Historical Events on 3 Jul

Historical Events on 3 Jul

1250 - Louis IX of France is captured by Baibars' Mamluk army at the Battle of Fariskur while he is in Egypt conducting the Seventh Crusade; he later has to ransom himself.
1608 - Québec City founded by Samuel de Champlain.
1754 - French and Indian War: George Washington surrenders Fort Necessity to French forces.
1767 - Pitcairn Island is discovered by Midshipman Robert Pitcairn on an expeditionary voyage commanded by Philip Carteret.
1767 - Norway's oldest newspaper still in print, Adresseavisen, is founded (first edition published this date).
1775 - American Revolutionary War: George Washington takes command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1778 - American Revolutionary War: British forces massacre 360 men, women and children in the Wyoming Valley massacre.
1819 - The first savings bank in the United States (The Bank of Savings in New York City) opens.
1839 - The first state normal school in the United States, the forerunner to today's Framingham State College, opens in Lexington, Massachusetts with 3 students.
1844 - The last pair of Great Auks is killed.
1848 - Slaves are freed in the Danish West Indies (now U.S. Virgin Islands) by Peter von Scholten.
1849 - The French entered Rome in order to restore Pope Pius IX to power. This would prove a major obstacle to Italian unification.
1852 - Congress establishes the United States's 2nd mint in San Francisco, California.
1863 - U.S. Civil War: The final day of the Battle of Gettysburg culminates with Pickett's Charge.
1866 - Austro-Prussian War is decided at the Battle of Königgratz, resulting in Prussia taking over as the prominent German nation from Austria.
1884 - Dow Jones published its 1st stock average.
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.
1890 - Idaho is admitted as the 43rd U.S. state.
1898 - Spanish-American War: The Spanish fleet, led by Pascual Cervera y Topete, is destroyed by the U.S. Navy in Santiago, Cuba.
1938 - World speed record for a steam railway locomotive is set in England, by the Mallard, which reaches a speed of 126 mph.(203 km/h)
1944 - World War II: Minsk was liberated from Nazi control by Soviet troops during Operation Bagration.
1952 - Puerto Rico's Constitution is approved by the Congress of the United States.
1962 - The Algerian War of Independence against the French ends.
1969 - The biggest explosion in the history of rocketry occurs when the Soviet N1 rocket explodes and subsequently destroys its launchpad.
1970 - A British Dan-Air De Havilland Comet chartered jetliner crashes into mountains north of Barcelona, Spain killing 113 people.
1977 - The Senegalese Republican Movement (MRS) is founded.
1979 - US President Jimmy Carter signs the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.
1986 - US President Ronald Reagan presides over the relighting of the renovated Statue of Liberty.
1988 - United States Navy warship USS Vincennes shoots down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.
1988 - The Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey is completed, providing the second connection between the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosporus.
1994 - The deadliest day in Texas traffic history, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. Forty six people were killed in crashes.
1996 - Stone of Scone returned to Scotland.
2001 - A Vladivostok Avia Tupolev TU-154 jetliner crashes on approach to landing at Irkutsk, Russia killing 145 people.
2004 - Official opening of Bangkok's subway system.
2005 - The national law legalizing same-sex marriage takes effect in Spain.
2006 - Asteroid labeled as 2004 XP14 flies 432,308 km (268,624 miles) by Earth.
324 - Battle of Adrianople Constantine I defeats Licinius, who flees to Byzantium.
987 - Hugh Capet is crowned King of France, the first of the Capetian dynasty which ruled France till the French Revolution in 1792.