Events on July 4 78
Year 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.
Year 836
Pactum Sicardi, a peace treaty between the Principality of Benevento and the Duchy of Naples, is signed.
Year 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.
Year 1187
The Crusades: Battle of Hattin: Saladin defeats Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem.
Year 1359
Francesco II Ordelaffi of Forlì surrenders to the Papal commander Gil de Albornoz.
Year 1610
The Battle of Klushino is fought between forces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russia during the Polish-Muscovite War.
Year 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.
Year 1774
Orangetown Resolutions are adopted in the Province of New York, one of many protests against the British Parliament's Coercive Acts
Year 1776
American Revolution: The United States Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress.
Year 1778
American Revolutionary War: American forces under George Clark capture Kaskaskia during the Illinois campaign.
Year 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.
Year 1831
Samuel Francis Smith writes "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" for the Boston, Massachusetts July 4 festivities.
Year 1837
Grand Junction Railway, the world's first long-distance railway, opens between Birmingham and Liverpool.
Year 1855
The first edition of Walt Whitman's book of poems, Leaves of Grass, is published In Brooklyn.
Year 1862
Lewis Carroll tells Alice Liddell a story that would grow into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequels.
Year 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.
Year 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.
Year 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.
Year 1886
The first scheduled Canadian transcontinental train arrives in Port Moody, British Columbia.
Year 1887
The founder of Pakistan, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, joins Sindh-Madrasa-tul-Islam, Karachi.
Year 1892
Western Samoa changes the International Date Line, causing Monday (July 4) to occur twice, resulting in a year with 367 days.
Year 1892
The first double-decked street car service was inaugurated in San Diego, California.
Year 1898
En route from New York to Le Havre, the SS La Bourgogne collides with another ship and sinks off the coast of Sable Island, with the loss of 549 lives.
Year 1910
African-American boxer Jack Johnson knocks out white boxer Jim Jeffries in a heavyweight boxing match, sparking race riots across the United States.
Year 1911
A massive heat wave strikes the northeastern United States, killing 380 people in eleven days and breaking temperature records in several cities.
Year 1913
President Woodrow Wilson addresses American Civil War veterans at the Great Reunion of 1913.
Year 1914
The funeral of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie takes place in Vienna, six days after their assassinations in Sarajevo.
Year 1918
Mehmed V died at the age of 73 and Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI ascends to the throne.
Year 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.
Year 1918
Bolsheviks kill Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family (Julian calendar date).
Year 1934
Leo Szilard patents the chain-reaction design that would later be used in the atomic bomb.
Year 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.
Year 1941
Nazi troops massacre Polish scientists and writers in the captured Ukrainian city of Lviv.
Year 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.
Year 1942
World War II: The 250-day Siege of Sevastopol in the Crimea ends when the city falls to Axis forces.
Year 1943
World War II: The Battle of Kursk, the largest full-scale battle in history and the world's largest tank battle, begins in the village of Prokhorovka.
Year 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.
Year 1946
After 381 years of near-continuous colonial rule by various powers, the Philippines attains full independence from the United States.
Year 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.
Year 1951
A court in Czechoslovakia sentences American journalist William N. Oatis to ten years in prison on charges of espionage.
Year 1958
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Rivers and Harbors Flood Control Bill.
Year 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).
Year 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.
Year 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.
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.
Year 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
Year 1982
Three Iranian diplomats and a journalist are kidnapped in Lebanon by Phalange forces, and their fate remains unknown.
Year 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.
Year 1994
Rwandan genocide: Kigali, the Rwandan capital, is captured by the Rwandan Patriotic Front, ending the genocide in the city.
Year 1998
Japan launches the Nozomi probe to Mars, joining the United States and Russia as a space exploring nation.
Year 2004
The cornerstone of the Freedom Tower is laid on the World Trade Center site in New York City.
Year 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.
Year 2009
The first of four days of bombings begins on the southern Philippine island group of Mindanao.
Year 2012
The discovery of particles consistent with the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider is announced at CERN.