Eventful

As IF we needed more reasons to celebrate, every last one of the following people? Also born on July 3:

• 1423 - King Louis XI of France (d. 1483)
• 1442 - Emperor Go-Tsuchimikado of Japan (d. 1500)
• 1530 - Claude Fauchet, French historian (d. 1601)
• 1567 - Samuel de Champlain, French explorer (d. 1635)
• 1676 - Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, Prussian field marshal (d. 1747)
• 1683 - Edward Young, English poet (d. 1765)
• 1685 - Sir Robert Rich, 4th Baronet, British cavalry officer (d. 1768)
• 1728 - Robert Adam, Scottish architect (d. 1792)
• 1738 - John Singleton Copley, American painter (d. 1815)
• 1793 - John Clare, British poet (d. 1864)
• 1854 - Leos Janacek, Czech composer (d. 1928)
• 1870 - Richard Bedford Bennett, eleventh Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1947)
• 1875 - Ferdinand Sauerbruch, German surgeon (d. 1951)
• 1879 - Alfred Korzybski, Polish linguist (d. 1950)
• 1883 - Franz Kafka, Czech writer (d. 1924)
• 1893 - Mississippi John Hurt, American musician (d. 1966)
• 1906 - George Sanders, Russian-born actor (d. 1972)
• 1908 - M. F. K. Fisher, American writer (d. 1992)
• 1913 - Dorothy Kilgallen, American columnist and television personality (d. 1965)
• 1921 - Susan Peters, American actress (d. 1952)
• 1927 - Ken Russell, British director
• 1930 - Carlos Kleiber, Austrian conductor (d. 2004)
• 1935 - Harrison Schmitt, astronaut
• 1937 - Tom Stoppard, Czech-born playwright
• 1939 - László Kovács, Hungarian politician and diplomat
• 1940 - César Tovar, Venezuelan Major League Baseball player (d. 1994)
• 1940 - Lamar Alexander junior United States Senator from Tennesse
• 1944 - Michel Polnareff, French pop songwriter and singer
• 1946 - Leszek Miller, Prime Minister of Poland
• 1947 - Dave Barry, American writer
• 1947 - Betty Buckley, American actress
• 1949 - Jan Smithers, American actress
• 1949 - Johnnie Wilder, Jr., American singer (Heatwave) (d. 2006)
• 1950 - James Hahn, American politician
• 1951 - Richard Hadlee, New Zealand cricketer
• 1952 - Alan Autry, American football player, actor, and politician
• 1955 - Sanma Akashiya, Japanese television performer and actor
• 1957 - Laura Branigan, American singer (d. 2004)
• 1959 - Julie Burchill, British journalist and author
• 1960 - Vince Clarke, British songwriter (of the bands Depeche Mode, Yazoo and Erasure)
• 1960 - Tim Smith, English singer (Cardiacs)
• 1961 - Pedro Romeiras, Portuguese dancer
• 1962 - Tom Cruise, American actor
• 1964 - Joanne Harris, British author
• 1964 - Yeardley Smith, American actress
• 1966 - Moises Alou, baseball player
• 1969 - Kevin Hearn, Canadian keyboardist (Barenaked Ladies)
• 1970 - Teemu Selänne, Finnish hockey player
• 1970 - Shawnee Smith, American actress
• 1973 - Johnny Terris, Canadian-born actor and director
• 1976 - Andrea Barber, American actress
• 1980 - Roland Mark Schoeman, South African swimmer

Not to be outdone, these people died on July 3:

