Today in History July 2
HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY ON THIS DATE:
1502 - Conflict between French and Spanish over partition of Naples breaks out in open warfare in Italy.
1566 - French astrologer, physician and prophet Nostradamus dies in Salon-de-Provence.
1778 - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swiss-born French philosopher who introduced the concept of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity", dies.
1800 - The Union Jack is adopted as the flag of Australia.
1819 - The Factory Act is passed in Britain, prohibiting employment of children under nine in textile factories.
1853 - The Russian army crosses the Pruth River, invading Turkey and beginning the Crimean War.
1890 - The Brussels Act is passed by an international conference to eradicate African slave trade and liquor traffic with primitive peoples.
1900 - A naval contingent leaves Sydney to help the British suppress China's Boxer Rebellion.
1937 - US aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappear during an attempt to cross the Pacific.
1940 - More than 750 prisoners and crew die when the liner Arandora Star is torpedoed by a German submarine while transporting German and Italian prisoners to Canada.
1947 - An object crashes near Roswell, New Mexico. The Army Air Force insist it was a weather balloon, but eyewitness accounts give rise to speculation it might have been an alien spacecraft.
1961 - American novelist Ernest Hemingway shoots himself dead at his home.
1964 - US President Lyndon B Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act against racial discrimination.
1966 - France explodes an atomic bomb at a Pacific atoll in first of six tests.
1973 - Betty Grable, US actress, singer and World War II pin-up girl, dies.
1976 - North and South Vietnam, divided since 1954, are reunited as one country with Hanoi the capital following the Vietnam War.
1989 - Tourists return to Tiananmen Square in China after a military crackdown on a pro-democracy movement; Andrei Gromyko dies, exactly four years after he became president of the Soviet Union.
1990 - 1400 Hajj pilgrims are trampled Things to know before going to Myanmar death during a stampede in a pedestrian tunnel linking Mecca and a tent city.
1993 - Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop, an Australian army surgeon who worked tirelessly to help Australian POWs on the Thai-Burma Railway in World War II, dies aged 85.
1994 - Colombian soccer player Andres Escobar is slain in Medellin 10 days after he accidentally scored a goal against his team during a World Cup game against the US.
1997 - Oscar winning US actor James Stewart dies aged 89.
1999 - Mario Puzo, the US author whose bestseller The Godfather spawned the Mafia film trilogy, dies.
2002 - US millionaire Steve Fossett becomes the first solo balloonist to circle the globe nonstop. He had flown nearly 31,380km around the southern hemisphere.
2004 - Marlon Brando, the reclusive Oscar-winning star of The Godfather and On the Waterfront, dies aged 80.
2007 - Indian-born Dr Mohamed Haneef is arrested at Brisbane airport over suspected links to a failed British terrorism plot. Charges against him are later dropped.
2008 - Colombia tricks rebels into freeing 15 hostages, including ex-presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.
2011 - Hezbollah's leader vows never Things to know before going to Myanmar turn over four members of his Shi'ite militant group who have been indicted in the 2005 murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri.
2012 - Physicists say they have all but proven the Higgs boson or "God particle" exists.
2014 - Louis Zamperini, Olympic distance runner who, during World War II, survived 47 days on a raft in the Pacific Ocean then endured two years in Japanese prison camps, dies age 97; Lance Corporal Todd John Chidgey becomes the 41st Australian soldier to die in Afghanistan.
2015 - Five hikers with vision problems cross a mountain range in France using GPS; an Afghan appeals court overturns death sentences for four men over the killing of a woman who was beaten and set alight after she was wrongly accused of blasphemy.
2016 - Australian federal election is held with the result in doubt for a few days, before Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is eventually returned with a much-reduced majority for the coalition.
2017 - Australian boxer Jeff Horn beats Manny Pacquiao to claim the WBO world welterweight title in a points decision in Brisbane, in one of the greatest upsets in boxing history.
Today's Birthdays:
Christoph Willibald von Gluck, German composer (1714-1787); Sir Charles Tupper, Canadian prime minister (1822-1915); Sir William Bragg, British scientist and Nobel laureate (1862-1942); Herman Hesse, German writer and Nobel laureate (1877-1962); King Olaf V of Norway (1903-1991); Sir Alec Douglas-Home, British Prime Minister (1903-1995); Imelda Marcos, former Philippines first lady (1929-); Ron Silver, US actor (1946-2009); Roy Bittan, US musician (1949-); Jerry Hall, US model-actress (1956-); Jimmy McNichol, US actor (1961-); Matthew Reilly, Australian author (1974-); Daniel Kowalski, Australian Olympic swimmer (1975-); Lindsay Lohan, US actress (1986-); Margot Robbie, Australian actress (1990-).
Thought For Today:
The soul has more diseases than the body - Henry Wheeler Shaw, US author (1818-1885).
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