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• Union victory at Gettysburg... • Rescue at Entebbe... • US Navy shoots down civilian airliner... • Attack on Mers~el~Kebir... • Louis XVII, 8 ans, est arraché à sa mère... • Washington assumes command... • Krushchev consolidates his power... • Idaho becomes 43rd US state...• Former Ford chairman dies...
On a July 03:
2001 The European Union's Competition Commisssion blocks General Electric Co.'s $41 billion purchase of Honeywell International Inc., the first time a proposed merger between two US companies has been blocked solely by European regulators. As a result Honeywell's chairman and chief executive Michael Bonsignore is replaced by Lawrence A. Bossidy, 66, the former chairman and chief executive of AlliedSignal Corp., which in 1999 acquired Honeywell and adopted the Honeywell name.
1998 Soldados del ejército israelí y policías palestinos se enfrentan durante más de doce horas en la franja de Gaza.
1998 Source code not protected as free speech
     A US district court rules that encryption software does not qualify for protection under the First Amendment. A law professor from Case Western Reserve University had sought to publish encryption programs on the Web, arguing the code should be protected as free speech. The judge rules that because code is indecipherable to most people, it does not qualify as speech.
1997 Germany abolishes Internet anonymity
      The German parliament approves a measure to regulate the Internet and track the identity of people sending material through the Web on this day in 1997. The measure required that all electronic communications be "signed" with a digital signature, enabling government prosecutors to identify and crack down on people using the Internet for illegal purposes. Chancellor Helmut Kohl says that the measure is the first in the world to set rules for digital signatures.
1996 Russians went to the polls to re-elect Boris Yeltsin president over his Communist challenger, Gennady Zyuganov, in a runoff.

1996 Union Pacific — Southern Pacific merger approved         ^top^
      By the summer of 1996, Union Pacific Railroad’s bid to acquire fellow rail giant Southern Pacific probably seemed less like a savvy business move than a political and legal nightmare. The proposed $3.9 billion merger attracted a torrent of opposition shortly after it was announced in August of 1995. Regulators, consumers, and those with shipping concerns marshaled their respective forces against a deal that they feared would staunch competition and bloat transportation costs. However, smelling a handsome payday down the line, Union and Southern Pacific stuck to their guns, even in the face of the Departments of Justice, Transportation and Agriculture recommendation that both companies shed some of their rail lines to prevent a negative impact on the industry.
      Union and Southern Pacific’s resolve was seemingly rewarded on this day in 1996, as Surface Transportation Board cast a unanimous vote in favor of the merger. The Board’s approval removed one of the final obstacles to the completion of the deal; later that year, Union and Southern Pacific were joined as one. The thrill of victory didn’t linger long, however: Southern Pacific was plagued by “infrastructure problems” that effectively spoiled some of the benefits of the deal.

1992 Jordi Pujol, gana la elección a la presidencia de la Asociación de las Regiones de Europa (ARE).
1991 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).
1991 IBM and Apple agree to RISC
      Apple and IBM sign a pact to form a jointly owned software company that would create a new operating system designed for the RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) processor. The pact rose out of a secret meeting in April between Apple chairman John Sculley and top technical advisors from IBM. The joint venture produced the PowerPC.
1989 Supreme Court rules states do not have to provide funds for abortions.
1987 2 men became first hot-air balloon travelers to cross Atlantic
1985 En España Miguel Boyer dimite como ministro de Economía y Hacienda del primer Gobierno de Felipe González.
1985 CBS announces a 21% stock buy-back to thwart Ted Turner's takeover
1983 Calvin Smith of US becomes fastest man alive (9.93 s for 100 m)
1979 Thirty-four years after the end of World War II, the West German government votes to continue prosecution of Nazi war criminals by removing the statute of limitations on murder.
1979 El diputado español de Unión de Centro Democrático (UCD), Gabriel Cisneros, resulta herido gravemente en un atentado.
1976 El rey de España nombra a Adolfo Suárez presidente del Gobierno, en sustitución de Carlos Arias Navarro.
1973 Comienza en Helsinki la Conferencia sobre Seguridad y Cooperación en Europa (CSCE).
1972 India y Pakistán firman un tratado de paz que pone fin a las hostilidades entre ambos países.
1971 Gamma surgery
     This revolutionary bloodless method of destroying tumors and cancers is performed in Sweden. X-rays determined the exact position of the tumor while a model of the brain showed the area to be destroyed. A hemispherical steel canopy surrounded the area of the tumor, and the gamma knife, composed of 179 beams of cobalt radiation, was fired deep into the skull. The rays burned away the diseased area while the patient remained conscious.
1968 US announces new high in its Vietnam casualties         ^top^
      The US command in Saigon releases figures showing that more US soldiers were killed during the first six months of 1968 than in all of 1967. These casualty figures were a direct result of the heavy fighting that had occurred during, and immediately after, the communist Tet Offensive. The offensive had begun on January 30, when communist forces attacked Saigon, Hue, five of six autonomous cities, 36 of 44 provincial capitals, and 64 of 245 district capitals. The timing and magnitude of the attacks caught the South Vietnamese and American forces completely off guard, but eventually the Allied forces turned the tide. Militarily, the Tet Offensive was a disaster for the communists.
