June 29
In Furman v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court rules by a vote of 5-4 that capital punishment, as it is employed on the state and federal level, is unconstitutional. The majority held that, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, the death penalty qualified as “cruel and unusual punishment.” – 1972.
The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian space station Mir to form the largest man-made satellite ever to orbit the Earth. This historic moment of cooperation between former rival space programs was the 100th human space mission in U.S. history. – 1995.
June 30
Just three days after the United Nations Security Council voted to provide military assistance to South Korea, president Harry S Truman orders U.S. armed forces to assist in defending that nation from invading North Korean armies. Truman’s dramatic step marked the official entry of the United States into the Korean War. – 1950.
July 1
The largest military conflict in North American history begins when Union and Confederate forces collide at Gettysburg, Pa.. The epic battle lasts three days with casualties from both sides totaling approximately 51,000 soldiers. The battle results in a retreat to Virginia by Robert E. Lee’s Army of northern Virginia. – 1863.
The autonomous Dominion of Canada, a confederation of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the future provinces of Ontario and Quebec, is officially recognized by Great Britain with the passage of the British North America Act. – 1867.
Homestead, Pa. is the site of a steel strike. Seven strikers and three Pinkertons are killed. Andrew Carnegie hires armed thugs to protect strikebreakers. – 1892.
At midnight, Hong Kong reverts back to Chinese rule in a ceremony attended by British prime minister Tony Blair, Prince Charles of Wales, Chinese president Jiang Zemin, and U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright. – 1997.
July 2
Africans on the Cuban schooner Amistad rise up against their captors, kill two crew members, and seize control of the ship, which had been transporting them to a life of slavery on a sugar plantation in Puerto Principe, Cuba. – 1839.
U.S. president James A. Garfield, who had been in office just less than four months, is shot by an assassin. Garfield lingered for 80 days before dying of complications from the shooting. – 1881.
The Lockheed aircraft carrying American aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Frederick Noonan is reported missing near Howland Island in the Pacific. The pair was attempting to fly around the world. No trace of Earhart or Noonan ever was found. – 1937.
President Lyndon Johnson signs Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids employers and unions from discriminating on the basis of race, color, gender, nationality, or, religion. – 1964.
July 3
On the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s last attempt at breaking the Union line ends in disastrous failure which brings the most decisive battle of the American Civil War to an end. The Union had 23,000 killed, wounded, or missing in action and the Confederates suffered 25,000 casualties. – 1863.
In the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy cruiser Vincennes shoots down an Iranian passenger jet that it mistakes for a hostile Iranian fighter aircraft. Two missiles were fired from the American warship. The aircraft was hit, and all 290 passengers aboard were killed. The U.S. Navy report blamed crew error caused by psychological stress on men who were in combat for the first time. In 1996, the U.S. agreed to pay $62 million in damages to the families of the Iranians killed in the attack. – 1988.
July 4
In Philadelphia, Pa., the Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims the independence of the United States of America from Great Britain and its king. The declaration came 442 days after the first volleys of the American Revolution were fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts and marked an ideological expansion of the conflict that eventually encouraged France’s intervention on behalf of the colonial Patriots. – 1776.
July 5
In the East End of London, revivalist preacher William Booth and his wife, Catherine, establish the Christian Mission, later known as the Salvation Army. Determined to wage war against the evils of poverty and religious indifference with military efficiency, Booth modeled his Methodist sect after the British army, labeling uniformed ministers as officers and new members as recruits. – 1865.
Dolly, the sheep, is the first mammal to have been successfully cloned from an adult cell and is born at the Roslin Institute in Scotland. – 1996.