4 July Events

July 4 is the 185th day of the year (186th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 180 days remaining until the end of the year. This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Monday, Wednesday or Saturday (58 in 400 years each) than on Thursday or Friday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Tuesday or Sunday (56). The Aphelion, the point in the year when the Earth is farthest from the Sun, occurs around this date.

Events

362 BC – Battle of Mantinea: The Thebans, led by Epaminondas, defeated the Spartans.
414 – Emperor Theodosius II, age 13, yields power to his older sister Aelia Pulcheria, who reigned as regent and proclaimed herself empress (Augusta) of the Eastern Roman Empire.
836 – Pactum Sicardi, a peace treaty between the Principality of Benevento and the Duchy of Naples, is signed.
993 – Ulrich of Augsburg is canonized as a saint.
1054 – A supernova, called SN 1054, is seen by Chinese Song dynasty, Arab, and possibly Amerindian observers near the star Zeta Tauri. For several months it remains bright enough to be seen during the day. Its remnants form the Crab Nebula.
1120 – Jordan II of Capua is anointed as prince after his infant nephew's death.
1187 – The Crusades: Battle of Hattin: Saladin defeats Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem.
1253 – Battle of West-Capelle: John I of Avesnes defeats Guy of Dampierre.
1359 – Francesco II Ordelaffi of Forlì surrenders to the Papal commander Gil de Albornoz.
1456 – Ottoman wars in Europe: The Siege of Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade) begins.
1534 – Christian III is elected King of Denmark and Norway in the town of Rye.
1584 – Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe arrive at Roanoke Island
1610 – The Battle of Klushino is fought between forces of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russia during the Polish–Muscovite War.
1634 – The city of Trois-Rivières is founded in New France (now Quebec, Canada).
1744 – The Treaty of Lancaster, in which the Iroquois cedes lands between the Allegheny Mountains and the Ohio River to the British colonies, was signed in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
1774 – Orangetown Resolutions are adopted in the Province of New York, one of many protests against the British Parliament's Coercive Acts
1776 – American Revolution: The United States Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress.
1778 – American Revolutionary War: American forces under George Clark capture Kaskaskia during the Illinois campaign.
1802 – At West Point, New York, the United States Military Academy opens.
1803 – The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people.
1817 – In Rome, New York, construction on the Erie Canal begins.
1826 – Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, dies the same day as John Adams, second president of the United States, on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence.
1827 – Slavery is abolished in New York State.
1831 – Samuel Francis Smith writes "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" for the Boston, Massachusetts July 4 festivities.
1837 – Grand Junction Railway, the world's first long-distance railway, opens between Birmingham and Liverpool.
1838 – The Iowa Territory is organized.
1855 – The first edition of Walt Whitman's book of poems, Leaves of Grass, is published In Brooklyn.
1862 – Lewis Carroll tells Alice Liddell a story that would grow into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequels.
1863 – American Civil War: Siege of Vicksburg: Vicksburg, Mississippi surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant after 47 days of siege. One hundred fifty miles up the Mississippi River, a Confederate Army is repulsed at the Battle of Helena, Arkansas.
1863 – American Civil War: The Army of Northern Virginia withdraws from the battlefield after losing the Battle of Gettysburg, signalling an end to the Southern invasion of the North.
1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: The Zululand capital of Ulundi is captured by British troops and burned to the ground, ending the war and forcing King Cetshwayo to flee.
1881 – In Alabama, the Tuskegee Institute opens.
1884 - Bullfighting was introduced in the U.S. in Dodge City, KS.
1886 – The people of France offer the Statue of Liberty to the people of the United States.
1886 – The first scheduled Canadian transcontinental train arrives in Port Moody, British Columbia.
1887 – The founder of Pakistan, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, joins Sindh-Madrasa-tul-Islam, Karachi.
1892 – Western Samoa changes the International Date Line, causing Monday (July 4) to occur twice, resulting in a year with 367 days.
1892 - The first double-decked street car service was inaugurated in San Diego, CA.
1894 – The short-lived Republic of Hawaii is proclaimed by Sanford B. Dole.
1898 – En route from New York to Le Havre, the ocean liner SS La Bourgogne collides with another ship and sinks off the coast of Sable Island, with the loss of 549 lives.
1901 - William Howard Taft became the American governor of the Philippines.
1903 – Philippine–American War is officially concluded.
1903 – Dorothy Levitt is reported as the first English woman to compete in a 'motor race'.
1910 – African-American boxer Jack Johnson knocks out white boxer Jim Jeffries in a heavyweight boxing match, sparking race riots across the United States.
1911 – A massive heat wave strikes the northeastern United States, killing 380 people in eleven days and breaking temperature records in several cities.
