[Amnorix]

July 2

1776. The Continental Congress adopts a resolution dissolving all of Colonial America's ties with Great Britain. The exact wording of the formal Declaration of Independence will be adopted two days later. John Adams correctly predicts the festivities to mark the occassion, though he misses the date by two days.
　

Originally Posted by John Adams, in a letter written to his wife, Abigail

The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade with shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

Originally Posted by John Adams, in a letter written to his wife, Abigail

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these states. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will triumph in that Days Transaction, even although We should rue it, with I trust in God We shall not.

1777. Effective this date, Vermont becomes the first American state to abolish slavery.

1853. The Russian Army crosses the Pruth River, beginning the Crimean War.

1881. Charles J. Guiteau shoots President Garfield who will eventually die of infection on September 19. Delusional in his beliefs that he had been instrumental to Garfield's Presidential victory, Guiteau repeatedly petitions the administration for a job, preferably as ambassador to France. Eventually, Secretary of State James Blaine tells him never to return again. Guiteau, now believing that God has ordained that he kill the ungrateful President, borrows $15 to buy a revolver. He would have preferred one with ivory handles, as he thought it would look better in a museum after the assassination, but he couldn't afford it. Later, he follows the President to the train station where he is seeing his wife off to her vacation on the Jersey shore, but decides not to shoot him then as his wife is in poor health and he does not want to upset her. On this date, he awaits the President at the railway station, where among other things he engages a cab to take him to jail later. President Garfield arrives to take the train to join his wife on the Jersey shore. Guiteau walks up behind Garfield and shoots him twice.
　

Originally Posted by Charles J. Guiteau

"I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts. .. Arthur is President now!!

The wounds are not immediately mortal, and certainly Garfield would have survived with modern medical care. It being 1881, however, Garfield finally succumbs to the last of a number of infections, possibly brought on by his own doctors probing his wounds with unwashed hands and medical instruments.

The case was one of the first high profile cases in the US involving an insanity defense. The prosecutor was unimpressed.

Originally Posted by lead prosecutor George Corkhill

He's no more insane than I am. There's nothing of the mad about Guiteau: he's a cool, calculating blackguard, a polished ruffian, who has gradually prepared himself to pose in this way before the world. He was a deadbeat, pure and simple. Finally, he got tired of the monotony of deadbeating. He wanted excitement of some other kind and notoriety, and he got it.

Guiteau, meanwhile, becomes a media darling at his trial, with numerous random outbursts at the judge, the prosecutors and his own defense team, and occassionally turning around and soliciting legal advice from the gallery via passed notes. He dictating an autobiography for the New York Herald, ending it with a personal ad for a christian woman under 30. He argues to the judge that he isn't responsible for the President's death because "the doctors killed Garfield, I just shot him."

Guiteau is eventually found guilty and hanged. He did, however, survive longer than any other Presidential assassin, only being executed nine months after Garfield's death.
　
1937. Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, are last heard from while flying over the Pacific.

1962. The first Wal-Mart opens in Rogers, Arkansas.