Today in History - July 3
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987 Jul 3, The
count of Paris, Hugh Capet (49), became king of France. Paris soon
emerged as the center of French political, cultural and religious
life, once again becoming the capital.
(PCh, 1992, p.78)(HNQ, 4/18/02)(MC, 7/3/02)
1570 Jul 3, Antonio Paleario
(67), Italian humanist, was executed by the inquisition.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1570 Jul 3, The Turks began
their attack on Nicosia, Cyprus, after Venice refused to surrender
the island.
(http://historicbiography.blogspot.com/2008/01/marcantonio-bragadin.html)
1608 Jul 3, The city of Quebec
was founded as a trading post by Samuel de Champlain. The French
adventurer Etienne Brule accompanied Champlain to North America and
was reportedly eaten by the Huron Indians.
(AP,
7/3/97)(www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1608champlain.html)
1642 Jul 3, Maria de' Medici
(~69), French queen-mother, died.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1683 Jul 3, Edward Young,
English poet, dramatist and literary critic, was born. His work
included "Night Thoughts."
(HN, 7/3/99)
1738 Jul 3, John Singleton
Copley, finest colonial American artist, was born in Mass.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1754 Jul 3, George Washington
surrendered the small, circular Fort Necessity (later Pittsburgh) in
southwestern Pennsylvania to the French, leaving them in control of
the Ohio Valley. This marked the beginning of the French and Indian
War also called the 7 Years' War. In 2005 Fred Anderson authored
“The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian
War.”
(HN, 7/13/98)(Arch, 1/05, p.46)(WSJ, 12/14/05,
p.D15)
1775 Jul 3, Gen. George
Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Mass.
(AP, 7/3/97)
1778 Jul 3, The Wyoming
Massacre occurred during the American Revolution in the Wyoming
Valley of Pennsylvania. As part of a British campaign against
settlers in the frontier during the war, 360 American settlers,
including women and children, were killed at an outpost called
Wintermoot's Fort after they were drawn out of the protection of the
fort and ambushed.
(HNQ, 11/5/98)(MC, 7/3/02)
1790 Jul 3, In Paris the
Marquis of Condorcet proposed granting civil rights to women.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1799 Jul 3, In Saint-Domingue
(later Haiti) Gen. Toussaint L’Ouverture formally declared Gen.
Andre Rigaud, the leader of a revolutionary army in the south and
west of Saint-Domingue, a rebel.
(ON, 2/10, p.8)
1801 Jul 3, Johann Nepomuk Went
(56), composer, died.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1806 Jul 3, Michael Keens
exhibited the 1st cultivated strawberry.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1809 Jul 3, Joseph Quesne (62),
composer, died.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1816 Jul 3, Dorothea Jordan
(65), French actress, mistress (William IV), died.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1844 Jul 3, Dankmar Adler,
architect and engineer, was born.
(HN, 7/3/01)
1844 Jul 3, Ambassador Caleb
Cushing successfully negotiated a commercial treaty with China that
opened five Chinese ports to U.S. merchants and protected the rights
of American citizens in China.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1848 Jul 3, Gen. Peter Von
Scholten, faced with the likely destruction of towns and plantations
by a slave revolt, declared the slaves of the Danish West Indies
(later US Virgin Islands) to be freed.
(SSFC, 7/5/09, p.A3)
1861 Jul 3, US Colonel Jackson
received his CSA commission as brigadier general.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1861 Jul 3, Pony Express
arrived in SF with overland letters from NY.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1863 Jul 3, The last rebel
assault was repulsed at the Battle of Gettysburg at 4 p.m. The Civil
War’s Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania ended after three days in
a major victory for the North as Confederate troops retreated. The
last Confederate assault at Gettysburg was Pickett’s Charge against
the center of the Union line that left some 7,000 of 13,000 [15,000]
Confederate troops dead. Lt. Gen. James Longstreet gave Maj. Gen.
George Pickett the assent. General Lee took responsibility. The
Union and Confederate armies suffered an estimated 50-51 thousand
casualties in the battle. It was the bloodiest battle the country
had yet seen. Upon whom the responsibility for the South's failure
at Gettysburg rests has been widely debated, but five months after
the epic battle, Confederate General Robert E. Lee admitted, "I
thought my men were invincible." The fighting in the small
Pennsylvania town marked a pivotal point in the Union's ascent to
victory and helped decide the outcome of the Civil War. In 1974
Michael Shaara published "The Killer Angels," a novel about the
3-day battle.
(SFC, 7/7/96, T6)(SFC,2/17/97, p.A3)(AP,
7/3/97)(SFEC, 6/21/98, p.D5)(HN, 7/3/98)(WSJ, 9/11/98, p.W10)(HNPD,
7/6/99)
1863 Jul 3, Battle of
Donaldsonville, LA.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1864 Jul 3, Battle of
Chattahoochee River, GA, began and lasted until Jul 9.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1864 Jul 3, At Harpers Ferry,
WV, Federals evacuated in face of Early's advance.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1871 Jul 3, William Henry
Davies, Welsh poet, was born.
(HN, 7/3/01)
1871 Jul 3, Jesse James robbed
a bank in Corydon, Iowa, of $45,000.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1875 Jul 3, Ernst F.
Sauerbruch, German Nazi surgeon, was born.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1878 Jul 3, George M. Cohan,
American entertainer, was born. He wrote the songs "Over There,"
"You're a Grand Old Flag" and "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" and the
play "Yankee Doodle-Dandy."
(HN, 7/3/99)
1878 Jul 3, John Wise flew the
first dirigible in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1883 Jul 3, Franz Kafka
(d.1924), Czech novelist, author of "The Metamorphosis," was born in
Prague. "The Castle" and "The Trial," were both published after his
death. He died of tuberculosis.
(V.D.-H.K.p.367-368)(WSJ, 10/10/96, p.A1)(WSJ,
3/14/97, p.A11)(HN, 7/3/98)
1883 Jul 3, SS Daphne sank on
Clyde River in Scotland and 195 died.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1886 Jul 3, In Germany Karl
Benz drove the 1st automobile. [see Jan 29]
(MC, 7/3/02)
1890 Jul 3,
Idaho became the 43rd state of the US.
(HFA, ‘96, p.32)(AP, 7/3/97)
1898 Jul 3,
The Spanish cruisers Cristóbal Colón, Almirante
Oquendo, Vizcaya and Infanta Maria Teresa, and two torpedo-boat
destroyers, lay bottled up in Santiago Harbor, with seven American
ships maintaining a blockade just outside. Without warning, the
Spanish squadron attempted to break out, and the Americans attacked,
sinking one torpedo boat and immediately running the other aground.
The Americans gave chase to Oquendo, Vizcaya and Colón. After
a brief battle, all the Spanish warships were overtaken, with only
two American causalities, both from the U.S. armored cruiser
Brooklyn.
(AP, 7/3/98)(HNPD, 7/3/98)
1899 Jul 3, The nation's first
juvenile court opened on the West Side after reformers like Jane
Addams pushed the Illinois legislature to recognize that children
were developmentally different from adults.
(SFEC, 6/27/99, Z1 p.1)
1901 Jul 3, Members of The Wild
Bunch, including Kid Curry, committed their last American robbery
near Wagner, Montana, taking $65,000 from a Great Northern train.
Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and his lover Etta Place had already
fled to New York where a picture of Etta and Sundance was taken. The
trio by this time were settled in Argentina.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy)
1903 Jul 3, The first cable
across the Pacific Ocean was spliced between Honolulu, Midway, Guam
and Manila. Teddy Roosevelt placed the atoll of Midway Island under
Navy supervision. The Commercial Pacific Cable Co. (later AT&T)
set cable across the Pacific via Midway Island and the first around
the world message was sent. The message took 9 minutes to circle the
globe.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.T5)(HN, 7/3/98)
1906 Jul 3, George Sanders,
actor (All About Eve-Academy Award 1950), was born in Russia.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1907 Jul 3, A Papal decree
forbade the modernization of theology.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1908 Jul 3, M.F.K. Fisher, food
writer, was born.
(HN, 7/3/01)
1908 Jul 3, In San Francisco
the coroner and his deputies celebrated the opening of the new
morgue at 368 Fell St.
(SSFC, 6/29/08, DB p.58)
1908 Jul 3, Joel Chandler
Harris (59), author and creator of Uncle Remus, died in Atlanta.
(AP, 7/3/08)
1909 Jul 3, Stavros Niachos,
Greek shipping magnate, was born.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1912 Jul 3, Elizabeth Taylor,
novelist and short story writer, was born.
(HN, 7/3/01)
1915 Jul 3, US military forces
occupied Haiti, and remained until 1934. [see Jan 27, Jul 29]
(MC, 7/3/02)
1916 Jul 3, The 1st of 3 fatal
shark attacks occurred near the NJ shore.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1918 Jul 3, The Migratory Bird
Treaty Act, the oldest US environmental conservation law, prohibited
killing or harassing birds migrating across international borders.
(SFC, 4/9/99, p.A5)(SFC, 10/23/02,
p.A4)(www.fws.gov/laws/lawsdigest/migtrea.html)
1921 Jul 3, Francois-Arnold
Reichenbach, documentary filmmaker, was born.
(HN, 7/3/01)
1929 Jul 3, Dunlop Latex
Development Laboratories made foam rubber.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1930 Jul 3, Carlos Kleiber
(d.2004), conductor (Bavarian State Orchestra), was born in Berlin,
Germany.
(SFC, 7/19/04, p.B6)
1930 Jul 3, Congress created
the U.S. Veterans Administration. [see Jul 21]
(AP, 7/3/97)
1937 Jul 3, Tom Stoppard,
British author and dramatist, was born in Czechoslovakia. His plays
include "Rosencrantz and Gilderstern are Dead" and "The Real Thing."
(HN, 7/3/99)(MC, 7/3/02)
1939 Jul 3, Ernst Heinkel
demonstrated an 800-kph rocket plane to Hitler.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1940 Jul 3, British Royal Navy
sank a French fleet in North Africa, ten days after France had
signed an armistice with Nazi Germany.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1943 Jul 3, Liberator bombers
sank U-628.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1944 Jul 3, Lisa Alther,
author, was born in Kingsport, Ten. "The degree of a person's
intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting
attitudes she can bring to bear on the same topic."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Alther)
1944 Jul 3, The U.S. First Army
opened a general offensive to break out of the hedgerow area of
Normandy, France.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1944 Jul 3, During World War
II, Soviet forces recaptured Minsk.
(AP, 7/3/97)
1945 Jul 3, U.S. troops landed
at Balikpapan and took Sepinggan airfield on Borneo in the Pacific.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1947 Jul 3, Soviet Union didn't
partake in the Marshall Plan.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1948 Jul 3, Kidnapper Caryl
Chessman was sentenced to death.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1950 Jul 3, US Pres. Truman
signed public law 600. It provided federal statutory authorization
for the people of Puerto Rico to write their own constitution.
(www.puertorico-herald.org/issues/2004/vol8n34/CBRoadComnwlth.shtml)
1950 Jul 3, American and North
Korean forces clashed for the first time in the Korean War. U.S.
carrier-based planes attacked airfields in the Pyongyang-Chinnampo
area of North Korea in the first air-strike of the Korean War.
(AP, 7/3/98)(HN, 7/3/98)
1951 Jul 3, Jean-Claude
Duvalier, [Papa Doc], deposed Haitian president-for-life, was born.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1952 Jul 3, Dr. Forest Dewey
Dodrill (1902-1997) of Wayne State Univ. used a mechanical heart
pump to operate on a patient at Detroit’s Harper Hospital. This was
regarded as the world’s first successful use of a mechanical pump in
open-heart surgery.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodrill-GMR)
1954 Jul 3, In Salem Mass.,
champion female athlete Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias
(1911-1956) won the US Women's Open. She had just come back from a
battle with cancer, yet won the event by 12 strokes.
(www.uswomensopen.com/2004/press/whatta-gal.html)
1954 Jul 3, Food rationing
ended in Britain almost nine years after the end of World War II.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1956 Jul 3, Loew's was removed
from the DJIA and International Paper was added as a component of
the Dow Jones.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R46)(WSJ, 4/8/04, p.C4)
1962 Jul 3, Jackie Robinson
became the first African American to be inducted into the National
Baseball Hall of Fame.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1962 Jul 3, French Pres.
Charles De Gaulle pronounced Algeria an independent country
following the July 1 elections. De Gaulle evacuated Algeria and a
million settlers flooded into France.
(WSJ, 11/16/95,
p.A-18)(www.onwar.com/aced/data/alpha/falgeria1954.htm)
1965 Jul 3, Trigger (25),
the golden palomino horse of Roy Rogers, died. Trigger was mounted
by Bishoff's Taxidermy of California and were on display for years
at the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum in Victorville, California.
The original Trigger is currently on display at The Roy Rogers -
Dale Evans Museum in Branson, Missouri. In 2010 Trigger, along with
his saddle, took top dollar at an auction of memorabilia.
(www.surfnetinc.com/chuck/hoss-rr.htm)(SFC,
7/7/98, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/2blll9t)
1967 Jul 3, North Vietnamese
soldiers attacked South Vietnam’s only producing coal mine at Nong
Son.
(HN, 7/3/98)
1969
Jul 3, Brian Jones (27), founder of the Rolling Stones (1962), was
found dead at the bottom of Cotchford Farm swimming pool.
(www.hotshotdigital.com/WellAlwaysRemember.4/BrianJones.html)
1970 Jul 3, A British Dan-Air
charter, flying a Comet 4 turbojet, crashed near Barcelona and 112
were killed.
(www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=834)
1971 Jul 3, James Douglas
Morrison (b.1943), singer for the Doors rock group, died of an
apparent heart attack in Paris, France. Jim Morrison (27) was buried
at Pere Lachaise cemetery.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.D2)(AP, 7/3/97)
1975 Jul 3, The US Civil
Service Commission adopted new suitability regulations devoid of the
previous language about "immoral" conduct or "sexual perversion."
This voided Pres. Eisenhower’s 1953 executive order on firing gays.
(www.fedglobe.org/news/12now_history.html)
1976 Jul 3, Shane Lynch, Irish
singer (Boyzone), was born in Dublin, Ireland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane_Lynch)
1976 Jul 3, Israel launched its
daring mission to rescue 103 passengers and Air France crew members
being held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda by pro-Palestinian
hijackers.
(AP, 7/3/97)
1977 Jul 3, Raymond Damadian
produced the 1st image of a human chest using magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI). In 1970 he found that cancer cells could be
distinguished from healthy tissues using nuclear magnetic resonance
(NMR).
