July 3

July 3rd is the 184th day of the year (185th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 181 days remaining.

Events

323 - Battle of Adrianople Constantine the Great defeats Licinius, who flees to Byzantium
1608 - Quebec City founded by Samuel de Champlain.
1844 - The last pair of Great Auks is killed.
1866 - Austro-Prussian War decided at [[Battle of K�niggratz]], resulting in Prussia taking over as the prominent German nation from Austria.
1890 - Idaho is admitted as the 43rd U.S. state.
1898 - First solo circumnavigation of the globe completed by Joshua Slocum from Briar Island Nova Scotia
1938 - World record for a steam railway locomotive is set in England, by the "Mallard", which reaches a speed of 203 km/h (126 mph).
1962 - Algeria becomes independent after 132 years of French rule.
1964 - President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits segregation in public places.
1970 - A British chartered jetliner crashes near Barcelona, Spain killing 112
1988 - United States Navy warship USS Vincennes shoots down an Iran Air Airbus A300 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.
2001 - A Vladivostokavia Tupolev TU-154 jetliner crashes on approach to landing at Irkutsk, Russia killing 145

1728 - Robert Adam, architect (+ 1792)
1854 - Leos Janacek, Czech composer (+ 1928)
1870 - Richard Bedford Bennett, eleventh Prime Minister of Canada (+ 1947)
1875 - Ferdinand Sauerbruch, surgeon (+ 1951)
1883 - Franz Kafka, writer (+ 1924)
1893 - Mississippi John Hurt (+ 1966)
1906 - George Sanders, actor (+ 1972)
1909 - Stavros Spiros Niarchos, ship owner (+ 1996)
1913 - Dorothy Kilgallen, newspaper columnist, early television personality (+ 1965)
1927 - Ken Russell, director: Altered States, Gothic, Tommy
1928 - G�nter Bruno Fuchs, writer (+ 1977)
1934 - Manfred Bieler, writer
1935 - Harrison Schmitt, astronaut
1937 - Tom Stoppard, playwright: The Real Thing, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,, screenwriter: Billy Bathgate, Shakespeare in Love
1946 - Leszek Miller, Prime Minister of Poland
1947 - Betty Buckley, actress
1951 - Richard Hadlee, New Zealand cricketer
1962 - Tom Cruise, actor: Mission Impossible, Jerry Maguire, Eyes Wide Shut, Magnolia
1964 - Joanne Harris, author

1914 - Joseph Chamberlain, British politician
1918 - Sultan Mehmed V of the Ottoman Empire
1935 - [[Andr� Citro�n]], automobile pioneer
1969 - Brian Jones, rock and roll musician, member of the Rolling Stones found dead in his swimming pool. He had probably died the previous night.
1971 - Jim Morrison, singer - The Doors
1979 - Louis Durey, composer, member of Les Six
1986 - Rudy Vallee, singer
1989 - Jim Backus, actor
1995 - Pancho Gonzales, tennis professional
1998 - Danielle Bunten Berry, a.k.a. Dan Bunten, software developer
2001 - Mordecai Richler, author

See Also:

July 2 - July 4 - June 3 - August 3 -- listing of all days

Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "July 3" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_3 December 27, 2003