July 2

2015 Calendar

July 2 is the 183rd day of the year (184th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 182 days remaining until the end of the year. In a Common year of the Gregorian calendar, this date marks the half-way point of the year. This would be at 12 noon (or 1 p.m. if Daylight Saving Time is used). In a Leap year, the half-way point is at midnight between the 1 and 2 July (or 1 a.m. on July 2 if Daylight Saving Time is used). Every year, this date falls on the same day of the week as New Year's Eve, and it also falls on the same day of the week as New Year's Day in Common years.

Events[change | change source]

Up to 1900[change | change source]

437 - Emperor Valentinian III begins his reign over the Western Roman Empire.
626 - China: Li Shimin, the future Emperor Taizong of Tang, ambushes and kills his rival brothers Li Yuanji and Li Jiancheng in the Xuanwu Gate Incident.
706 - In China, Emperor Zhongzhong of Tang inters the bodies of relatives in the Qianling Mausoleum, located on Mount Liang, outside Chang'an.
1266 - The Peace of Perth settles a territorial dispute between Scotland and Norway over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man.
1494 – The Treaty of Tordesillas is ratified by Spain.
1555 - The Ottoman admiral Turgut Reis sacks the city of Paola.
1561 - Menas, Emperor of Ethiopia defeats a revolt in Emfraz.
1578 – Martin Frobisher becomes the first European to reach Baffin Island.
1582 - Battle of Yamazaki: Toyotomo Hideyoshi defeats Akechi Mitsuhide.
1644 - English Civil War: Battle of Marston Moor.
1679 - Europeans visit present-day Minnesota for the first time.
1698 - Thomas Savery patents the first steam engine.
1767 - Philip Carteret's expedition discovers Pitcairn Island, in the Southern Pacific Ocean, naming it after sea cadet Robert Pitcairn, who first sighted it.
1776 – The Continental Congress adopts a resolution, severing ties with Great Britain.
1777 – Vermont abolishes Slavery.
1823 - Bahia Independence Day: End of Portuguese rule in Brazil.
1839 – Near Cuba, 53 rebelling African slaves take over the ship, Amistad.
1853 - The Russian Army crosses the Pruth River into the Danubian Principalities - Moldavia and Wallachia - the final spark that set off the Crimean War.
1860 – The Russian city of Vladivostok is founded as a naval post.
1871 – Vittorio Emanuele II of Italy enters Rome, having conquered it from the Papal States.
1881 – Charles J. Guiteau shoots US President James A. Garfield, who dies of an infection on September 19.
1897 – Guglielmo Marconi gets a patent for the radio in London.
1900 - The first Zeppelin flight takes place on Lake Constance, near Friedrichshafen, Southern Germany.

1901 – 2000[change | change source]

1921 - World War I: US President Warren G. Harding signs the Knox-Porter Resolution, formally ending the US' state of war with Imperial Germany.
1928 – British women over the age of 21 are given the right to vote.
1934 – The Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's purge of his political rivals, ends with the death of Ernst Roehm.
1937 – Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan go missing while flying over the Pacific Ocean. No remains are ever found, and many conspiracy theories have come out of their disappearance.
1940 - Indian independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose is arrested and detained in Calcutta.
1950 - The Golden Pavilion at Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto, Japan, burns down.
1962 – The first Wal-Mart store opens in Rodgers, Arkansas.
1964 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
1966 – France carries out its first nuclear test at Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific Ocean.
1974 - A magnitude 7.4 earthquake strikes Iran, killing 1,200 people.
1976 - Fall of the Republic of Vietnam.
1990 - A mass panic in a pedestrian tunnel in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, kills 1,427 people who were there for the Hajj pilgrimage.
1994 – Andrés Escobar, Colombian footballer, is shot dead. The killer's motive was his own goal in the FIFA World Cup.
2000 – Vicente Fox is elected President of Mexico.
2000 - The France national football team wins UEFA Euro 2000, defeating the Italy national football team 2-1 in extra time.

From 2001[change | change source]

2002 – Steve Fossett becomes the first person to travel solo around the world in a hot-air balloon.
2003 – Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi insults German MEP Martin Schulz, comparing him to a Concentration camp guard.
2005 – Live 8 concerts take place worldwide.
2008 – After a captivity of more than six years, Ingrid Betancourt is released from FARC Guerrillas in Colombia.
2010 – A tanker explosion in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo kills more than 230 people.
2011 – Albert II, Prince of Monaco marries Charlene Wittstock.
2011 – Petra Kvitova wins the Women's Singles tennis title at Wimbledon, defeating Maria Sharapova 6-3, 6-4.