On this day .....

July 4

1776 - The Declaration of Independence, was adopted by the Continental Congress. The 13 American colonies thereby severed their political connections to Great Britain. The Declaration summarized the colonists' motivations for seeking independence.

1863 - Vicksburg. The Siege of Vicksburg which began on May 18, 1863, ended. The surrender of the Confederate defenders was a decisive Union victory that divided the Confederacy. The 47-day siege gave control of the Mississippi River to the Union, a critical supply line, and was part of the Union’s Anaconda Plan to cut off outside trade to the Confederacy. Coupled with the defeat at Gettysburg the day before, the South would not launch a major offensive for the remainder of the war.

1863 - Gettysburg. On the evening of July 4, the Lee's Army of Northern Virginia began a retreat back to Virginia. Total losses of both sides have been estimated to be between 50,000 to 53,000 men. The Union army had also been weakened and was not in a position to pursue the retreating Confederates.
 
OTD 1789 - a mob storms the Bastille
The symbolic start to changes that would sweep a continent

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July 14

1789 - France had been moving quickly toward revolution. Bernard-René Jordan de Launay, the military governor of the Bastille, feared that his fortress would be a target for the revolutionaries. On July 12, royal authorities transferred 250 barrels of gunpowder to the Bastille, and Launay brought his men into the massive fortress and raised its two drawbridges.

At dawn on July 14, a great crowd armed with muskets, swords, and various makeshift weapons began to gather around the Bastille. Launay’s men were able to hold the mob back, but as more and more Parisians were converging on the Bastille, Launay raised a white flag of surrender over the fortress. Launay was taken to the Hotel de Ville, where he was to be arrested and tried by a revolutionary council, but instead, he was pulled away by a mob and murdered.

The capture of the Bastille symbolized the end of the "ancien regime" and provided the French revolutionary cause with an irresistible momentum. In 1792, the monarchy was abolished resulting in Louis and his wife Marie-Antoinette being sent to the guillotine and beheaded for treason in 1793. Thus, the French annually celebrate "Bastille Day" on July 14.

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July 14

1798 - The Sedition Act was passed by the Federalist dominated 5th United States Congress and signed into law by President Adams. The Act criminalized making false statements that were critical of the federal government. The Sedition Act expired on March 3, 1801.
 
Joe Fan said:
According to my paternal grandmother, there is some Austrian in there somewhere. Not that I am proud of it.
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My family's markers show German, Norwegian, Danish origins along with some British. Probably got the Nordic markers from the relatives from York in Britain since it was sacked by the Norsemen and became a Norse area some 1200 years ago. Spent time with the British and German relations, and lived in Norway for awhile. They all have great stories. Not all of the one's we've traced back had savory pasts nor were they all choir-boys or girls. But it is our Heritage, I am proud of it. I take the good with the bad. You are related to the Austrian royal line, and I find that fascinating!
 
BevoJoe said:
My family's markers show German, Norwegian, Danish origins along with some British. Probably got the Nordic markers from the relatives from York in Britain since it was sacked by the Norsemen and became a Norse area some 1200 years ago. Spent time with the British and German relations, and lived in Norway for awhile. They all have great stories. Not all of the one's we've traced back had savory pasts nor were they all choir-boys or girls. But it is our Heritage, I am proud of it. I take the good with the bad. You are related to the Austrian royal line, and I find that fascinating!
Click to expand...

Hitler was also Austrian, so there's that
 
July 19

1799 - During Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign, a French soldier discovers a black basalt slab inscribed with ancient writing near the town of Rosetta, about 35 miles east of Alexandria. The irregularly shaped stone contained fragments of passages written in three different scripts: Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Egyptian demotic. The ancient Greek on the Rosetta Stone told archaeologists that it was inscribed by priests honoring the king of Egypt, Ptolemy V, in the second century B.C. More startlingly, the Greek passage announced that the three scripts were all of identical meaning. The artifact thus held the key to solving the riddle of hieroglyphics, a written language that had been “dead” for nearly 2,000 years.
 