      By the end of March 1968, they had not achieved any of their objectives and had lost 32'000 soldiers with 5800 captured. US forces suffered 3895 dead; South Vietnamese losses were 4954; non-US allies lost 214. More than 14'300 South Vietnamese civilians died. Though the offensive was a crushing military defeat for the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese, early reports of a smashing communist victory went largely uncorrected in the US news media. This was a great psychological victory for the communists. The heavy US casualties incurred during the offensive, coupled with the disillusionment over the earlier overly optimistic reports of progress in the war, accelerated the growing disenchantment with President Johnson's conduct of the war. Johnson, frustrated with his inability to reach a solution in Vietnam, announced on 31 March 1968, that he would neither seek nor accept the nomination of his party for re-election.
1966 Race riots in Omaha Nebraska
1966 El general René Barrientos es elegido presidente de la república de Bolivia.
1962 Algerian Revolution against French ends (Algeria gains ind on 7/5) — Algeria became independent after 132 years of French rule.
1957 Khrushchev consolidates his power         ^top^
      Nikita Khrushchev takes control in the Soviet Union by orchestrating the ouster of his most serious opponents from positions of authority in the Soviet government. Khrushchev's action delighted the United States, which viewed him as a more moderate figure in the communist government of Russia. Khrushchev had been jockeying for ultimate control in the Soviet Union since the death of long-time Russian dictator Joseph Stalin in March 1953. Following Stalin's demise, the Soviet Union was ruled by a 10-member presidium. Khrushchev was only one member of this presidium, but during the following four years he moved steadily to seize total control. In June 1957, Khrushchev survived an attempt by his political opponents to remove him from the government. In July, he had his revenge. Since 1953, he had worked tirelessly to gain allies in the Soviet military and to gain control of the all-important Communist Party apparatus.
      On 03 July 1957, his years of work paid off as he used his important political connections and alliances to remove the three main challengers to his authority. Vyacheslav Molotov, Georgi M. Malenkov, and Lazar Kaganovich were voted off the presidium and relegated to minor government positions. Khrushchev then reigned supreme, and ruled the Soviet Union until his own ouster in 1964. In the United States, the news of Khrushchev's "housecleaning" was greeted with optimism. Malenkov and Molotov, in particular, had been viewed as communist "hard-liners" in the Stalinist mold. Khrushchev, on the other hand, was seen as a "moderate" who might be receptive to a more amenable relationship with the United States. In the coming years, US officials were often disappointed with the newest Soviet leader, who seemed to vacillate between warm words about "peaceful coexistence" between the United States and the Soviet Union and aggressive talk about "burying" the capitalist system. Khrushchev's power began seriously to wane in 1962. Many Soviet officials characterized his behavior as "cowardly" during the October 1962 missile crisis in Cuba and he was pushed from power in 1964. Leonid Brezhnev succeeded Nikita Khrushchev.
1952 Puerto Rico adquiere la categoría de Estado Libre Asociado a los Estados Unidos de América.
1950 first time US and North Korean forces clash in the Korean War
1946 Se estrena en París la película de Orson Welles, Ciudadano Kane, uno de los clásicos de la historia del cine.
1944 During World War II, Soviet forces recaptured Minsk.
1944 II Guerra Mundial: Tropas estadounidenses y francesas ocupan Siena (Italia).
1942 Tropas alemanas conquistan Voronez (Rusia).
1941 Stalin declara que Rusia debe ser defendida de acuerdo con el principio de "tierra quemada".
1939 Ernst Heinkel demonstrates 800-kph rocket plane to Hitler
1938 La locomotora Mallard, construida en Inglaterra por el ingeniero británico Nigel Cresley, establece un nuevo récord de velocidad con máquinas a vapor con una marca de casi 203 km/h.
1936 Las tropas alemanas penetran en la zona desmilitarizada del Rhin.
1935 Se prorroga por treinta días el estado de excepción en toda España.
1934 El nacionalsocialismo alemán unifica el sistema sanitario. Para ello, se fundan oficinas estatales de salud dirigidas por un médico, que ejercen asimismo las funciones de policía sanitaria: cuidado de la herencia y de la raza, asesoramiento ginecológico y pediátrico, etc.
1930 Hernando Siles, recibe autorización para abandonar Bolivia.
1928 J.L. Baird, realiza la primera retransmisión de televisión en color, en Londres.
1919 La Asamblea Nacional alemana elige la combinación "negro-rojo-oro", colores de la revolución de 1848, como bandera del Reich.
1915 US military forces occupy Haiti, remain until 1934
1913 Common tern banded in Maine; found dead in 1919 in Africa (first bird known to have crossed the Atlantic
1912 La comisión que investiga el hundimiento del Titanic dictamina la responsabilidad del capitán en la tragedia por negligencia.
1907 Pope St. Pius X, in his encyclical Lamentabili, formally condemns the 'modernist' intellectual movement, as it exhibited itself in the Catholic Church.
