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July 4.
1187. The Battle of Hattin. The Muslim forces under Saladin defeat the Crusader forces. As a result, the Muslims are once against the dominant military power in the Holy Land, and the Christian states would gather themselves and launch the Third Crusade (which began two years later) to regain the initiative.
1776. The Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence.
1802. West Point opens.
1826. Both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson die on this same date, on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Indepence.
1845. Henry David Thoreau begins a two year experiment of simple living at Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts.
1863. Vicksburg, Mississippi surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant after a long siege, ending Grant's brilliant Vicksburg campaign. Confederate forces at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania strike camp and begin marching back to Virginia.
1886. The people of France offer the Statue of Liberty to people of the United States.
1894. Sanford Dole announces the formation of the short-lived Republic of Hawaii, after th efall of the monarchy. He will lobby the US to annex it, and six years later the US will do so. Sanford Dole is the cousin of James(not Bob) Dole, the man who will form what will eventually become known as Dole Food Company.
1910. African American boxer Jack Johnson knocks out white boxer Jim Jeffries, sparking race riots across America.
1939. Lou Gehrig announces his retirement to a packed Yankee Stadium.
1946. After 381 years of near-continuous colonial rule, the PHillippines attains independence, from the United States, which was merely the last of its colonial masters.
1960. Nearly ten months after Hawaii's induction as a state, the new, 50 star US flag makes its debut in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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