• 683 - St. Leo II, pope
• 1570 - Aonio Paleario, Italian humanist
• 1642 - Maria de' Medici, wife of Henry IV of France (b. 1573)
• 1672 - Francis Willughby, English biologist (b. 1635)
• 1704 - Sophia Alekseyevna, regent of Russia (b. 1657)
• 1749 - William Jones, Welsh mathematician (b. 1675)
• 1778 - Anna Maria Walburga Mozart née Pertl, mother of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (b. 1720)
• 1790 - Jean-Baptiste L. Romé de l'Isle, French chemist (b. 1736)
• 1795 - Louis-Georges de Bréquigny, French historian (b. 1714)
• 1795 - Antonio de Ulloa, Spanish general and governor of Louisiana (b. 1716)
• 1863 - George Hull Ward, American general (b. 1826)
• 1904 - Theodor Herzl, Austrian Zionist (b. 1860)
• 1914 - Joseph Chamberlain, British politician (b. 1836)
• 1918 - Sultan Mehmed V of the Ottoman Empire (b. 1844)
• 1933 - Hipólito Yrigoyen, President of Argentina (b. 1852)
• 1935 - André Citroën, French automobile pioneer (b. 1878)
• 1942 - Louis Franchet d'Espèrey, French general (b. 1856)
• 1969 - Brian Jones, English musician (The Rolling Stones) (drowned) (b. 1942)
• 1971 - Jim Morrison, American singer (The Doors) (b. 1943)
• 1977 - Alexander M. Volkov, Russian novelist and mathematician (b. 1891)
• 1979 - Louis Durey, French composer (b. 1888)
• 1986 - Rudy Vallee, American singer (b. 1901)
• 1989 - Jim Backus, American actor (b. 1913)
• 1993 - Joe DeRita, American actor and comedian (b. 1909)
• 1994 - Lew Hoad, Australian tennis player (b. 1934)
• 1995 - Pancho Gonzales, American tennis player (b. 1928)
• 1998 - Danielle Bunten Berry, American software developer (b. 1949)
• 1999 - Mark Sandman, American musician (b. 1952)
• 2000 - Kemal Sunal, Turkish actor 1944)
• 2001 - Mordecai Richler, Canadian author (b. 1931)
• 2003 - Gaetano Alibrandi, papal diplomat (b. 1914)
• 2004 - Andrian Nikolayev, cosmonaut (b. 1929)
• 2005 - Alberto Lattuada, Italian film director (b. 1914)
• 2005 - Gaylord Nelson, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin (b. 1916)

I'm not going to give you the full list of July 3 historical events because a lot of them are war-related, boring or flat out depressing (the very last pair of Great Auks in the entire world? Clubbed to death on July 3, 1844.) But here are a few:

• 1608 - Quebec City founded by Samuel de Champlain
• 1767 - Norway's oldest newspaper still in print, Adresseavisen, is founded (first edition published this date)
• 1819 - The first savings bank in the United States (The Bank of Savings in New York City) opens
• 1839 - The first state normal school in the United States opens in Lexington, Massachusetts with 3 students
• 1848 - Slaves are freed in the Danish West Indies (now U.S. Virgin Islands)
• 1852 - Congress establishes the United States's 2nd mint in San Francisco, California
• 1884 - Dow Jones published its 1st stock average
• 1886 - The New York Tribune becomes the first newspaper to use a linotype machine, eliminating typesetting by hand
  
• 1890 - Idaho is admitted as the 43rd U.S. state
• 1928 - First color television broadcast in London
• 1938 - World speed record for a steam railway locomotive is set in England, by the Mallard, which reaches a speed of 203 km/h (126 mph)
• 1952 - Puerto Rico's Constitution is approved by the Congress of the United States
• 1964 - President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits segregation in public places
• 1976 - Israeli commandos rescue 105 hostages at Entebbe Airport, Uganda during Operation Yonatan
• 1985 - Back to the Future debuts in theaters all over the U.S.
• 1986 - US President Ronald Reagan presides over the relighting of the renovated Statue of Liberty
• 2004 - Official opening of Bangkok's subway system.
• 2005 - The national law legalizing same-sex marriage takes effect in Spain.


• And on July 3, 2006 (That's today, folks) - Asteroid labeled as 2004 XP14 will fly by Earth's atmosphere. It will be 1.1 times as far as the moon's distance from Earth, thus being visible via moderate sized telescope.

...and so begin the Dog Days of Summer