Major Events
- 1776 US Congress proclaims the Declaration of Independence and independence from Great Britain
- 1785 Geologist James Hutton publicly reads an abstract of his theory of uniformitarianism for the first time at the meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
- 1803 The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people by President Thomas Jefferson
- 1838 Huskar Pit Disaster: 26 children drown trying to escape flooding in the Silkstone Colliery in England. Leads to the 1842 Mines Act, which bans women and children working underground.
- 1934 Hungarian physicist Leó Szilárd patents the chain-reaction design for the atomic bomb
- 2017 North Korea test fires it’s first successful intercontinental ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan
- More July 4 Events
Jul 4 in Film & TV
- 1970 Casey Kasem's "American Top 40" debuts on LA radio
Jul 4 in Music
- 1831 "America (My Country 'Tis of Thee)", with lyric by Samuel Francis Smith, has 1st public performance at Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts
Jul 4 in Sport
- 1939 Lou Gehrig is first MLB player to have his number (4) retired on his "Appreciation Day" at Yankee Stadium, makes iconic "luckiest man" speech
Did You Know?
Howard Florey and Norman Heatley meet for 1st time, 11 days later they successfully recreate penicillin
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Giuseppe Garibaldi
James Anthony Bailey
Calvin Coolidge
Rube Goldberg
Meyer Lansky
Gertrude Lawrence
George Murphy
Gloria Stuart
Neil Simon
Geraldo Rivera
Stephen Foster
Bill Withers
Post Malone
Alec Bedser
Alfredo Di Stéfano
Al Davis
George Steinbrenner
Henri Leconte
Fun Fact About July 4
Western Samoa changes the International Date Line, so that year there were 367 days in this country, with two occurrences of Monday, July 4
Famous Weddings
- 1925 American "Gone With The Wind" author Margaret Mitchell (24) weds 2nd husband John Marsh (29) in the Unitarian-Universalist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, until her death in 1949
- 1931 Irish "Ulysses" writer James Joyce (49) and Nora Barnacle (47) finally marry in London registry office after meeting in 1904; remain wed until his death in 1941.
- 1940 British actress Gertrude Lawrence weds American theater producer Richard Aldrich (37) on her 42nd birthday, until her death in 1952; second marriage for both
More July 4 Weddings
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
James Monroe
Marie Curie
Suzanne Lenglen
Barry WhiteArticles, Photos and Quiz
Yippee! It's Independence Day for the U.S.
The United States declared itself independent of Britain on this day. Ever since, celebrations marking the event have taken place every year across the country.
July 4, 1776
United States Declaration of Independence
Engrossed copy of the United States Declaration of Independence
July 4, 1776
