July 2

Events

1679 - Europeans led by Daniel Greysolon de Du Luth visit what would become Minnesota and see the headwaters of Mississippi River
1853 - The Russian Army invades Turkey, beginning the Crimean War.
1863 - American Civil War: Second day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
1881 - Charles J. Guiteau shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President James Garfield, who eventually dies from infection on September 19.
1900 - First zeppelin flight on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.
1917 - Forty-eight die in race riots in East St. Louis, Illinois
1934 - The end of the Night of the Long Knives, with the death of the German Military Officer Ernst Röhm
1937 - Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappear over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first equatorial round-the-world flight.
1964 - President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits segregation in public places.
1976 - North and South Vietnam, divided since 1954, reunite to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
2007 - The Portuguese section of Metapedia is launched. [1]

1877 - Hermann Hesse, German-born writer, Nobel laureate (d. 1962)
1903 - Alec Douglas-Home, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1995)
1903 - King Olav V of Norway (d. 1991)
1906 - Hans Bethe, German-born nuclear physicist, Nobel laureate (d. 2005)
1908 - Thurgood Marshall, American Supreme Court Justice (d. 1993)
1916 - Hans-Ulrich Rudel, Combat pilot and highest-decorated German soldier of WWII (d. 1982)
1925 - Medgar Evers, Black activist (d. 1963)
1925 - Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (d. 1961)
1930 - Carlos Menem, President of Argentina
1942 - Vicente Fox, Former Mexican president

1778 - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swiss philosopher (b. 1712)
1850 - Robert Peel, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1788)
1914 - Joseph Chamberlain, British politician (b. 1836)
1915 - Porfirio Díaz, President of Mexico (b. 1830)
1934 - Ernst Roehm, NSDAP member and commander of the SA (b. 1887)
1963 - Conde McGinley, editor of the nationalist publication Common Sense (b. 1890)