1898 Joshua Slocum completes first solo circumnavigation of the globe
1898 US Navy defeats Spanish fleet in Santiago harbor, Cuba — La escuadra española al mando del almirante Cervera es derrotada por la flota estadounidense en la bahía de Santiago de Cuba. — The US Navy defeats a Spanish fleet in the harbor at Santiago, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War
1895 Start of The Adventure of Black Peter in The Return of Sherlock Holmes
1890 Idaho becomes 43rd US state.         ^top^
      Idaho, the last of the 50 states to be explored by whites, is admitted to the union. Exploration of the North American continent mostly proceeded inward from the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and northward from Spanish Mexico. Therefore, the rugged territory that would become Idaho long remained untouched by Spanish, French, British, and American trappers and explorers. Even as late as 1805, Idaho Indians like the Shoshone had never encountered a white man. That changed with the arrival of the American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in the summer of 1805. Searching for a route over the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River, Lewis and Clark traveled through Idaho with the aid of the Shoshone Indians and their horses. British fur traders and trappers followed a few years later, as did missionaries and a few hardy settlers.
      As with many remote western states, large-scale settlement began only after gold was discovered. Thousands of miners rushed into Idaho when word of a major gold strike came in September 1860. Merchants and farmers followed, eager to make their fortunes "mining the miners." By 1880, Idaho boasted a population of 32,610. In the southern section of the territory, many settlers were Mormons who had been dispatched from Salt Lake City to found new colonies. Increasingly, Idaho territory became divided between a Mormon-dominated south and an anti-Mormon north. In the mid-1880s, anti-Mormon Republicans used widespread public antipathy toward the Mormon practice of polygamy to pass legislation denying the predominantly Democratic Mormons the vote. With the Democratic Mormon vote disarmed, Idaho became a Republican-dominated territory. National Republicans eager to increase their influence in the US Congress began to push for Idaho statehood in 1888. The following year, the Idaho territorial legislature approved a strongly anti-Mormon constitution. The US Congress approved the document on this day in 1890, and Idaho became the 43rd state in the Union.
1886 First NY Tribune printing using first commercial linotype machine
1866 Bataille de Sadova En une grande bataille les prussiens commandés par le général Helmuth von Moltke, écrasent les autrichiens de Ludwig August von Benedek qui perdent près de 40'000 hommes. Cette guerre entre la Prusse et l'Autriche fut déclenchée par le Président du Conseil de Prusse Bismarck. Elle fut de très courte durée. Bismarck l'avait déclaré le 14 juin. La guerre n'aura duré que sept semaines. Von Moltke y appris des leçons qu'il appliqua contre la France dans la guerre de 1870.
1863 Battle of Gettysburg Pa ends, major victory for North
1863 Skirmish at Donaldsonville, Louisiana
1863 Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania concludes New York Times Stories (in following days)
1863 Siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana continues
1863 Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi continues
1861 Pony Express arrives in SF with overland letters from NY
1853 El ejército ruso del zar Nicolás I ocupa los principados turcos de Moldavia y Valaquia y provoca la Guerra de Crimea. (Véase Guerras ruso-turcas).
1848 Slaves freed in Danish West Indies (now US Virgin Islands)
1847 El Registro General de la Propiedad Intelectual de España se abre con la obra Sofismas Económicos, de Federico Bastiá.
1841 John Couch Adams decides to determine the position of an unknown planet by irregularities it causes in the motion of Uranus
1819 first savings bank in US (Bank of Savings in NYC) opens its doors
1814 US troops capture Fort Erie, Canada.
1808 Napoleón cede los reinos de España e Indias a su hermano José Bonaparte, Rey de Nápoles y de España.
1806 Michael Keens exhibits first cultivated strawberry
1800 Napoleón entra triunfal en París tras sus conquistas en Italia.

1793 Louis XVII, 8 ans, est arraché à sa mère.         ^top^
     Il est presque dix heures du soir. L'antique tour de la prison du Temple résonne sous les pas des six commissaires de service dans l'escalier menant au 3ème étage, prison de la famille royale. L'heure était insolite pour recevoir de la visite et, sans doute, Marie-Antoinette en fut-elle déjà passablement inquiète. Ils pénétrent dans l'antichambre puis, sur invitation, dans la salle de séjour. L'un d'eux lit le décret du Comité de Salut Public du 1er juillet 1793 et demande à Marie-Antoinette de remettre son fils. Elle refuse certainement dans un premier temps avec les effusions qu'on imagine. C'était prévu. Le commissaire chargé des négociations lui demande un entretien particulier. Il lui explique qu'ils sont venus pour sauver Louis-Charles exposé à la fureur de la populace s'il reste au Temple, lui donne des garanties quant aux personnes qui s'occuperont de lui, et qu'elle ne peut donc, sans égoisme coupable, s'opposer à sa libération. Elle tergiverse encore un peu mais se résoud à ce dernier sacrifice maternel. Dans les pleurs et les larmes, l'enfant est réveillé, habillé et remis aux commissaires de la Commune.
    Ils le descendent au 2ème étage et le remettent au cordonnier Simon, chargé de le garder. Deux jours durant l’enfant pleure. Le cordonnier, homme fruste et peu intelligent, n’a rien de la brute qu’a décrite le XIX° siècle. Dès le 5 juillet, il achète, de ses propres deniers, des fleurs et des oiseaux pour distraire le petit prisonnier. Rien n’y fait. Les pleurs ne s’arrêteront que le 6 juillet quand Marie-Jeanne Simon vient rejoindre son époux au Temple. C’est une femme; elle sait s’y prendre et, par la suite, soignera fort bien l’enfant.
