases, particularly those involving the protection of women's rights.
• 1940 – Lamar Alexander, American lawyer and politician, 5th United States Secretary of Education. A member of the Republican Party, he also was the 45th governor of Tennessee from 1979 to 1987 and the 5th United States Secretary of Education from 1991 to 1993, where he helped the implementation of Education 2000.
• 1940 – Lance Larson, American swimmer. Lance Melvin Larson (born July 3, 1940) is an American former competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and former world record-holder in four events.
• 1935 – Cheo Feliciano, Puerto Rican-American singer-songwriter (d. 2014), was a Puerto Rican singer and composer of salsa and bolero music. Feliciano was the owner of his own recording company called "Coche Records".
• 1935 – Harrison Schmitt, American geologist, astronaut, and politician. Harrison Hagan "Jack" Schmitt (born July 3, 1935) is an American geologist, retired NASA astronaut, university professor, former U.S. senator from New Mexico, and the most recent person still living to have walked on the Moon.
• 1932 – Richard Mellon Scaife, American businessman (d. 2014), was an American billionaire, a principal heir to the Mellon banking, oil, and aluminum fortune, and the owner and publisher of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. In 2005, Scaife was number 238 on the Forbes 400, with a personal fortune of $1.2 billion.
• 1930 – Pete Fountain, American clarinet player (d. 2016), was an American jazz clarinetist.
• 1930 – Tommy Tedesco, American guitarist (d. 1997). Tedesco (July 3, 1930 – November 10, 1997) was an American guitarist and studio musician in Los Angeles and Hollywood.
• 1926 – Johnny Coles, American trumpet player (d. 1997), was an American jazz trumpeter.
• 1926 – Rae Allen, American actress, singer, and director. Raffaella Julia Theresa Abruzzo (born July 3, 1926), professionally known as Rae Allen, is an American actress and director of stage, film and television actress, and singer. Her early roles were in Broadway theatre productions, starting from 1948 she moved to television and film roles in the early 1960s
• 1925 – Danny Nardico, American professional boxer (d. 2010), was an American professional boxer who was once ranked the fifth-best light heavyweight boxer by The Ring magazine. He was the only fighter to knock down Jake LaMotta.
• 1924 – Arjun Naidu, Indian first-class cricketer. He made his first-class debut for Rajasthan (then Rajputana) in the 1945-46 Ranji Trophy on 2 February 1946.
• 1921 – Susan Peters, American actress (d. 1952), was an American film, stage, and television actress who appeared in over twenty films over the course of her decade-long career. Though she began her career in uncredited and ingénue roles, she would establish herself as a serious dramatic actress in the mid-1940s.
• 1920 – Paul O'Dea, American baseball player and manager (d. 1978), was an American professional baseball player, manager and scout. He saw Major League service during World War II for the 1944 and 1945 Cleveland Indians.
• 1919 – Gerald W. Thomas, American soldier and academic (d. 2013), was President Emeritus of New Mexico State University, a veteran of World War II, and an author.
• 1916 – John Kundla, American basketball player and coach (d. 2017), was an American college and professional basketball coach. He was the first head coach for the Minneapolis Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and its predecessors, the Basketball Association of America (BAA) and the National Basketball League (NBL), serving 12 seasons, from 1947 to 1959.
• 1913 – Dorothy Kilgallen, American journalist, actress, and author (d. 1965), was an American journalist and television game show panelist. After spending two semesters at the College of New Rochelle, she started her career shortly before her 18th birthday as a reporter for the Hearst Corporation's New York Evening Journal.
• 1908 – M. F. K. Fisher, American author (d. 1992), was a preeminent American food writer. She was a founder of the Napa Valley Wine Library.
• 1908 – Robert B. Meyner, American lawyer and politician, 44th Governor of New Jersey (d. 1990), was an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 44th Governor of New Jersey, from 1954 to 1962. Before being elected governor, Meyner represented Warren County in the New Jersey Senate from 1948 to 1951.
• 1905 – Johnny Gibson, American hurdler and coach (d. 2006). Gibson (July 3, 1905 – December 29, 2006) was a runner and Olympic athlete.
• 1901 – Ruth Crawford Seeger, American composer (d. 1953), was an American modernist composer active primarily during the 1920s and 1930s and an American folk music specialist from the late 1930s until her death. She was a prominent member of a group of American composers known as the "ultramoderns," and her music influenced later composers including Elliott Carter (Shreffler 1994).
• 1897 – Jesse Douglas, American mathematician and academic (d. 1965), was an American mathematician and Fields Medalist known for his general solution of the Problem of Plateau.
