July 4
1776 - The amended Declaration of Independence, prepared by Thomas Jefferson, was approved and signed by John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress in America.
1802 - The U.S. Military Academy officially opened at West Point, NY.
1803 - The Louisiana Purchase was announced in newspapers. The property was purchased, by the U.S. from France, was for $15 million (or 3 cents an acre). The "Corps of Discovery," led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, began the exploration of the territory on May 14, 1804.
1817 - Construction began on the Erie Canal, to connect Lake Erie and the Hudson River.
1845 - American writer Henry David Thoreau began his two-year experiment in simple living at Walden Pond, near Concord, MA.
1848 - In Washington, DC, the cornerstone for the Washington Monument was laid.
1855 - The first edition of "Leaves of Grass," by Walt Whitman, was published in Brooklyn, NY.
1863 - The Confederate town of Vicksburg, MS, surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant.
1881 - Tuskegee Institute opened in Alabama.
1884 - Bullfighting was introduced in the U.S. in Dodge City, KS.
1886 - The first rodeo in America was held at Prescott, AZ.
1892 - The first double-decked street car service was inaugurated in San Diego, CA.
1894 - After seizing power, Judge Stanford B. Dole declared Hawaii a republic.
1901 - William H. Taft became the American governor of the Philippines.
1910 - Race riots broke out all over the United States after African-American Jack Johnson knocked out Jim Jeffries in a heavyweight boxing match.
1934 - Boxer Joe Louis won his first professional fight.
1934 - At Mount Rushmore, George Washington's face was dedicated.
1939 - Lou Gehrig retired from major league baseball.
1946 - The Philippines achieved full independence for the first time in over four hundred years.
1955 - The first king cobra snakes born in captivity in the U.S. hatched at the Bronx Zoo in New York City.
1957 - The U.S. Postal Service issued the 4¢ Flag stamp.
1959 - The 49-star U.S. flag became official.
1960 - The 50-star U.S. flag made its debut in Philadelphia, PA.
1966 - U.S. President Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act, which went into effect the following year.
1976 - The U.S. celebrated its Bicentennial.
1982 - The Soviets performed a nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhl Semipalitinsk.
1987 - Klaus Barbie, the former Gestapo chief known as the "Butcher of Lyon," was convicted by a French court of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison.
1997 - The Mars Pathfinder, an unmanned spacecraft, landed on Mars. A rover named Sojourner was deployed to gather data about the surface of the planet.
1997 - Ferry service between Manhattan and Staten Island was made free of charge. Previously, the charge had ranged from 5 cents to 50 cents.
2004 - In New York, the cornerstone of the Freedom Tower (One World Trade Center) was laid on the former World Trade Center site.
2005 - NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft took pictures as a space probe smashed into the Tempel 1 comet. The mission was aimed at learning more about comets that formed from the leftover buidling blocks of the solar system. The Deep Impact mission launched on January 12, 2005.
2009 - North Korea launched seven ballistic missiles into waters off its east coast that defied U.N. resolutions.
2009 - The Statue of Liberty's crown reopened to visitors. It had been closed to the public since 2001.