1793 Directeur pour le Muséum d'Histoire naturelle:         ^top^
      Le naturaliste Louis Jean-Marie d'Aubenton préfère en ces temps incertains et quoiqu'il ait déjà soixante-dix-sept ans qu'on l'appelle Daubenton. Il a collaboré à L'Histoire naturelle de Buffon. Il se voit confier la direction du muséum d'Histoire naturelle créé le 10 juin précédent. La Convention avait écarté le projet de la commune de Paris qui consistait utiliser ce jardin des plantes (fondé par Louis XIII). Les chercheurs et savants voient leur salaires doublés et obtiennent le titre de professeur. Ils peuvent aussi enseigner la chimie, la minéralogie, la botanique et l'anatomie humaine et animale.
1775 Washington assumes command         ^top^
      In Cambridge, Massachusetts, George Washington, a prominent Virginia planter and veteran of the French and Indian War, assumes command of the Continental Army. Washington had been appointed commander-in-chief by the Continental Congress two weeks before, and declined to accept payment for his services beyond reimbursement of future expenses.
      Washington was born on February 22 (Feb. 11 Julian) 1732 to a farm family in Westmoreland County, Virginia, and through his extensive reading was essentially self-educated. His first direct military experience came as a major in the Virginia colonial militia in 1754, when he led a small expedition against the French in the Ohio River valley on behalf of the governor of Virginia. Two years later, as a colonel during the French and Indian War between Britain and France, Washington took command of the defenses of the western Virginian frontier.
      After the war, he resigned from his military post, and over the next two decades, openly opposed the escalating British taxation and repression of the American colonies. In 1774, Washington represented Virginia at the Continental Congress and, after the US War for Independence erupted in 1775, was appointed commander-in-chief of the newly established Continental Army.
      With this inexperienced and poorly equipped army of civilian soldiers, Washington led an effective war of harassment against British forces in America, while employing his extraordinary diplomatic skills to encourage the intervention of the French into the conflict on behalf of the colonists. On 19 October 1781, when British General Charles Lord Cornwallis surrendered his massive British army at Yorktown, Virginia, Washington had defeated one of the most powerful nations on earth.
      After the war, the victorious general retired to his estate at Mount Vernon, but in 1787 he heeded his nation's call and returned to politics to preside over the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On 30 April 1789, after being unanimously elected, Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States, and in 1792, was elected to a second term. While in office, he sought to unite the nation and protect the interests of the new republic at home and abroad. In 1797, Washington retired to Mount Vernon, where he died of natural causes on 14 December 1799.
1754 George Washington surrenders to French, Ft Necessity (7 Years' War)
1735 Carlos de Borbón, Rey de España es coronado rey de las Dos Sicilias con el nombre de Carlos VII.
1702 Se declara la Guerra de Sucesión a la corona española tras la muerte de Carlos II entre las potencias partidarias de Felipe de Anjou, Rey de España y el bloque que defiende la candidatura del archiduque Carlos de Austria, Emperador de Alemania.
1535 Diego de Almagro invierte toda su fortuna en la organización de la expedición a Chile.
0987 Sacre du premier capétien. Hugues Capet est sacré roi à Reims. Deux jour plus tôt, par décision d'une assemblée électorale réunie à Noyon par l'archevêque Adalbéron, il avait été proclamé roi. La dynastie des capétiens vient de naître et durera très longtemps.
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TO THE TOP
Deaths which occurred on a July 03:
2001 All 145 aboard a Tu-154 airliner which crashes into a Siberian meadow
2001 Mordecai Richler, 70, Canadian Jewish author.
      Richler had surgery on a cancerous kidney in 1998, and his death is due to complications from cancer.
      Richler wrote novels on Jewish life in Montreal and acerbic social commentary. In essays, articles and novels such as The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and Barney's Version, Richler examined the culture and characters of his upbringing and attacked anyone or anything that smacked of pretentiousness.
      He infuriated the Quebec nationalist movement with commentary about the separatist aspirations of successive provincial leaders in the 1990s. In 1992, a Quebec politician tried to ban his book Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!, which criticized the province's French language policies. Richler left no sacred cow unslaughtered.
      Mordecai Richler was the quintessential Canadian man of words. He was quite simply one of the most brilliant, original and celebrated artists in Canadian history. This literary giant wrote 10 novels along with magazine articles, essays and popular children's books about a character named Jacob Two-Two.
      Barney's Version won the Giller Prize for Canadian literature in 1997 and St. Urbain's Horseman and Solomon Gursky was Here were shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
      The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz was made into a film with Richard Dreyfuss in the lead role.
      Richler's last book, On Snooker, would come out in the summer of 2001.
      He also was considered an influential essayist.
      Richler was born in Montreal on 27 January 1931, and grew up in the kind of hardscrabble neighborhood he went on to describe in his novels. He moved to Europe at age 19, living first in Paris and then London, complaining at the time that “novelists, I'm afraid, are regarded as something of a freak in Canada.”
      The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz was published in 1959 and is Richler's best-known work, still required reading in some Canadian schools. He also wrote the screenplay for the 1974 film of the same name. Richler returned to Canada in 1972 but still was regarded as a major literary figure in England, where he continued to live part of the year, and other countries in Europe.
