 July 4
 Today is
Independence
Day! 1753:
Jean-Pierre-François Blanchard, who was the first to fly across the
English Channel (in a balloon), was born. 1776: The amended
Declaration of Independence,
prepared by Thomas Jefferson, was approved and signed by John Hancock, President of the
Continental Congress in America. 1817: Construction started on the
Erie Canal. 1868: Astronomer
Henrietta
Swan Leavitt, who discovered the relationship between period and luminosity in Cepheid
variables, was born. 1883: The first 3-wire central-station incandescent-lighting plant,
built by the Edison Electric Illuminating Co., started operations in Sunbury, PA.
1883: Rube Goldberg, engineer
famous for his drawings of Mouse Trap-like contraptions, was born. 1903: President Theodore
Roosevelt sent the first official message over the new cable across the Pacific Ocean
between Honolulu, Guam, Midway and Manila. 1906:
Vincent
Schaefer, who invented cloud seeding for making rain, was born. 1922:
Lothar von
Richthofen, WWI flying ace and brother of the Red Baron, died. 1933:
William
Coolidge obtained a patent for the X-ray tube. 1934: Chemist
Marie Marja Sklodowska Curie, discoverer of radium and polonium,
died. 1960: The 50-star U.S. flag made its debut in Philadelphia, PA. 1976: Israeli
commandos rescued the
Entebbe
Airport hostages held by Arab terrorists. 1997: The
Mars Pathfinder,
an unmanned space vehicle, landed on the Martian surface.
| Jan
| Feb | Mar |
Apr | May |
Jun | Jul |
Aug | Sep |
Oct | Nov |
Dec |
Note: These
historical tidbits have been collected from various sources, mostly on the Internet.
As detailed in
this article, there
is a lot of wrong information that is repeated hundreds of times because most websites
do not validate with authoritative sources. On RF Cafe, events with
hyperlinks have been verified. Many years ago,
I began commemorating the birthdays of notable people and events with
special RF Cafe logos.
Where available, I like to use images from postage stamps from the country where
the person or event occurred. Images used in the logos are often from open source websites
like Wikipedia, and are specifically credited with a hyperlink back to the source where
possible. Fair Use
laws permit small samples of copyrighted content.
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