1913 – President Woodrow Wilson addresses American Civil War veterans at the Great Reunion of 1913.
1914 – The funeral of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie takes place in Vienna, six days after their assassinations in Sarajevo.
1918 – Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI ascends to the throne.
1918 – World War I: The Battle of Hamel, a successful attack by the Australian Corps against German positions near the town of Le Hamel on the Western Front.
1918 – Bolsheviks kill Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family (Julian calendar date).
1927 – First flight of the Lockheed Vega.
1934 – Leo Szilard patents the chain-reaction design that would later be used in the atomic bomb.
1934 - Boxer Joe Louis won his first professional fight.
1939 – Lou Gehrig, recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, informs a crowd at Yankee Stadium that he considers himself "The luckiest man on the face of the earth", then announces his retirement from major league baseball.
1939 – Huỳnh Phú Sổ founds Hòa Hảo Buddhism.
1941 – Nazi troops massacre Polish scientists and writers in the captured Ukrainian city of Lviv.
1941 – World War II: The Burning of the Riga synagogues: The Great Choral Synagogue in German occupied Riga is burnt with 300 Jews locked in the basement.
1942 – World War II: The 250-day Siege of Sevastopol in the Crimea ends when the city falls to Axis forces.
1943 – World War II: The Battle of Kursk, the largest full-scale battle in history and the world's largest tank battle, begins in Prokhorovka village.
1943 – World War II: In Gibraltar, a Royal Air Force B-24 Liberator bomber crashes into the sea in an apparent accident moments after takeoff, killing sixteen passengers on board, including general Władysław Sikorski, the commander-in-chief of the Polish Army and the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile; only the pilot survives.
1946 – The Kielce pogrom against Jewish Holocaust survivors in Poland.
1946 – After 381 years of near-continuous colonial rule by various powers, the Philippines attains full independence from the United States.
1947 – The "Indian Independence Bill" is presented before the British House of Commons, proposing the independence of the Provinces of British India into two sovereign countries: India and Pakistan.
1950 – Radio Free Europe first broadcasts.
1951 – A court in Czechoslovakia sentences American journalist William N. Oatis to ten years in prison on charges of espionage.
1951 – William Shockley announces the invention of the junction transistor.
1957 - The U.S. Postal Service issued the 4¢ Flag stamp
1960 – Due to the post-Independence Day admission of Hawaii as the 50th U.S. state on August 21, 1959, the 50-star flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia, almost ten and a half months later (see Flag Act).
1961 – On its maiden voyage, the Soviet nuclear-powered submarine K-19 suffers a complete loss of coolant to its reactor. The crew are able to effect repairs, but 22 of them die of radiation poisoning over the following two years.
1966 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Freedom of Information Act into United States law. The act went into effect the next year.
1976 – Israeli commandos raid Entebbe airport in Uganda, rescuing all but four of the passengers and crew of an Air France jetliner seized by Palestinian terrorists.
1976 - The U.S. celebrated its Bicentennial.
1977 – The George Jackson Brigade plants a bomb at the main power substation for the Washington state capitol in Olympia, in solidarity with a prison strike at the Walla Walla State Penitentiary Intensive Security Unit
1982 – Three Iranian diplomats and a journalist are kidnapped in Lebanon by Phalange forces almost 34 years ago, and their fate remains unknown.
1987 – In France, former Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie (a.k.a. the "Butcher of Lyon") is convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life imprisonment.
1994 – Rwandan Genocide: Kigali, the Rwandan capital, is captured by the Rwandan Patriotic Front, ending the genocide in the city.
1997 – NASA's Pathfinder space probe lands on the surface of Mars.
1998 – Japan launches the Nozomi probe to Mars, joining the United States and Russia as a space exploring nation.
2004 – The cornerstone of the Freedom Tower is laid on the World Trade Center site in New York City.
2005 – The Deep Impact collider hits the comet Tempel 1.
2009 – The Statue of Liberty's crown reopens to the public after eight years of closure due to security concerns following the September 11 attacks.
2009 – The first of four days of bombings begins on the southern Philippine island group of Mindanao.
2012 – The discovery of particles consistent with the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider is announced at CERN.
2016 – The arrival of the Juno probe to Jupiter.

Holidays and observances

Christian feast day:
Andrew of Crete
Bertha of Artois
Blessed Catherine Jarrige
Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati
Elizabeth of Aragon (or of Portugal)
Oda of Canterbury
Ulrich of Augsburg
July 4 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Birthday of Queen Sonja (Norway)
The first evening of Dree Festival, celebrated until July 7 (Apatani people, Arunachal Pradesh, India)
Independence Day, celebrates the Declaration of Independence of the United States from Great Britain in 1776. (United States and its dependencies)
Liberation Day (Northern Mariana Islands)
Liberation Day (Rwanda)
Republic Day (Philippines)

Source: wikipedia