TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS FRIDAY, JULY 3, the 185th day of 2020. There are 181 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1863, the three-day Civil War Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania ended in a major victory for the North as Confederate troops failed to breach Union positions during an assault known as Pickett’s Charge.
In 1775, Gen. George Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In 1971, singer Jim Morrison of The Doors died in Paris at age 27.
In 1976, Israel launched its daring mission to rescue 106 passengers and Air France crew members being held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda by proPalestinian hijackers; the commandos succeeded in rescuing all but four of the hostages.
In 1979, Dan White, convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the shooting deaths of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, was sentenced to seven years and eight months in prison. (He ended up serving five years.)
In 1986, President Ronald Reagan presided over a gala ceremony in New York Harbor that saw the relighting of the renovated Statue of Liberty. In 1988, the USS Vincennes shot down an Iran Air jetliner over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.
In 1996, Russians went to the polls to re-elect Boris Yeltsin president over his Communist challenger, Gennady Zyuganov, in a runoff.
In 2005, a NASA space probe, Deep Impact, hit its comet target as planned in a mission to learn how the solar system formed.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Playwright Tom Stoppard is 83. Writer-producer Jay Tarses is 81. Actor Michael Cole (TV: “The Mod Squad”) is 80. Attorney Gloria Allred is 79. Humorist Dave Barry and actress Betty Buckley are 73. Talk show host Montel Williams is 64. Country singer Aaron Tippin is 62. Rock musician Vince Clarke (Erasure) is 60. Actors Tom Cruise and Thomas Gibson, and actress Hunter Tylo are 58. TV chef Sandra Lee is 54. Actress-singer Audra McDonald is 50. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is 49. Actress Elizabeth Hendrickson and rhythm-and-blues singer Tonia Tash (Divine) are 41. Country singersongwriter Sarah Buxton, and actresses Olivia Munn and Shoshannah Stern are 40. Rock singer-songwriter Elle King is 31. Actor Grant Rosenmeyer is 29. Actress Kelsey Batelaan is 25.