(Econ, 12/6/03, TQp.15)
1978 Jul 3, The US Supreme
Court, in Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation,
upheld an FCC ban on George Carlin's "seven dirty words" and other
indecencies on radio, and TV "when there is a reasonable risk that
children may be in the audience." The ban was upheld on the grounds
that broadcasters had a “uniquely pervasive presence in the lives of
all Americans.
(WSJ, 3/24/04, p.A4)(Econ, 7/23/05,
p.14)(http://tinyurl.com/2jeh4j)
1978 Jul 3, The Amazon Pact was
established. Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru,
Suriname, and Venezuela signed the Amazon Pact, a Brazilian
initiative designed to coordinate the joint development of the
Amazon Basin.
(http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Amazon+Pact)
1978 Jul 3, China cut off
economic and technical aid to Vietnam.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)
1979 Jul 3, Dan White,
convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the shooting deaths of San
Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, was
sentenced to seven years and eight months in prison. He served five
years.
(AP, 7/3/9)
1979 Jul 3, Helen Van Slyke,
English writer, died. She left a manuscript that was completed by
James Elward (1929-1996) titled "Public Smiles, Private Tears" that
became a best-seller. It was about a woman’s rise in the world of
retail fashion.
(SFC, 9/2/96, p.A20)(http://tinyurl.com/3bzrf3)
1980 Jul 3, The 15-year-old
Berkeley Barb, founded by Max Scherr, released its final issue in
Berkeley, Ca. Scherr ran the left-wing paper from 1965-1973.
(SFC, 7/1/05, p.F2)
1982 Jul 3, Mumia Abu-Jamal
(b.1954), radio reporter and former Black Panther, was convicted for
the 1981 murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner in Pittsburgh.
Jamal supporters said he was framed. Prosecutors said Jamal shot
Faulkner after seeing the officer struggling with Jamal’s brother,
William Cook, who had been stopped for a traffic violation. In 1996
Jamal was still on death row. In 1999 Gov. Tom Ridge signed a 2nd
death warrant for lethal injection on Dec 2. In December, 2001, a
federal judge affirmed his murder conviction but ordered that
Abu-Jamal should either receive a new sentencing hearing or have his
sentence commuted to life in prison because of an error by the trial
judge in presenting rules of sentencing to the jury (see March 27,
2008).
(SFC, 10/14/99,
p.A3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Mumia_Abu-Jamal)
1984 Jul 3, The US Supreme
Court ruled that Jaycees may be forced to admit women as members.
(http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=468&invol=609)
1984 Jul 3, Raoul Salan
(b.1899), French general, OAS leader (Algeria), died. Salan was one
of the four Generals who organized the 1961 Algiers Putsch
operation, and then founded the Organization armée
secrète (OAS) terrorist group.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Salan)
1986 Jul 3, President Reagan
presided over a gala ceremony in New York Harbor that saw the
relighting of the renovated Statue of Liberty.
(AP, 7/3/97)
1986 Jul 3, Rudy Vallee
(b.1901), singer (Vagabond Dreams), died.
(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=4143)
1987 Jul 3, Two men became the
first hot-air balloon travelers to cross the Atlantic. British
millionaire Richard Branson and Swedish-born Per Lindstrand, the
balloon's designer, were forced to jump into the sea as their craft
went down off the coast of Scotland.
(AP, 7/3/97)
1988 Jul 3, The US Navy USS
Vincennes shot down an Iranian Airbus A-300 in the Persian Gulf from
the cruiser ship Vincennes shortly after it took off from Bandar
Abbas for Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. All 290 people aboard
were killed after the crew of the Vincennes misidentified the plane
as an Iranian F-14 fighter. In 1996 the US paid $131.8 million in
compensation of which half would go directly to the families of the
people killed. Iran filed suit in World Court in 1989 and settled
out of court in Feb, 1996.
(WSJ, 2/23/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 4/26/96, p.A-14)(AP
7/3/97)(AP, 7/03/10)
1989 Jul 3, By a 5-4 decision,
the US Supreme Court upheld abortion restrictions in the state of
Missouri. The court ruled that states do not have to provide funds
for abortions.
(AP, 7/3/9)
1989 Jul 3, The movie "Batman,"
set a record of quickest $100 million (10 days).
(www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/fastest.htm?page=100&p=.htm)
1989 Jul 3, Jim Backus (76),
actor (Magoo, Gilligan's Island), died of pneumonia.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0000822/bio)
1990 Jul 3, In Moscow, Kremlin
hard-liner Yegor K. Ligachev received an enthusiastic reception at a
Communist Party congress as he criticized reforms by President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev, saying perestroika had been marred by
"limitless radicalism."
(AP, 7/3/00)
1990 Jul 3, Maurice Girodias
(b.1919), French publisher, died.
(wwwa.britannica.com/eb/article-9000838?hook=170089)
1991 Jul 3, Former corporate
enemies Apple Computer and IBM publicly joined forces in a broad
pact to swap technologies and develop new machines.
(AP, 7/3/01)
1991 Jul 3, 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.
(AP, 7/3/01)
1992 Jul 3, The president of
Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel, was voted out of office as lawmakers
from Slovakia blocked his re-election in parliament.
(AP, 7/3/97)
1992 Jul 3, Rabbi Marc
Tannenbaum, the only Jew to attend Vatican II, died.
(www.worldofquotes.com/history/7_3/9/)
1993 Jul 3, Steffi Graf of
Germany won her third consecutive Wimbledon title as she defeated
Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic.
(AP, 7/3/98)
1993 Jul 3, Hall of Fame
pitcher Don Drysdale died in Montreal, Canada, at age 56.
(AP, 7/3/98)
1993 Jul 3, Ousted Haitian
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Haiti's military chief, Lt.
Gen. Raoul Cedras, separately signed an accord designed to return
Aristide to power.
(AP, 7/3/98)
1994 Jul 3, Pete Sampras
defeated Goran Ivanisevic to win the Wimbledon men's championship,
7-6, 7-6, 6-0.
(AP, 7/3/9)
1994 Jul 3, Thirty-one people
died in three separate crashes on Texas highways.
(AP, 7/3/9)
1995 Jul 3, Irish Republican
Army sympathizers rioted in Northern Ireland’s two largest cities in
outrage over the early parole of a British soldier convicted of
killing a Roman Catholic woman.
(AP, 7/3/00)
1995
Jul 3, Richard "Pancho" Gonzalez (b.1928), tennis great, died of
stomach cancer in Las Vegas, Nevada.
(www.tennisfame.org/enshrinees/pancho_gonzales.html)
1996 Jul 3, The Clinton
administration awarded a $1 mil grant to the Univ. of Alabama for an
experiment that would test for illicit drug use of everyone arrested
in Birmingham.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A3)
1996 Jul 3, US Secret Service
agents claimed to have broken up an operation by a New York couple
that used monitoring equipment to steal 80,000 cellular phone
numbers and id codes from motorists on an expressway that passed
their apartment building.
(WSJ, 7/3/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 3, Lockheed Martin
Corp. won a $1 bil federal contract to build the next-generation
space shuttle.