2000 Al menos 37 muertos por atentados guerrilleros contra los invasores rusos en Chechenia. Hay más de 70 heridos.
1994 Juan Gil-Albert, escritor español.
1991 Ernst Witt, mathematician
1989 Andrei Gromyko Soviet diplomat, just short of his 80th birthday
1988 All 299 persons aboard Iranian passenger jet downed by US Navy         ^top^
      In the Persian Gulf, the USS Vincennes shoots down an Iranian passenger jet that it has mistaken for a hostile Iranian fighter aircraft. US Navy Captain Will C. Rogers III had ordered a single missile fired from his warship, which hit its target and killed all 290 passengers (including 57 children) asd 9 crew members aboard the commercial Airbus.
      The attack came near the end of the Iran-Iraq War, and US vessels in the Persian Gulf had been on alert following Iranian attacks on Kuwaiti oil tankers. The international community was outraged by the American attack on a large civilian aircraft, but the Pentagon and White House defended the action. The United States claimed that the aircraft was outside the commercial jet flight corridor, flying at only 2100 m altitude, and on a descent toward the Vincennes.
      However, one month later, on 02 August, US authorities admitted that both the Vincennes and the airbus had been within an internationally acknowledged commercial flight corridor, and that the Iranian jet was flying at 3700 m and not descending. The US Navy report blamed crew error caused by psychological stress on men in combat for the first time.
     No one was even reprimanded. On the contrary, Lt. Cmdr. Scott Lustig, the Vincennes' anti-air warfare officer, in 1990 was granted two Navy commendation medals for his service on the Vincennes. The ship's commander, Will C. Rogers III, was given the Legion of Merit for "exceptionally meritorious conduct" during the period of his command.
     Eventually the United States paid families of the victims $300'000 for each wage earner and $150'000 for each non-wage earner who had died. The Iranian government was paid $40 million for the loss of the plane.
1984 Raoul Salan, militar francés, líder de la Organización del Ejército Secreto (OAS).
1978 Ernest R. Breech, 81, chairman of the Ford Motor Company from 1955-1960, in Royal Oak, Michigan         ^top^
      Breech had been at the top of the accounting world when Henry Ford II had personally pleaded with him to join the ailing Ford Motor Company and take a chance at reviving one of America’s historic corporations. Born in modest circumstances, the son of a blacksmith in Lebanon, Missouri, Breech excelled in school and was drafted by the St. Louis Browns baseball team. He turned down the contract in favor of college, where he earned record high marks before dropping out for financial reasons. He took correspondence courses to study for the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) examination in Chicago, and received a Gold Medal from the University of Illinois for making the highest marks in the state. Breech described his feelings at receiving the award, saying “That was my first success. I think that was probably the happiest day of my life, business-wise. I took the exam against boys who had gone to the universities.”
      Breech went on to create one of the greatest accounting careers in history. He went from the Checker Cab Company to General Motors, where he spent nine years, before signing on with the Bendix Aviation Company, where he tripled their output in one year. In 1946, Ford had been losing an average of $68 million a year since the war, and Henry Ford II was struggling to hold onto the reins of one of America’s mightiest institutions, still recovering from the retirement of its founder. Ford befriended Breech, eventually persuading him to work for Ford. Breech considered it his duty, saying “Here’s a young man only one year older than our oldest son. He needs help; this is a great challenge that if I don’t accept I shall always regret.”
      Before the so-called “Whiz Kids” came on the scene, it was Breech who cleared the ground for expansion by trimming away Ford’s corporate fat. He decentralized management and gave the place what Businessweek called, “the professional management savvy required to translate the concept into the elaborate organization.” More importantly, Breech plowed most of the company’s profits back into the company, investing heavily on future production. Breech became a mentor to young Henry Ford, who studied him carefully. While the two men were apparently inseparable at first, Ford gradually distanced himself from the man that had saved his father’s company.
      After being the de facto ruler of Ford, from the position of Chairman of the Board, Breech was soon challenged by his protégé. Reportedly, in 1958, at a Ford gathering in West Virginia, Henry Ford declared, “I am the captain of this ship and I intend to remain captain as long as my name is on the bow.” Breech is said to have turned pale at the remark. Two years later Breech stepped down from his position after “many months of deepest soul-searching.” He left behind him a company that was earning $500 million a year with $4 billion in plants and equipment.
1976 Jonathan Netanyahu, 3 hostages, all 7 terrorists who hijacked the plane to Entebbe, and 20 Ugandan soldiers who helped them, in the Israeli raid that freed the other 103 hostages.         ^top^
      On June 27, an Air France jet carrying 256 passengers from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Paris, France, was hijacked by four Palestinian terrorists. Just minutes after taking off from Athens, Greece, where the plane had stopped to re-fuel, an armed gunman stormed the cockpit and forced the plane to fly to Entebbe Airport in Uganda.
      The terrorists, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, chose Uganda as their safe harbor because they were welcomed by notorious dictator Idi Amin, who had become an international outcast after murdering hundreds of thousands of people during his seize of power in 1971. After being joined by three others at Entebbe, the terrorists demanded the release of 53 prisoners held by Israel, various European countries, and Kenya. Five of the prisoners were Ugandans held in Kenya. They were almost certainly added to the list by Amin, who provided the terrorists with Ugandan soldiers to help guard the hostages.
      On June 30, the PFLP terrorists released 47 hostages; a day later, another 101 were freed. The 12-member crew of the Air France plane refused an offer to be released and stayed with the remaining hostages — mostly Israeli — who were held in an airport terminal surrounded by explosives.
