THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Today is Sunday, July 2, the 122nd day of 2021. There are 243 days left in the year.
Birthdays: Former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos is 94. Actor Robert Ito is 92. Actor Polly Holliday is 86. Racing Hall of Famer Richard Petty is 86. Former White House chief of staff and former New Hampshire governor John H. Sununu is 84. Former Mexican president Vicente Fox is 81. Writer-comedian Larry David is 76. Rock keyboardist Roy Bittan of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band is 74. Actormodel Jerry Hall is 67. Actor Jimmy McNichol is 62. Actor Owain Yeoman is 45. Race car driver Sam Hornish Jr. is 44. NHL center Joe Thornton is 44. Singer Michelle Branch is 40. Actor Vanessa Lee Chester is 39. Actor Nelson Franklin is 38. Actor-singer Ashley Tisdale is 38. Actor Lindsay Lohan is 37. Actor Margot Robbie is 33. US Olympic swimmer Ryan Murphy is 28.
In 1566, French astrologer, physician, and professed prophesier Nostradamus died in Salon.
In 1776, the Continental Congress passed a resolution saying that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.”
In 1881, President James A. Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau at the Washington railroad station; Garfield died the following September. (Guiteau was hanged in June 1882.)
In 1917, rioting erupted in East St. Louis, Ill., as white mobs attacked Black residents; nearly 50 people, most of them Black, are believed to have died in the violence.
In 1937, aviator Amelia Earhart
and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first round-the-world flight along the equator.
ºIn 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law a sweeping civil rights bill passed by Congress.
In 1976, the US Supreme Court, in Gregg v. Georgia, ruled 7-2 that the death penalty was not inherently cruel or unusual. ºIn 1979, the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin was released.
In 1986, ruling in a pair of cases, the Supreme Court upheld affirmative action as a remedy for past job discrimination.
In 1990, more than 1,400 Muslim pilgrims were killed in a stampede near Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
In 1997, Academy Award-winning actor James Stewart died in Beverly Hills, Calif., at age 89. ºIn 2018, rescue divers in Thailand found alive 12 boys and their soccer coach, who had been trapped by flooding as they explored a cave more than a week earlier. Joseph Jackson, patriarch of one of America’s most prominent musical families, was buried in the same cemetery as his late son Michael.
In 2020, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire on charges that she had helped lure at least three girls — one as young as 14 — to be sexually abused by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein. (Maxwell would be convicted on five of six counts.)
In 2022, the police chief for the Uvalde, Texas, school district stepped down from his City Council seat amid criticism of his response to the mass shooting that left 19 students and two teachers dead.