July 20

1969 - At 10:56 p.m. EDT, American astronaut Neil Armstrong, 240,000 miles from Earth, speaks these words to more than a billion people listening at home: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” Stepping off the lunar landing module Eagle, Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon.

1944 - Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia. The name Operation Valkyrie—originally referring to part of the conspiracy—has become associated with the entire event.
 
in 1863 we lost a GIANT as Gen. Sam Houston passed away in Huntsville.

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from Robert Hurst on the Republic of Texas/History facebook page:

157 years ago today (July 26, 1863) the greatest man in Texas history passed away at the age of 70 in Huntsville, TX: Sam Houston. He lead the revolutionaries in their decisive battle for freedom from Mexico at the Battle of San Jacinto. He is the only man in American history to be the governor of two states (Tennessee, 1 term and Texas, 2 terms), a U.S. Congressman (Representative from Tennessee, Senator from Texas), a member of the Texas House of Representatives and president of an independent nation (Republic of Texas). He loved Texas so much that his dying words to his wife were "Texas, Margaret! Texas!" God bless Sam Houston!
 
August 1

1966 - After stabbing his mother and his wife to death the night before, Charles Whitman, a former Marine, took rifles and other weapons to the observation deck atop the Main Building tower at the University of Texas at Austin, then opened fire indiscriminately. He fatally shot three people inside the UT Tower. He then went to the tower's 28th-floor observation deck, where he fired at random people for some 96 minutes, killing an additional 11 people (including an unborn child), and wounding 31 others before he was shot dead by Austin police officers. Whitman killed a total of 17 people; the 17th victim died 35 years later from injuries sustained in the attack.
 
OTD 1923 -- Warren Harding’s dog Laddie Boy looking out a White House window, waiting for the boss to come home, which would never happen

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^ I was there. Loved Ryan getting Ventura in the head hold.
Greatest on field fight I ever saw
I didn't realize Rodriguez ran to defend Nolan. Love seeing it now
 
LousianaHorn said:
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August 4th, 1968..........Any oldtimers able to make this show in Houston?
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I saw him in the summer of that year in San Antonio at the Municipal Auditorium. As I recall, through the fog of time and all the marijuana smoke in the auditorium that night, the show was kind of a disappointment. He didn't exactly set the world on fire, as Eric Burdon sang. I don't think he had the right drug combo going that night
 
Clean said:
I saw him in the summer of that year in San Antonio at the Municipal Auditorium. As I recall, through the fog of time and all the marijuana smoke in the auditorium that night, the show was kind of a disappointment. He didn't exactly set the world on fire, as Eric Burdon sang. I don't think he had the right drug combo going that night
Click to expand...

I saw him in Dallas in August (I think it was the 3rd maybe?) of '68. Pot smoke was pretty thick around that place as well.
 
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August 6

1945 - 75 Years ago today, during World War II, the U.S. B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb code-named “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, Japan, resulting in an estimated 70,000 deaths instantly and another 200,000 within five years. Photo taken one hour after detonation of the bomb.

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1945.........The 2nd Atomic Bomb, a more powerful Plutonium based instead of Uranium based version is detonated over Nagasaki Japan killing between 39 to 80 thousand people.

1969.......the Manson family strikes as they viciously murder Sharon Tate and 4 others in a Los Angeles Mansion..........that house had previously belonged to record producer who a turned down Manson for a record deal and was the reason it was chosen.
 
LousianaHorn said:
1969.......the Manson family strikes as they viciously murder Sharon Tate and 4 others in a Los Angeles Mansion..........that house had previously belonged to record producer who a turned down Manson for a record deal and was the reason it was chosen.
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Worked with a lady who lived three or four houses down from Sharon Tate when she was 7 or 8 years old, and remembers the murders. She watched the bodies being toted out of the house.
 
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