This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
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July 2 is the 183rd day of the year (184th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 182 days remaining until the end of the year.
It is the midpoint of a common year. This is because there are 182 days before and 182 days after (median of the year) in common years, and 183 before and 182 after in leap years. The exact time in the middle of the year is at noon, or 12:00. In the UK and other countries that use “Summer Time” the actual exact time of the mid point in a common year is at (1.00 pm) 13:00 this is when 182 days and 12 hours have elapsed and there are 182 days and 12 hours remaining. This is due to Summer Time having advanced the time by one hour. It falls on the same day of the week as New Year’s Day in common years.
On this day in 1964, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law the historic Civil Rights Act in a nationally televised ceremony at the White House.
In the landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The 10 years that followed saw great strides for the African-American civil rights movement, as non-violent demonstrations won thousands of supporters to the cause. Memorable landmarks in the struggle included the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955–sparked by the refusal of Alabama resident Rosa Parks to give up her seat on a city bus to a white woman–and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I have a dream” speech at a rally of hundreds of thousands in Washington, D.C., in 1963.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964) was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against blacks and women, including racial segregation. It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public (“public accommodations”). Powers given to enforce the act were initially weak, but were supplemented during later years. Congress asserted its authority to legislate under several different parts of the United States Constitution, principally its power to regulate interstate commerce under Article One (section 8), its duty to guarantee all citizens equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment and its duty to protect voting rights under the Fifteenth Amendment.
437 – Emperor Valentinian III, begins his reign over the Western Roman Empire. His mother Galla Placidia ends her regency, but continues to exercise political influence at the court in Rome.
626 – Li Shimin, the future Emperor Taizong of Tang, Emperor of China, ambushes and kills his rival brothers Li Yuanji and Li Jiancheng in the Incident at Xuanwu Gate.
706 – In China, Emperor Zhongzong of Tang inters the bodies of relatives in the Qianling Mausoleum, located on Mount Liang outside Chang’an.
963 – The imperial army proclaims Nicephorus Phocas Emperor of the Romans on the plains outside Cappadocian Caesarea.
1298 – The Battle of Gollheim is fought between Albert I of Habsburg and Adolf of Nassau-Weilburg.
1494 – The Treaty of Tordesillas is ratified by Spain.
1555 – The Ottoman Admiral Turgut Reis sacks the Italian city of Paola.
1561 – Menas, Emperor of Ethiopia, defeats a revolt in Emfraz.
1582 – Battle of Yamazaki: Toyotomi Hideyoshi defeats Akechi Mitsuhide.
1613 – The first English expedition from Massachusetts against Acadia led by Samuel Argall takes place.
1644 – English Civil War: Battle of Marston Moor.
1679 – Europeans first visit Minnesota and see headwaters of Mississippi in an expedition led by Daniel Greysolon de Du Luth.
1698 – Thomas Savery patents the first steam engine.
1776 – The Continental Congress adopts a resolution severing ties with Great Britain although the wording of the formal Declaration of Independence is not approved until July 4.
1777 – Vermont becomes the first American territory to abolish slavery.
1823 – Bahia Independence Day: the end of Portuguese rule in Brazil, with the final defeat of the Portuguese crown loyalists in the province of Bahia.
1839 – Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, 53 rebelling African slaves led by Joseph Cinqué take over the slave ship Amistad.
1853 – The Russian Army crossed the Pruth river into the Danubian Principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia-providing the spark that set off the Crimean War.
1871 – Victor Emmanuel II of Italy enters Rome after having conquered it from the Papal States.
1881 – Charles J. Guiteau shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President James Garfield, who eventually dies from an infection on September 19.
1890 – The U.S. Congress passes the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
1897 – Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi obtains a patent for radio in London.
1900 – The first Zeppelin flight takes place on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.
1917 – The East St. Louis Riots end.
1934 – The Night of the Long Knives ends with the death of Ernst Rohm.
1937 – Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan are last heard from over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first equatorial round-the-world flight.
1940 – Indian independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose is arrested and detained in Calcutta.
1950 – The Golden Pavilion at Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto, Japan burns down.
1962 – The first Wal-Mart store opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas.
1964 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 meant to prohibit segregation in public places.
1966 – The French military explodes a nuclear test bomb codenamed Aldébaran in Mururoa, their first nuclear test in the Pacific.
1976 – Fall of the Republic of Vietnam; Communist North Vietnam declares their union to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
1993 – 37 participants in an Alevi cultural and literary festival are killed when a mob of demonstrators set fire to their hotel in Sivas during a violent protest.
2000 – Vicente Fox Quesada is elected the first President of Mexico from an opposition party, the Partido Accion Nacional, after more than 70 years of continuous rule by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional.
2000 – The Oresund Bridge, connecting Sweden and Denmark and the longest road and rail bridge in Europe, opens for traffic.
2001 – The AbioCor self contained artificial heart is first implanted.
2002 – Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly solo around the world nonstop in a balloon.
2010 – The South Kivu tank truck explosion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo kills at least 230 people.
2013 – A 6.1 magnitude earthquake strikes Aceh, Indonesia, killing at least 42 people and injuring 420 others
* Christian Feast Day:
* Aberoh and Atom (Coptic Church)
* Feast of the Visitation at Mariánska hora. (Levoca)
* Monegundis
* Otto of Bamberg
* Oudoceus
* Processus and Martinianus
* July 2 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
* Flag Day (Curacao)
* Independence Day (Bahia)
* Palio di Provenzano (Siena)
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