TUESDAY INHISTORY

Today is Tuesday, July 4, the 185th day of 2017. There are 180 days left in the year. This is Independence Day.

Highlight in History:

On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted by delegates to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

On this date:

In 1802, the United States Military Academy officially opened at West Point, New York.

In 1817, ground was broken for the Erie Canal in Rome, N.Y. The middle section of the waterway took three years to complete; the entire canal was finished in 1825.

In 1826, 50 years to the day after the Declaration of Independence was adopted, former presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died.

In 1939, Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees delivered his famous farewell speech in which he called himself “the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act, which went into effect the following year.

In 1987, Klaus Barbie, the former Gestapo chief known as the “Butcher of Lyon,” was convicted by a French court of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison (he died in Sept. 1991).

In 1997, NASA’s Pathfinder spacecraft landed on Mars, inaugurating a new era in the search for life on the red planet.

Ten years ago: BBCreporter Alan Johnston, seized by the Army of Islam in the Gaza Strip the previous March, was released after 114 days in captivity.

Five years ago: Scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research in Geneva, where theworld’s biggest atom smasher is located, cheered the apparent end of a decadeslong quest for a newsubatomic particle called the Higgs boson, or “God particle.”

One year ago: NASA received a radio signal from the solar-powered Juno spacecraft confirming that it was in orbit around the planet Jupiter after a trip of nearly five years and 1.8 billion miles.

Today’s Birthdays: Actress Eva Marie Saint is 93. Actress Gina Lollobrigida is 90. Playwright Neil Simon is 90. Actor Ed Bernard is 78. Broadcast journalist Geraldo Rivera is 74. VietnamWar veteran and peace activist Ron Kovic is 71. MaliaObamais19.

Thought for Today: “If the American Revolution had produced nothing but the Declaration of Independence, it would have been worthwhile.” — Samuel Eliot Morison, American historian (1887-1976).