      While planning a daring raid to free the hostages, Israel pretended to negotiate with the terrorists. On the night of 03 July, three C-130 Hercules transport planes that had been painted to look like Ugandan jets began the long flight to Entebbe carrying 200 elite commandos, several Land Rovers, and a Mercedes. When the planes landed in Entebbe, the cars disembarked and sped toward the hijacked plane.
      Surprising both the Ugandan troops guarding the hostages and the terrorists, who believed that the cars were Amin's men returning to help with the negotiations, the commandos attacked. A firefight ensued in which were killed all 7 terrorists, 3 hostages, approximately 20 Ugandan soldiers, and Jonathan Netanyahu, older brother of future Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the lone Israeli military casualty, leader of the mission. (One female hostage who had been taken to a hospital earlier was murdered by Ugandan troops after the raid.) Within an hour, the remaining hostages and crew were safe and on their way back to Israel.
      Most Western nations hailed the amazing rescue of the hostages, but the successful raid did not stop Palestinian terrorists from continuing to target Israel. However, new exhaustive security measures instituted for flights from Israel after the incident helped to drastically reduce plane hijackings.
     This was the subject of the movies (best first) Operation Thunderbolt, Raid on Entebbe, and Victory at Entebbe, and of computer game Operation Thunderbolt.
1940, 1250 French sailors at Mers el-Kebir, killed by the British         ^top^
     Ten days after France signed an armistice with Nazi Germany, the British confiscated or destroyed some twenty French warships to prevent their use by Germany in the imminent Battle of Britain. Eleven warships anchored in English ports were seized and British battleships moved against the French fleet at Mers el-Kebir in Algeria. At Mers el-Kebir, British Admiral James Somerville gave the French commander, Admiral Marcel Gensoul, several alternatives: join the Royal Navy, proceed to a British or neutral US port with a reduced crew, scuttle his ships, or be destroyed.
      Shortly after the six-hour ultimatum offered by Somerville expired, a message from the Vichy government ordering Gensoul to fight was intercepted by the British, and Somerville opened fire. In a brief battle, the British killed 1250 French sailors, damaged the battleship Dunkerque and destroyed the Bretagne, the Provence, and a destroyer. One French battleship, the Strasbourg, escaped to rejoin the French fleet at Toulon, France. During the war, it served as part of a Vichy squadron assigned, with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's approval, to defend the French colonies against British or Gaullist attack.
      On 04 July British Prime Minister Winston Churchill told the House of Commons that he would leave Britain's actions to "history." On 05 July Vichy France broke off diplomatic relations with Great Britain.
      One week later, the Battle of Britain began when a large squadron of German bombers attacked the port at South Wales.
Mers El Kébir bombardé En juillet 1940, coup de tonnerre sur la base navale de Mers El Kébir, près d’Oran : la flotte anglaise, sur ordre de Churchill, a décidé de détruire les navires français stationnés dans ce port de l’Ouest algérien. Objectif : empêcher qu’ils ne soient récupérés par les Allemands qui venaient d’occuper la France. Ce sera la plus grosse débâcle navale française de l’histoire.
1936 Heinrich Hörle, German artist born on 01 September 1895.
1935 André Citröen, industrial francés del automóvil.
1933 Hipólito Yrigoyen, político y presidente de Argentina.
1929 Pascal Adolphe Jean Dagnan-Bouveret, French painter born on 07 January 1852. — LINKS — Whitney Warren Sr. — Hamlet and the Gravediggers
1916 first of 3 fatal shark attacks occurred near NJ shore (4 die)
1904 Theodor Herzl, intelectual judío de origen húngaro, fundador del sionismo político.
1899 Johann Strauss, compositor austriaco.
1895 Théodore Gérard, Belgian artist born on 09 December 1829.
1863 Thousands of soldiers, as the Confederates are defeated at Gettysburg         ^top^
      During the Battle of Gettysburg, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's last attempt at breaking the Union line ends in disastrous failure, and the most decisive battle of the Civil War comes to an end.
      In June of 1863, following his extraordinary victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Lee launched his second invasion of the North. With the Army of the Potomac in pursuit, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia crossed the Potomac River and marched into Pennsylvania. On 28 June Lee learned of the proximity of the Union army and ordered his forces to concentrate near the crossroads town of Gettysburg in southern Pennsylvania.
      On 01 July a Confederate division under General Henry Heth marched into Gettysburg hoping to seize supplies, but found instead three brigades of Union cavalry. Thus began the Battle of Gettysburg, and Lee and Union General George G. Meade ordered their massive armies to the battle. The Union cavalrymen heroically held the field against overwhelming numbers until the arrival of reinforcements. Later, the Confederates were reinforced, and by midafternoon, some 19'000 Federals faced 24'000 Confederates. Lee arrived to the battlefield soon afterwards, and ordered a general advance that forced the Union line back to Cemetery Hill, just south of the town.
      During the night, the rest of Meade's force arrived, and by the morning, Union General Winfield S. Hancock had formed a strong Union line. On 02 July, against the Union left, General James Longstreet led the main Confederate attack, but it was not carried out until about four p.m., and the Federals had time to consolidate their positions. Thus began some of the heaviest fighting of the battle, and Union forces retained control of their strategic positions at heavy cost. After three hours, the battle ended, and the total number of dead at Gettysburg now stood at 35'000.
