4 July

The 4th of July is prominently known as the Independence day for Americans who ratified their Declaration of Independence from Great Britain on this day in 1776. Less appreciated, it is also since 1994 the Liberation Day of Rwanda.

This day

In History

• 1054 – The SN 1054 supernova (now the Crab nebula is spotted by Chineses, Arabs and certainly everybody else who did not record the event.
• 1187 – Saladin defeats the Christian King of Jerusalem.
• 1832 – Durham University is established, first University since Cambridge 600 years earlier.
• 1862 – Lewis Carroll tells his stories to Alice Liddell.
• 1879 – Defeat of the Zulu against the British.
• 1914 – Funerals of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, six days after their assassination in Sarajevo
• 1943 – Beginning of the Battle of Kursk.
• 1951 – William Shockley announces the invention of the transistor.
• 1997 – Pathfinder space probe lands on Mars.
• 2012 – The Higgs boson is observed experimentally.

Birthdays

• 1753 – Jean-Pierre Blanchard (first balloon flight)
• 1807 – Giuseppe Garibaldi
• 1881 – Ulysses S. Grant III

Deaths

• 1934 – Marie Curie
• 1992 – Astor Piazzolla