(WSJ, 7/3/96, p.A3)
1996 Jul 3, A jokester lit
firecrackers in a fireworks store in Scottown, Ohio. A blaze erupted
and 9 people were killed and 11 injured as they stampeded out.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A3)(AP, 7/3/97)
1996 Jul 3, A federal agency
approved the Union Pacific $5.4 bil acquisition of San Francisco
based Southern Pacific Rail Corp. The merger will eliminate about
3,500 jobs.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 3, Chad’s Pres. Idriss
Deby won 70% of the vote. He defeated Abdelkader Wadal Kamougue, a
southern leader who led coup in 1975. The election was widely seen
as flawed.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/29/01, p.A1)
1996 Jul 3, Russians went to
the polls to re-elect Boris Yeltsin president over his Communist
challenger, Gennady Zyuganov. Boris Yeltsin won the presidential
elections with about 53.7% of the vote. Zyuganov received about
40.4%.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A1)(AP, 7/3/97)
1997 Jul 3, In his first formal
response to Paula Jones' charges of sexual harassment, President
Clinton denied all allegations in her lawsuit and asked a judge to
dismiss the case.
(AP, 7/3/02)
1997 Jul 3, Mississippi became
the 1st state to settle its tobacco suit, less than one week before
the 1st scheduled trial.
(http://tinyurl.com/amlhg)
1997 Jul 3, Lockheed Martin
Corp., the nation's biggest defense contractor, announced its
purchase of Northrop Grumman Corp. for $11.2 billion [$7.9 billion].
However, the merger fell apart over antitrust concerns.
(SFC, 7/4/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/3/02)
1997 Jul 3, The Rainbow Family,
founded in 1971, began their 25th gathering in Ochoco National
Forest in Oregon. 20-30,000 were expected to participate.
(SFC, 7/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 3, Blues guitarist
Johnny Copeland (b.1937), the "Texas Twister," died. His 1985
"Showdown" album with Albert Collins (d.1993) and Robert Cray won a
Grammy for best traditional blues recording.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.C3)
1998 Jul 3, Pres. Clinton ended
his trip to China and praised Pres. Zemin as a man with "good
imagination." Clinton concluded his Far East tour in Hong Kong,
where he challenged leaders to set the pace for rescuing Asia from
the region's financial crisis.
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.A1)(AP, 7/3/9)
1998 Jul 3, A Western Water
Policy Review Commission reported that farms and ranches, which soak
up to 78% of the West’s available water, must give some up to the
growing cities and restore degraded ecosystems.
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul 3, Residents in
northeastern Florida continued to evacuate because of wildfires
closing in from three directions.
(AP, 7/3/9)
1998 Jul 3, The 12th World AIDS
Conference ended in Geneva.
(AP, 7/3/9)
1998 Jul 3, In Colombia rebels
of the ELN freed 15 hostages, members of the army backed civic group
called "Girls of Steel" in a deal brokered by Jose Ramos-Horta of
East Timor.
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.A11)
1998 Jul 3, In Indian-held
Kashmir Pakistani shelling forced over 2,000 villagers to flee and 7
people were reported killed in Dawar.
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.A11)
1998 Jul 3, Serbian forces in
Kosovo broke through a stone blockade near Kijevo.
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.A8)
1998 Jul 3-5, 1998 Vienna
celebrated the 400th anniversary of opera.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, p.T3)
1999 Jul 3, President Clinton,
acting to head off potential problems with the safety of imported
food, said in his weekly radio address he was ordering inspectors at
American ports to brand all unsafe and rejected food products,
"Refused US."
(AP, 7/3/00)
1999 Jul 3, Benjamin Nathaniel
Smith fired at Asians and Blacks in Springfield, and
Champaign-Urbana, Illinois.
(SFC, 7/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Jul 3, In Beijing talks
between the North and South Korea collapsed.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.A22)
1999 Jul 3, A boat smuggling 11
people out of Cuba capsized and one person was killed. Joel Dorta
Garcia (27) and David Garcia Capote (33) were arrested and accused
of charging $8,000 for smuggling each passenger.
(SFC, 8/28/99, p.A11)
1999 Jul 3, In Kosovo British
NATO troops killed 2 ethnic Albanians and wounded 2 others during a
street celebration marking the 9th anniversary of Kosovo's
unrecognized declaration of independence.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.A15)
1999 Jul 3, In Kuwait elections
were held for seats in the 50-member parliament. Only some 113,000
men of the 1.8 million population were allowed to vote. Liberals
raised their number of seats from 4 to 14.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, p.A20)(SFC, 7/5/99, p.A12)
2000 Jul 3, President Clinton
made a congratulatory telephone call to Mexican President-elect
Vicente Fox, a day after Fox’s election.
(AP, 7/3/01)
2000 Jul 3, A 1970’s steel
observation tower that preservationists said had desecrated the
battlefield of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania was demolished.
(AP, 7/3/01)
2000 Jul 3, Harold Nicholas,
younger member of the tap-dancing Nicholas Brothers, died at age 79.
In 2000 Constance Valis Hill authored "Brotherhood in Rhythm: The
Jazz Tap Dancing of the Nicholas Brothers."
(SFC, 7/5/00, p.A19)
2000 Jul 3, In Mexico the
elections showed 42.7% for Vincente Fox, 35.8% for Labastida, and
16.5% for Cardenas.
(SFC, 7/4/00, p.A11)
2000 Jul 3, The Palestinian
leadership said that a Palestinian state would be declared by
September 13.
(SFC, 7/5/00, p.A8)(WSJ, 7/5/00, p.A1)
2001 Jul 3, In Columbus, Ohio,
Brian Dalton (22) was sentenced to 10 years in prison for fiction
writing in his journal about sexually abusing and torturing
children.
(SFC, 7/5/01, p.A4)
2001 Jul 3, General Electric's
$41 billion purchase of Honeywell International was vetoed by the
European Union. It was the first time a merger of two U.S. companies
was stopped solely by European regulators.
(AP, 7/3/02)
2001 Jul 3, The last parts of
the US spy plane in China were flown out.
(SFC, 7/4/01, p.A12)
2001 Jul 3, Mordecai Richler,
Canadian social critic and novelist, died at age 70. His work
included the novel "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" (1959).
(SFC, 7/5/01, p.D3)
2001 Jul 3, In Indonesia a
Christian gang killed 18 Muslims, including women and children, on
the island of Sulawesi.
(SFC, 7/5/01, p.A10)
2001 Jul 3, Muhammad
al-Humaimidi, a high-ranking Iraqi diplomat, asked for asylum in
NYC.
(SFC, 7/4/01, p.A10)
2001 Jul 3, In his first
appearance before a U.N. tribunal at The Hague, Netherlands, former
Yugoslav Pres. Milosevic refused to respond to charges and called
the tribunal illegitimate.
(SFC, 7/4/01, p.A1)(AP, 7/3/02)
2001 Jul 3, In the Philippines
Abu Sayyaf rebels freed 2 hostages and warned the government to
withdraw from Muslim-majority islands or face more kidnappings.
(SFC, 7/4/01, p.A12)
2001 Jul 3, In the Philippines
53 people were left dead in landslides from Typhoon Utor as the
storm moved toward Taiwan.
(WSJ, 7/5/01, p.A1)(SFC, 7/6/01, p.D3)
2001 Jul 3, In Russia Flight
TD-352, a Tu-154 operated by Vladivostok Avia, crashed in Siberia
near the village of Burdakovka. All 143 people aboard were killed.
(SFC, 7/4/01,
p.A10)(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1421072.stm)
2001 Jul 3-2001 Jul 4, A
Russian roundup operation sent an estimated 26,000 Chechen refugees
fleeing to Ingushetia. Lt. Gen. Vladimir Moltenskoi, acting
commander of Russian forces, later acknowledged that his troops
committed widespread crimes during the operation.