      On 03 June Lee, having failed on the right and the left, planned an assault on Meade's center. A 15'000-man strong column under General George S. Pickett was organized, and Lee ordered a massive artillery bombardment of the Union positions. The Federals answered the Confederate onslaught, and for over an hour the guns raged in the heaviest cannonade of the war. At 15:00 Pickett led his force into no-man's-land, and found that Lee's bombardment had failed. As Pickett's force attempted to cross the 1500 meters to Cemetery Ridge, Union artillery blew great holes in their lines.
    Meanwhile, Yankee infantry flanked the main body of Pickett's Charges, and began cutting down the Confederate stragglers. Only a few hundred Virginians reached the Union line, and within a few minutes they all were dead, dying, or captured. In less than an hour, over 7000 Confederate troops had been killed or wounded. Both armies, exhausted, held their positions until the night of 04 July, when Lee withdrew. The Army of the Potomac was too weak to pursue the Confederates, and Lee led his army across the Potomac and out of the North, never to invade it again. The Battle of Gettysburg was the turning point in the Civil War. 28'063 Confederates and 23'049 Union soldiers were killed or wounded.
     Confederate General Robert E. Lee's last attempt at breaking the Union line ends in disastrous failure, bringing the most decisive battle of the American Civil War to an end. In June 1863, following his masterful victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville, General Lee launched his second invasion of the Union in less than a year. He led his 75'000-man Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River, through Maryland, and into Pennsylvania, seeking to win a major battle on Northern soil that would further dispirit the Union war effort and induce Britain or France to intervene on the Confederacy's behalf.
      The 90'000-strong Army of the Potomac pursued the Confederates into Maryland, but its commander, General Joseph Hooker, was still stinging from his defeat at Chancellorsville and seemed reluctant to chase Lee further. Meanwhile, the Confederates divided their forces and investigated various targets, such as Harrisburg, the Pennsylvania capital. On 28 June President Abraham Lincoln replaced Hooker with General George Meade, and Lee learned of the presence of the Army of the Potomac in Maryland. Lee ordered his army to concentrate in the vicinity of the crossroads town of Gettysburg and prepare to meet the Federal army. At the same time, Meade sent ahead part of his force into Pennsylvania but intended to make a stand at Pipe Creek in Maryland.
      On 01 July a Confederate division under General Henry Heth marched into Gettysburg hoping to seize supplies but finding instead three brigades of Union cavalry. Thus began the Battle of Gettysburg, and Lee and Meade ordered their massive armies to converge on the impromptu battle site. The Union cavalrymen defiantly held the field against overwhelming numbers until the arrival of Federal reinforcements. Later, the Confederates were reinforced, and by mid-afternoon some 19'000 Federals faced 24'000 Confederates. Lee arrived to the battlefield soon afterward and ordered a general advance that forced the Union line back to Cemetery Hill, just south of the town. During the night, the rest of Meade's force arrived, and by the morning Union General Winfield Hancock had formed a strong Union line.
      On 02 July, against the Union left, General James Longstreet led the main Confederate attack, but it was not carried out until about 16:00, and the Federals had time to consolidate their positions. Thus began some of the heaviest fighting of the battle, and Union forces retained control of their strategic positions at heavy cost. After three hours, the battle ended, and the total number of dead at Gettysburg stood at 35'000.
      On 03 July Lee, having failed on the right and the left, planned an assault on Meade's center. A 15'000-man strong column under General George Pickett was organized, and Lee ordered a massive bombardment of the Union positions. The 10'000 Federals answered the Confederate artillery onslaught, and for more than an hour the guns raged in the heaviest cannonade of the Civil War. At 15:00 Pickett led his force into no-man's-land and found that Lee's bombardment had failed. As Pickett's force attempted to cross the mile distance to Cemetery Ridge, Union artillery blew great holes in their lines. Meanwhile, Yankee infantry flanked the main body of "Pickett's charge" and began cutting down the Confederates. Only a few hundred Virginians reached the Union line, and within minutes they all were dead, dying, or captured. In less than an hour, more than 7000 Confederate soldiers had been killed or wounded. Both armies, exhausted, held their positions until the night of 04 July, when Lee withdrew.
      The Army of the Potomac was too weak to pursue the Confederates, and Lee led his army out of the North, never to invade it again. The Battle of Gettysburg was the turning point in the Civil War, costing the Union 23'000 killed, wounded, or missing in action. The Confederates suffered some 25'000 casualties. On 19 November 1863, President Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg Address during the dedication of a new national cemetery at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg. The Civil War effectively ended with the surrender of General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in April 1865.
     Troops under Confederate General George Pickett begin a massive attack against the center of the Union lines on the climactic third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, the largest engagement of the US Civil War. General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia encountered George Meade's Army of the Potomac in Pennsylvania and battered the Yankees for two days. The day before Pickett's charge, the Confederates had hammered each flank of the Union line but could not break through. Now, on 03 July , Lee decided to attack the Union center, stationed on Cemetery Ridge, after making another unsuccessful attempt on the Union right flank at Culp's Hill in the morning. The majority of the force consisted of Pickett's division, but there were other units represented among the 15'000 attackers. After a long Confederate artillery bombardment, the Rebel force moved through the open field and up the slight rise of Cemetery Ridge. But by the time they reached the Union line, the attack had been broken into many small units, and they were unable to penetrate the Yankee center. The failed attack effectively ended the battle of Gettysburg. On July 4, Lee began to withdraw his forces to Virginia. The casualties for both armies were staggering. Lee lost 28'000 of his 75'000 soldiers, and Union losses stood at over 22'000. It was the last time Lee threatened Northern territory.