• 1889 – Richard Cramer, American actor (d. 1960), was an American actor in films from the late 1920s to the early 1950s. Burly, menacing and gravel-voiced, Cramer specialized in villainous roles in many low-budget westerns, but is today best remembered for his several appearances with Laurel and Hardy.
• 1886 – Raymond A. Spruance, American admiral and diplomat, United States Ambassador to the Philippines (d. 1969), was a United States Navy admiral during World War II. He commanded U.S. naval forces during two of the most significant naval battles that took place in the Pacific Theatre: the Battle of Midway and the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
• 1879 – Alfred Korzybski, Polish-American mathematician, linguist, and philosopher (d. 1950), was a Polish-American independent scholar who developed a field called general semantics, which he viewed as both distinct from, and more encompassing than, the field of semantics. He argued that human knowledge of the world is limited both by the human nervous system and the languages humans have developed, and thus no one can have direct access to reality, given that the most we can know is that which is filtered through the brain's responses to reality.
• 1878 – George M. Cohan, American songwriter, actor, singer, and dancer (d. 1942), was an American entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer and theatrical producer.
• 1876 – Ralph Barton Perry, American philosopher and academic (d. 1957). He was educated at Princeton (B.A., 1896) and at Harvard (M.A., 1897; Ph.D., 1899), where, after teaching philosophy for three years at Williams and Smith colleges, he was instructor (1902–05), assistant professor (1905–13), full professor (1913–30) and Edgar Pierce professor of philosophy (1930–46).
• 1860 – Charlotte Perkins Gilman, American sociologist and author (d. 1935), was a prominent American humanist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform. She was a utopian feminist and served as a role model for future generations of feminists because of her unorthodox concepts and lifestyle.
• 1844 – Dankmar Adler, German-born American architect and engineer. (d. 1900), was a German-born American architect and civil engineer. He is best known for his fifteen-year partnership with Louis Sullivan, during which they designed influential skyscrapers that boldly addressed their steel skeleton through their exterior design: the Wainwright Building in St.
• 1738 – John Singleton Copley, American painter (d. 1815), was an Anglo-American painter, active in both colonial America and England. He was probably born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Richard and Mary Singleton Copley, both Anglo-Irish.
• 1728 – Robert Adam, Scottish-English architect, designed Culzean Castle (d. 1792), was a Scottish neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him.

Deaths

• 2015 – Boyd K. Packer, American religious leader and educator (b. 1924)
• 2015 – Diana Douglas, British-American actress (b. 1923)
• 2015 – Wayne Townsend, American farmer and politician (b. 1926)
• 2014 – Ira Ruskin, American politician (b. 1943)
• 2014 – Jini Dellaccio, American photographer (b. 1917)
• 2014 – Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Ukrainian-American rabbi and author (b. 1924)
• 2013 – Francis Ray, American author (b. 1944)
• 2012 – Andy Griffith, American actor, singer, and producer (b. 1926)
• 2012 – Richard Alvin Tonry, American lawyer and politician (b. 1935)
• 2012 – Yvonne B. Miller, American educator and politician (b. 1934)
• 2009 – John Keel, American journalist and author (b. 1930)
• 2007 – Boots Randolph, American saxophonist (b. 1927)
• 2006 – Joseph Goguen, American computer scientist, developed the OBJ programming language (b. 1941)
• 2005 – Gaylord Nelson, American lawyer and politician, 35th Governor of Wisconsin (b. 1916)
• 2001 – Johnny Russell, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1940)
• 1999 – Mark Sandman, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (b. 1952)
• 1998 – Danielle Bunten Berry, American game designer and programmer (b. 1949)
• 1995 – Pancho Gonzales, American tennis player (b. 1928)
• 1993 – Don Drysdale, American baseball player and sportscaster (b. 1936)
• 1989 – Jim Backus, American actor and voice artist (b. 1913)
• 1986 – Rudy Vallée, American singer, saxophonist, and actor (b. 1901)
• 1981 – Ross Martin, American actor and director (b. 1920)
• 1974 – John Crowe Ransom, American poet and critic (b. 1888)
• 1971 – Jim Morrison, American singer-songwriter (b. 1943)
• 1937 – Jacob Schick, American-Canadian captain and businessman, invented the electric razor (b. 1877)
• 1935 – André Citroën, French engineer and businessman, founded the Citroën Company (b. 1878)
• 1921 – James Mitchel, Irish-American weight thrower (b. 1864)
• 1916 – Hetty Green, American businesswoman and financier (b. 1834)
• 1908 – Joel Chandler Harris, American journalist and author (b. 1845)
• 1863 – George Hull Ward, American general (b. 1826)
• 1863 – Little Crow, American tribal leader (b. 1810)