(SFC, 7/10/01, p.A8)(SFC, 7/12/01, p.A12)
2001 Jul 3, In Ukraine TV
director Ihor Alexandrov was beaten to death by unknown assailants
in Slaviansk. In 2000 a European court on Human Rights had cleared
him of charges for violating laws on campaign coverage.
(WSJ, 7/9/01, p.A1)(SFC, 7/11/01, p.A8)
2002 Jul 3, The Tennessee
Legislature passed a 1-cent sales tax increase, the highest in state
history, and ended a partial government shutdown.
(SFC, 7/4/02, p.A4)
2002 Jul 3, It was reported
that Operation Xtermination, a drug investigation at Camp Lejeune,
NC, seized over $1.4 million in drugs and convicted over 80 marines
and sailors.
(SFC, 7/3/02, p.A5)
2002 Jul 3, Jean-Marie Messier,
the much-maligned chairman of Vivendi Universal, was formally
removed from his post and replaced by Jean-Rene Fourtou of the
pharmaceutical company Aventis.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2002 Jul 3, Over Australia
balloonist Steve Fossett was forced to spend an extra night in the
air as the winds that helped him become the first person to fly solo
around the world bedeviled the final stage of his voyage.
(Reuters, 7/3/02)
2002 Jul 3, Brazil and Mexico
signed a trade agreement that reduced import duties on some 800
products.
(WSJ, 7/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 3, Chinese police
found Wang Bingzhang, a pro-democracy activist and US resident, in
Guangxi Province. He had been recently kidnapped with 2 others in
Vietnam.
(SFC, 12/21/02, p.A10)
2002 Jul 3, It was reported
that up to 40,000 companies might collapse in Germany this year.
(SFC, 7/3/02, p.A12)
2002 Jul 3, In Georgetown,
Guyana, police opened fire on demonstrators who broke into the
presidential compound, killing two people and wounding six others
during a protest timed to coincide with the start of a Caribbean
summit.
(AP, 7/4/02)
2002 Jul 3, An oil tanker was
reported to have run aground in stormy seas on a reef near Fiji's
popular tourist islands, threatening an ecological disaster if the
cargo leaks.
(Reuters, 7/3/02)
2002 Jul 3, In western Mexico 5
people returning from a political rally, among them a 101-year-old
man, were ambushed and shot to death.
(AP, 7/3/02)
2002 Jul 3, At least 39 people
were killed and more feared dead when landslides caused by Typhoon
Chata'an destroyed houses on the western Pacific island of Chuuk in
Micronesia.
(Reuters, 7/3/02)(WSJ, 7/5/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 3, In Pakistan
security forces killed 4 al Qaeda fighters near the Afghan border at
Germa. 3 security men were killed. A land dispute broke out in
Northern Waziristan near the Afghan border and 21 people were
killed.
(SFC, 7/4/02, p.A10)(SFC, 7/6/02, p.A14)
2002 Jul 3, Peru temporarily
suspended programs to eradicate coca fields and encourage farmers to
grow alternative crops, moves that jeopardize U.S.-backed efforts to
fight the cocaine trade.
(AP, 7/3/02)(SFC, 7/4/02, p.A12)
2002 Jul 3, Swiss authorities
said a collision-warning system was out of service in the Zurich
tower when it took control of a Russian airliner and a cargo jet
shortly before they collided on July 1 at 35,000 feet, killing 71
people, including 45 children headed for an end-of-school beach
holiday. One of 2 required air controllers was on a break.
(AP, 7/3/02)(SFC, 7/4/02, p.A8)
2002 Jul 3, Turkey's jittery
stock market fell again following reports that officials discussed a
moratorium on the nation's $30 billion foreign debt.
(AP, 7/3/02)
2003 Jul 3, The US jobless rate
was reported to have surged to a nine-year high in June as employers
cut 30,000 workers from their payrolls.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, Astronomers said
they have found a Jupiter-like body circling a distant star, dubbed
HD 70642 some 94 light years from Earth, in a planetary system like
ours. The finding was presented at a conference at the Paris
Astrophysics Institute.
(AP, 7/4/03)
2003 Jul 3, The US military
commander in Europe was ordered to begin planning for possible
American intervention in Liberia.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, London's Trafalgar
Square reopened to the public after a $42 million facelift.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, Tens of thousands
of South Korean auto and metal workers staged a half-day walkout to
demand a 40-hour workweek and better working conditions. Most people
worked half a day on Saturdays.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, Indonesia's
military said it killed 15 insurgents in new fighting in Aceh
province, and the rebels said they have detained two local
journalists.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, The US government
put a $25 million bounty on Saddam Hussein and $15 million on his
sons. US troops killed 11 Iraqis who ambushed a convoy outside
Baghdad.
(AP, 7/3/03)(AP, 7/4/03)
2003 Jul 3, Yuri Shchekochikhin
(b.1950), a deputy editor for Russia’s Novaya Gazeta and member of
parliament, died of a mysterious allergic reaction. He had long
campaigned against Boris Yeltsin's war in Chechnya. Friends and
relatives were convinced that he was poisoned.
(WSJ, 12/8/06, p.A12)
2003 Jul 3, In Suweir, Saudi
Arabia, Turki Nasser al-Dandani, the top suspect wanted in the May
12 Riyadh suicide bombing, was killed along with three other
militants in a gunbattle when police raided their hideout.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2003 Jul 3, Slovakia's
parliament approved an amendment to make abortion legal until the
24th week of pregnancy.
(AP, 7/3/03)
2004 Jul 3, Two Estonian
students clinched the country's seventh straight wife-carrying world
championship on Saturday, winning the "wife's" weight in beer and a
sauna.
(AP, 7/4/04)
2004 Jul 3, Insurgents attacked
an Iraqi checkpoint south of the capital, killing five national
guard soldiers and wounding five more.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 3, A statement
attributed to an Iraqi militant group claimed on a Web site that a
captive US Marine had been beheaded. However, the group later denied
the claim; Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun turned up alive five days later.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2004 Jul 3, In the Indian
portion of Kashmir a mountain gunbattle, a time bomb hidden in a
fruit seller's hand cart and a grenade lobbed in a busy market
killed 8 people and wounded 44.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 3, Israeli troops shot
and killed a 9-year-old Palestinian boy in the 5th day of an army
operation meant to prevent militants from firing rockets at Israeli
towns by the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 3, In Nicaragua a week
of heavy rains caused floods and mudslides that claimed 25 lives.
(AP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 3, Tropical storm
Mindulle, the Korean word for dandelion, pushed toward South Korea
after killing at least 31 people in the Philippines and 18 in
Taiwan.
(Reuters, 7/3/04)(AP, 7/4/04)
2004 Jul 3, Andrian Nikolayev
(74), former Soviet cosmonaut died in Cheboksary, Chuvash Autonomous
Republic.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2004 Jul 3, Rwanda reopened its
border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, further reducing
tension between the two countries.
(AFP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 3, Sudan pledged to
disarm Arab militias, known as Janjaweed.
(Reuters, 7/3/04)
2005 Jul 3, Roger Federer won
his third consecutive Wimbledon title by beating Andy Roddick 6-2,
7-6 (2), 6-4.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2005 Jul 3, NASA’s Deep Impact
spacecraft collided with the comet Tempel 1, half the size of
Manhattan, creating a brilliant cosmic smashup that capped a risky
voyage to uncover the building blocks of life on Earth.
(Reuters, 7/4/05)(SFC, 7/4/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 3, Gaylord Nelson
(89), former governor and US senator from Wisconsin, died. He
founded Earth Day (1970), and helped spawn the modern environmental
movement. Nelson was at the center of legislation that resulted in
the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1968), the Clean Air Act (1970), and
passage of the Endangered Species Act.