1860 Simon Saint-Jean, French painter, specialized in still life and flowers, born on 14 October 1808. — MORE ON SAINT~JEAN AT ART “4” JULY — Still Life With Flowers and Wild Raspberries — Flowers and Fruit — other Flowers and Fruit — Flowers and Grapes — Flowers and Grapes by a Window
1816 French frigate Méduse runs aground off Cap Blanc. Gross incompetence kills 150 in calm seas.
1778 British forces massacre 360 men, women and children in Wyoming, Pa
1749 Jones, mathematician.
1592 Francesco Giambattista da Ponte Bassano, suicide by throwing himself out of a window, Italian Mannerist painter born on 11 January 1549. — MORE ON BASSANO AT ART “4” JULY — Jacopo Bassano and his son Francesco Bassano jointly painted Christ in the House of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus
0683 Pope Saint Leo II
Births which occurred on a July 03:         ^top^
1958 Ángel Acebes, político español, ministro de Justicia.
1951 Jean-Claude Duvalier deposed Haitian president-for-life — Jean Claude Duvalier, “bébé Doc” político haitiano.
1947 Dave Barry, writer.
1941 Liamin Zerual, presidente de Argelia.
1937 Tom Stoppard, playwright.
1932 Gyula Horn, político y primer ministro húngaro.
1930 The US Veterans Administration, created by Congress.
1919 Gabriel Valdés Subercasseaux, político y abogado chileno.
1914 Antonio Colino López, científico y académico español.
1908 Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher, in Albion, Michigan.         ^top^
      Her father, a fourth-generation writer, purchased a newspaper in Whittier, California, where the family moved in 1911. In 1929, Fisher moved to France with her first husband, where she developed her twin passions: food and writing. She published her first story in 1934, using her initials to conceal her identity. In 1937, her first book, Serve It Forth, was published. She was highly productive for the next decade or so, producing nine books on food, including How to Cook a Wolf (1942) and The Gastronomic Me (1943).
      After divorcing her husband, Fisher returned to the States, where she had a daughter, Anna, out of wedlock in the early 1940s. She never revealed Anna's paternity. She married writer and painter Dillwyn Parris, who was later struck by a fatal illness and committed suicide. Perhaps distracted by her tumultuous family life, she produced little during the 1950s. However, during the last two decades of her life, she lived in a cottage in California's Sonoma Valley and produced another dozen books, as well as many essays for the New Yorker. She died of Parkinson's disease in 1992. She was celebrated for both her gastronomic expertise and her engaging, literary writing style.
1897 Jesse Douglas, mathematician
1888 Ramón Gómez de la Serna, escritor español.
1883 Franz Kafka Czech, author (Metamorphosis, Trial, Amerika)
1883 Alfred Korzybski Poland, scientist (Science and Sanity)
1874 Sir Apirana Turupa Ngata, Kawaka NZ, Maori political / cultural leader
1870 Richard B Bennett (C) 11th Canadian PM (1930-35)
1866 Henry Baker, mathematician
1854 Leos Janacek, Hukvaldy, Moravia, Czech composer (Foster Suite)
1843 Edmund Berninger, German artist who died after 1909.
1825 Erskine Nicol, British artist who died on 09 March 1904.
1820 Jonquières, mathematician.
1805 Auguste Etienne François Mayer, French artist who died on 22 September 1890.
1789 Johann Friedrich Overbeck, German painter who died on 12 November 1869. — Joseph Being Sold by his Brothers
1770 Manuel Belgrano, militar y político argentino.
1755 Lazare Bruandet, French artist who died on 26 March 1804.
1738 John Singleton Copley Mass, finest artist in the British American colonies. He died on 09 September 1815 in London. — LINKS — Self-Portrait — My Family — Samuel Adams — John Hancock — Paul Revere — William Vassall and His Son Leonard — The Boy and the Squirrel — 3 Youngest Daughters of George III — Girl With Dog And Bird — Watson and the Shark —
1731 Samuel Huntington (Gov-Ct), Continental Congress pres
1608 City of Québec founded by Samuel de Champlain, on his 41st birthday. — C'est le 15 mars 1603 que pour la première fois, Samuel de Champlain quitte Honfleur pour le golfe du Saint-Laurent dont il remonte le cours. Un an plus tard, il est revenu en France, il repart en 1607 et ce jour, il fonde la ville de Québec dont il devient le gouverneur.
1567 Samuel de Champlain explorer (Lake Champlain)
1423 Louis XI king of France (1461-83)
Holidays Algeria : Independence Day (1962) / Idaho : Admission Day (1890)
Religious Observances RC : St Thomas, apostle / RC : St Leo II, 80th pope (681-83) / Santos Tomás, Trifón, Heliodoro y Dato.
Thought for the day: “The best government teaches us to govern ourselves.” [without killing us, preferably]
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