(AP, 7/3/05)(SFC, 7/4/05, p.A2)
2005 Jul 3, Albanians held
elections for a new parliament.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 3, One of Australia's
12 Apostles has disappeared. One of nine limestone stacks that made
up the famous landmark off Australia's southern coast collapsed into
the Indian Ocean.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 3, In India's Gujarat
state the death toll from floods was raised to 132 people, where 25
million people were affected by the floods.
(AFP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 3, A car bomb killed
three Iraqi policemen north of Baghdad. 2 US soldiers were wounded
in a suicide attack near a checkpoint in the western city of Ramadi.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 3, In Mexico State the
former ruling party (PRI) added momentum for the upcoming
presidential race with a crushing victory.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 3, In Saudi Arabia
security forces killed al-Qaida leader Younis Mohammed Ibrahim
al-Hayari (36), during a fierce gunbattle in eastern Riyadh. The
Moroccan topped the nation's list of most-wanted militants.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2005 Jul 3, In St. Lucia
leaders of the Caribbean Community, began to hold a four-day summit
with only three of 15 members, Trinidad, Jamaica and Barbados,
saying they are ready to join a single market that would eliminate
tariffs and ease migration for skilled workers and professionals in
the region.
(AP, 7/2/05)
2005 Jul 3, Syrian’s new agency
SANA reported that security forces had killed an Arab extremist who
was trying to illegally cross into neighboring Lebanon with other
suspected militants. 2 Syrian soldiers were also killed in the
clash.
(AP, 7/3/05)
2006 Jul 3, Former Private
Steven D. Green was charged in federal court in Charlotte, N.C.,
with raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl (Abeer Qassim al-Janabi) and
killing her (March 11), her parents and sister. Four members of
Green's unit were charged as well; one later pleaded guilty and was
sentenced to 100 years in prison.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2006 Jul 3, A US federal judge
issued a temporary retraining order barring the Navy from using a
type of high-intensity sonar that could harm marine animals during
war games that began last week in the Pacific Ocean. On July 7 the
US Navy and environmental groups agreed on a settlement which
prevented the Navy from using the sonar within 25 miles of the newly
established Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument
during the exercises.
(SFC, 7/3/06, p.A3)(SFC, 7/8/06, p.A4)
2006 Jul 3, Benjamin
Hendrickson (55), an Emmy Award-winning actor on the "As the World
Turns" soap opera, was found dead of suicide with a gunshot to the
head in his Long Island home.
(AP, 7/7/06)
2006 Jul 3, Jack Smith
(b.1913), singer and TV host for “You Asked for It,” died at his
home in southern California. In 1958 he replaced Art Baker, who
created the show in 1950.
(SFC, 7/11/06, p.B4)
2006 Jul 3, A US general said
the United States is giving $2 billion worth of military weapons and
vehicles to modernize Afghanistan's national army.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, Judges and
prosecutors from Cambodia and abroad were sworn in to begin the
UN-backed judicial process to try former Khmer Rouge leaders for
genocide and crimes against humanity.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, China's new train
from Beijing to Tibet arrived in the ancient capital of Lhasa,
ending its maiden journey after climbing to elevations so high that
ballpoint pens and packaged foods burst.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, It was reported
that 579 Cubans had entered the US over the last 9 months by landing
on Puerto Rico’s Mona Island, 40 miles from the coast of the
Dominican Rep.
(SFC, 7/3/06, p.A8)
2006 Jul 3, Iraq’s parliament
convened despite a boycott by Sunni Arab legislators protesting a
colleague's abduction. Bombs struck markets north and south of
Baghdad, with nationwide attacks killing at least 10 people and
wounding dozens.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, Nissan Motor Co.
approved opening talks with General Motors Corp. over a possible
alliance.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, In India's
Jammu-Kashmir state clashes between Indian government forces and
suspected Islamic separatist militants killed 13 people.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, Two bitter rivals
declared themselves Mexico's next president, sparking fears of
violence. Electoral officials said they wouldn't name a winner until
a vote-by-vote hand count.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, In northwestern
Pakistan an explosion hit a bus carrying paramilitary troops,
killing at least 6 soldiers and wounding 5 others.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, Palestinian
militants holding an Israeli soldier gave Israel less than 24 hours
to start releasing 1,500 Palestinian prisoners and implied that he
would be killed if it did not comply, but Israel said it would not
negotiate.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, A subway train
derailed in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia, killing 43 people.
"Initial investigations show it was an accident," said Vicente
Rambla, spokesman for the Valencia regional government.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2006 Jul 3, At least seven
people were killed and dozens wounded in three Claymore mine attacks
carried out by Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka's northern and
eastern regions.
(AFP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 3, Sudan's foreign
minister rejected calls by the top UN envoy in the country to make
additions to a peace deal for Darfur after widespread rejection of
the accord. A group of Sudanese rebels in more than 50 cars attacked
the town of Hamarat Sheikh in the Kordofan region of Darfur. At
least a dozen people were killed. In southern Sudan at least six
people were killed and 11 wounded when gunmen ambushed a German aid
agency vehicle. Witnesses said the attackers, some of whom were
uniformed, were rebel fighters with the LRA.
(Reuters, 7/3/06)(AP, 7/5/06)(AFP, 7/5/06)
2007 Jul 3, President Bush
refused to rule out an eventual pardon for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby
after already commuting his prison sentence in the CIA leak case.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2007 Jul 3, A Los Angeles jury
awarded $6.2 million to firefighter Brenda Lee, who said she was
harassed by colleagues because she is black and a lesbian. The
harassment she said included someone mixing urine with her
mouthwash.
(AP, 7/4/07)
2007 Jul 3, Hilton Hotels Corp.
said it has agreed to be acquired by the Blackstone Group LP for
$18.5 billion in cash. The deal was valued at $26 billion including
debt.
(SFC, 7/4/07, p.C1)
2007 Jul 3, Boots Randolph
(80), tenor sax player, died in Nashville, Tenn. His 1963 hit
“Yakety Sax, written with guitarist James Rich,” became the theme
song for television’s “The Benny Hill Show.”
(SFC, 7/4/07, p.B5)
2007 Jul 3, Afghan and NATO
forces clashed with Taliban militants in the southern Zhari district
of Kandahar overnight, leaving 33 suspected insurgents dead. US-led
coalition troops killed a suspected militant and detained two others
during an operation in eastern Afghanistan. Yousuf Ibrahim
(35), from Saudi Arabia, was detained after a brief scuffle with
police in Kabul. He had spent the last 8 years in Afghanistan,
fighting alongside the Taliban.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, British police
focused on at least four physicians with roots outside Britain,
including a doctor seized at an Australian airport with a one-way
ticket, in the investigation into failed car bombings in Glasgow and
London.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, The US-made film
"Nanking," documenting eyewitness accounts of atrocities committed
by Japanese troops in China during World War Two, opened in Beijing.
(Reuters, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, China issued
guidelines restricting organ transplants for foreigners, giving
priority to Chinese patients in the government's latest effort to
regulate procedures that have been criticized as profit-driven and
unethical. Officials said that Chinese inspectors have found
excessive amounts of additives and preservatives in dozens of
children's snacks and seized hundreds of bottles of fake human blood
protein from hospitals.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, In Germany striking
train drivers brought parts of the rail network to a standstill,
backing their demands for a large pay increase with a walkout that
affected tens of thousands of commuters.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, In Ghana African
leaders vowed to speed up the economic and political integration of
their continent to pursue the goal of a United States of Africa, but
they also agreed to study more closely how to achieve it.
(Reuters, 7/4/07)
2007 Jul 3, Indonesia barred
Eni Faleomavaega, the Democrat congressman for American Samoa, from
visiting Papua, but has denied the move is to cover up alleged human
rights abuses in the remote region. Faleomavaega has been a critic
of Jakarta's policies in Papua.
(Reuters, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, Iran's leading
reformist daily newspaper was ordered closed, less than two months
after it was allowed to resume publishing.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, PM Nouri
al-Maliki's Cabinet approved a draft oil law. In Baghdad, an Iraqi
army lieutenant colonel and an Interior Ministry intelligence
officer were killed in separate drive-by shootings. A car bomb hit
the convoy of an Iraqi police colonel in Kirkuk, killing two
passers-by and wounding 17. Oras Mohammed Abdul-Aziz was executed by
hanging for his role in the August, 2003, blast that killed Shiite
leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim and 84 other people.
(AP, 7/3/07)(AP, 7/6/07)
2007 Jul 3, A human rights
group said Kurdish security forces in northern Iraq routinely
torture detainees with methods including electric shock and hold
them in overcrowded facilities without formal charges or access to
legal aid.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, Fumio Kyuma,
Japan's defense minister, resigned under an avalanche of criticism
for suggesting that the United States was justified in dropping
atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because the attacks saved
Japan from a Soviet invasion.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, Pakistani security
forces clashed with militants outside the radical Lal Masjid mosque
in Islamabad, where students have carried out a string of
kidnappings of police officers and alleged prostitutes, killing at
least 9 people.
(SFC, 7/4/07, p.A5)
2007 Jul 3, South Korea enacted
legislation to remove bureaucratic barriers in the security industry
and help brokers, banks and insurers to consolidate. To date no
foreign had listed on the Seoul stock exchange.
(Econ, 7/14/07, p.78)
2007 Jul 3, Spanish PM Jose
Luis Rodriguez Zapatero promised that every child born in Spain
would receive a baby bonus of €2,500, according to national press
reports.
(Econ, 2/16/08, p.59)(http://piurl.com/5i)
2007 Jul 3, The Alinghi team
from Switzerland successfully defended sailing's coveted America's
Cup, beating Emirates Team New Zealand 5-2.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2007 Jul 3, Venezuela’s energy
minister said in newly published comments that Venezuela has agreed
to sell gasoline to Iran.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, President Hugo
Chavez said his government will nationalize Venezuela's privately
owned hospitals and clinics if they fail to reduce health care
costs.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2008 Jul 3, Phillip Bennett,
the former chief executive of Refco, was sentenced to 16 years in
prison for fleecing investors of more than $2.4 billion in a fraud
that destroyed the world's largest independent commodities broker.
(Reuters, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, Larry Harmon (83)
wasn't the original Bozo the Clown, but he was the real one. Harmon,
who portrayed the wing-haired clown for more than half a century,
died of congestive heart failure.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 3, US employers cut
payrolls by 62,000 in June, the sixth straight month of nationwide
job losses, underscoring the economy's fragile state. The
unemployment rate held steady at 5.5 percent.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, Vodafone Group PLC
said it planned to acquire a 70% stake in Ghana Telecom Co. for $900
million.
(WSJ, 7/5/08, p.B6)
2008 Jul 3, In Afghanistan
gunmen lobbed a grenade and sprayed a police checkpoint with gunfire
in the southern Kandahar province, killing eight officers. A
roadside blast next to a police vehicle in central Ghazni province
killed two officers and wounded five others. In eastern Paktika
province, Afghan and foreign troops killed seven suspected militants
during a clash near the Pakistan border. Afghan security forces
seized 1.4 tons of opium in western Afghanistan near the border with
Iran.
(AP, 7/4/08)(AFP, 7/5/08)
2008 Jul 3, Top Bolivian and US
officials sought to heal their nations' strained relations in their
first meeting since a raucous protest outside the American embassy
sent the US ambassador back to Washington for security
consultations.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, Former Congolese
rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba arrived in the Netherlands to face
war crimes charges before the International Criminal Court.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, The Cypriot
parliament approved the European Union treaty, making Cyprus the
20th EU member to ratify the document aimed at streamlining
decision-making in the bloc.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 3, In El Salvador a
bus carrying members of an evangelical church was swept off a bridge
in San Salvador. 29 bodies were recovered the next day.
(SFC, 7/4/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 3, Lydia Lassen-Berge
(69), a former prostitute dubbed the "Black Widow" by the German
press, was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of four
wealthy but frail elderly male companions. Siegmund Schlufter (53),
her accomplice, was sentenced to 12 years in jail for carrying out
the killings.
(AFP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, In Indonesia a
police source said that a group of 10 suspected Muslim militants
detained in raids on Sumatra island by Indonesia's anti-terrorism
unit was plotting to attack Western targets. The raids followed the
capture of a suspected militant after a tip-off by authorities in
Singapore.
(Reuters, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, It was reported
that Italian authorities have started fingerprinting tens of
thousands of Gypsies living in nomad camps across the country,
brushing aside accusations of racism by human rights advocates and
international organizations. The Interior Ministry said prints will
only be taken from people who do not have a valid Italian or EU
document.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, In the southern
Philippines suspected communist guerrillas launched a series of
attacks, lobbing a grenade that killed three people and raiding a
police station and a gold mining company.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, In southeastern
Slovenia two canoes were crushed running over a dam. The next day
divers pulled seven bodies out of the Sava River and fought strong
currents to search for five other people still missing.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 3, South Korea's
president called for an end to a long-running dispute over American
beef imports, saying it was time for the nation to concentrate
instead on overcoming its economic difficulties.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 3, In Sri Lanka a wave
of battles in Mannar, Vavuniya and Welioya killed 32 rebels and two
soldiers.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 3, A group of around
200 Zimbabweans gathered outside the US embassy in Harare, pleading
for political asylum and food after being displaced in recent
election violence.
(AFP, 7/3/08)
2009 Jul 3, Alaska Gov. Sarah
Palin announced her decision to leave office more than a year early,
effective July 26. The announcement left open the possibility of a
presidential run.
(AP, 7/4/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Washington state
federal agents said they have arrested 31 people and busted a drug
trafficking ring that was directed by a cartel in Jalisco, Mexico.
The 2-week Operation Arctic Chill seized 23 guns including a .50
Desert Eagle pistol and an AK-47-type assault rifle.
(SFC, 7/4/09, p.A5)
2009 Jul 3, The “Dog Days of
Summer” officially begin and continue to August 11. This period got
its name from the Egyptian belief that the Dog Star, Sirius, added
heat to Earth as it rose and fell with the sun during this period.
(SFC, 7/3/09, p.D8)
2009 Jul 3, US Marines moved
into villages in Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan,
meeting little resistance as they tried to win over local chiefs on
the second day of the biggest military operation here since the fall
of the Taliban government in 2001. In southeast Afghanistan two US
soldiers were killed when their base came under attack. The attack
included an attempted suicide truck bombing of the base in the Zirok
district of southeastern Paktika province. As many as 30 Taliban
insurgents might have been killed when troops called in air strikes.
(AP, 7/3/09)(AP, 7/6/09)
2009 Jul 3, Algeria, Niger and
Nigeria signed an accord to build a 10-billion-dollar trans-Saharan
gas pipeline linking vast reserves in Nigeria to Europe.
(AFP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 3, Australia announced
a 155 million US dollar package for isolated Aboriginal communities,
after a new report revealed shocking levels of child abuse among the
downtrodden minority.
(AFP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Brazil prison
guards foiled a new attempt to smuggle a cell phone into Danilo
Pinheiro prison near the city of Sorocaba by a carrier pigeon
wearing a tiny backpack. Police said that the practice is becoming
almost commonplace.
(AP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 3, In London a fire
ripped through the 12-story Lakanal House block of Sceaux Gardens
Estate, a 1960s-era public housing block in south London,
killing six people including a newborn baby.
(AFP, 7/4/09)
2009 Jul 3, Ayatollah Ahmad
Jannati, a top Iranian cleric, said that some of the detained
Iranian staffers of the British Embassy in Tehran will be put on
trial, and he accused Britain of a role in instigating widespread
protests that erupted over the country's disputed presidential
election.
(AP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Kashmir police
used batons and tear gas to break up fresh anti-India protests, with
more than two dozen people injured in the clashes in Srinagar and
Baramullah.
(AFP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Libya
peacekeepers in Somalia and the war crimes warrant for Sudan's
president dominated the final day of an African Union summit, after
a late-night compromise on a new regional authority. Africa's
leaders agreed to denounce the International Criminal Court and
refuse to extradite Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, who has been
indicted for crimes against humanity in Darfur.
(AFP, 7/3/09)(AP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Mexico City
kidnappers opened fire with AK-47 assault rifles during an attempted
rescue of the victim. The rescue failed with catastrophic errors.
When police fired back, two commanders, including the chief of the
city's elite rapid response force, were shot from behind by their
own officers. Meanwhile, one of the kidnappers inside the home
fatally shot Yolanda Ceballos (50) before killing himself. Seven
other kidnappers were captured. Anti-kidnapping chief Juan Maya
Aviles was later suspended.
(AP, 8/21/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Pakistan US
missiles slammed into the hideout of Taliban commander Noor Wali,
allied to warlord Baitullah Mehsud in the tribal belt in South
Waziristan. Another missile strike hit an insurgent communications
center in Kokat Khel. The strikes reportedly killed a total of 17
people. Pakistani warplanes bombed suspected militant hide-outs,
killing at least four insurgents and wounding seven others. The
Pakistani military said at least 13 militants and four local
tribesmen were killed over the last 24 hours in the districts of
Swat and Dir. A Pakistani helicopter crash killed 26 security
personnel on the mountainous border of the Orakzai and Khyber ethnic
Pashtun tribal regions. The Taliban claimed responsibility, but a
senior security official said the military MI-17 helicopter had
crashed due to a technical fault. Ehsan, alias Abu Jandal, a
mid-level Taliban commander, was killed in Qambar area.
(AFP, 7/3/09)(AP, 7/3/09)(AFP, 7/4/09)(SFC,
7/4/09, p.A3)(AFP, 7/5/09)
2009 Jul 3, A top Kremlin aide
said Russia will allow the US to ship weapons across its territory
to Afghanistan, in a gesture aimed at bolstering US military
operations and improving strained ties between Washington and
Moscow.
(AP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Sudan gunmen
kidnapped an Irish and Ugandan women from the office of the Irish
aid group Goal in the North Darfur city of Kutum. A Sudanese
watchman was also seized before being released later. Arab tribes
supported by the government were implicated. Sharon Commins (33) and
her Ugandan colleague, Hilda Kuwuki (42), were released on Oct 18.
(AFP, 7/4/09)(AP, 10/18/09)(AFP, 10/24/09)
2009 Jul 3, Sudanese police
arrested 13 women in a raid on a Khartoum cafe for wearing trousers
in violation of the country's strict Islamic law. 10 of them were
flogged inside a Khartoum police station. One of those arrested,
journalist Lubna Hussein, said she is challenging the charges, which
can be punishable by up to 40 lashes.
(AP, 7/13/09)(AP, 7/21/09)
2009 Jul 3, The head of
Venezuela's telecommunications regulatory agency said that 240 radio
stations will have their licenses revoked for failing to update
their registrations with the government. The government now controls
six television channels, including the Caracas-based international
network Telesur, two national radio networks and other smaller media
outlets including 600 radio stations and 72 community TV stations.
(AP, 7/3/09)
2010 Jul 3, The US government
said it is handing out nearly $2 billion for new solar plants that
President Barack Obama says will create thousands of jobs and
increase the use of renewable energy sources.
(AP, 7/3/10)
2010 Jul 3, In the Gulf of
Mexico a Taiwanese converted tanker, dubbed "A Whale" and billed as
the world's largest oil skimmer, arrived from Portugal in the Gulf
of Mexico for testing. Officials hoped it would scrub 21 million
gallons of oil-tainted seawater per day. The US Coast Guard later
said it was too big to maneuver around the smaller patches and
ribbons of oil.
(AP, 7/03/10)(SSFC, 7/4/10, p.A8)(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 3, The US Drug
Enforcement Administration said it has helped seize a submarine
capable of transporting tons of cocaine. DEA officials said that the
diesel electric-powered submarine was constructed in a remote jungle
and captured near a tributary close to the Ecuador-Colombia border.
Ecuadorean authorities seized the sub before it could make its
maiden voyage. The sophisticated camouflaged vessel has a conning
tower, periscope and air-conditioning system. It measured about
nine-feet-high from the deck plates to the ceiling and stretched
nearly a 100 feet long. The DEA says it was built for trans-oceanic
drug trafficking.
(AP, 7/3/10)
2010 Jul 3, The British
government said it has ordered many ministries to plan for spending
cuts of up to 40%, far greater than announced in an emergency
budget. As Britain bid to slash a record budget deficit, departments
had been warned to expect spending cuts of about 25%, but many
ministries have now been asked to identify where cuts of 40% could
be made.
(AFP, 7/3/10)
2010 Jul 3, In Northumbria,
England, Raoul Moat (37), a nightclub bouncer and bodybuilder,
seriously injured a policeman and his ex-girlfriend and killed her
new partner in and around Newcastle, before apparently fleeing to
the nearby Northumbria National Park. One of Britain's biggest ever
manhunts ended dramatically on July 10 when Raoul Moat shot himself
dead after a six-hour stand-off with armed police.
(AP, 7/9/10)(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 3, It was reported
that checkpoints in Iraq, set up for fighting insurgents, have
turned into shady customs stations where police demand a $9 bribe if
a lorry driver’s papers are in order and multiples of that if not.
(Econ, 7/3/10, p.46)
2010 Jul 3, In Kyrgyzstan Roza
Otunbayeva was sworn in as president. She would hold office for 18
months and would be ineligible to stand for election.
(SSFC, 7/4/10, p.A3)(Econ, 7/3/10, p.42)
2010 Jul 3, In Nigeria gunmen
attacked two cargo vessels off the coast of the oil-producing Niger
Delta, killing one crew member and kidnapping 12 foreign workers.
The crew members were seized near Bonny in southern Rivers state.
The military believe they were from eastern Europe. The workers were
freed 2 days later along with three sailors taken hostage in May.
(Reuters, 7/3/10)(AFP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 3, In Syria, Mohammed
Oudeh (73), the key planner of the 1972 Munich Olympics attack that
killed 11 Israeli athletes, died.
(AP, 7/3/10)
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