On This Day for July 4 - Declaration of Independence approved by Second Continental Congress, Vivekananda is featured, and more

This message contains graphics. If you do not see the graphics, click here to view. July 04 FEATURED BIOGRAPHY Vivekananda READ MORE   FEATURED EVENT 1776 Declaration of Independence approved by Second Continental Congress READ MORE   Advertisement Advertisement   MORE EVENTS ON THIS DAY 2012: Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN announced that they had detected an interesting signal that was likely from a Higgs boson. [ Take our science quiz.] 1976: British punk rock band the Clash gave their first public performance, opening for the Sex Pistols in a pub in Sheffield, England. [ Test your knowledge of musical groups.] 1976: An Israeli commando squad completed its raid on Entebbe, Uganda, rescuing 103 hostages from a French jet airliner that had been hijacked en route from Israel to France. 1946: The Republic of the Philippines was proclaimed an independent country, with Manuel Roxas as its first president. [Sort fact from fiction in our Southeast Asia quiz.] 1939: On an appreciation day in his honour, American baseball player Lou Gehrig, who had been forced to retire months earlier due to ALS , gave a memorable speech in which he claimed to be "the luckiest man on the face of the earth." [How much do you know about baseball?] 1910: In what was billed as the "Fight of the Century," African American boxer Jack Johnson defeated James Jackson Jeffries , who was considered the "Great White Hope"; his victory led to nationwide celebrations by African Americans that were occasionally met by violence from whites, resulting in more than 20 deaths across the country. [Test your knowledge of sports.] SEE ALL EVENTS ON THIS DAY ALSO BORN ON THIS DAY 1872 Calvin Coolidge president of United States 1804 Nathaniel Hawthorne American writer 1902 Meyer Lansky American gangster 1807 Giuseppe Garibaldi Italian revolutionary 1924 Eva Marie Saint American actress 1968 Cyrus Mistry Indian businessman SEE ALL BIOS ON THIS DAY   Advertisement   FOLLOW: To unsubscribe from Britannica e-mails, click here. Encyclopædia Britannica 325 N. LaSalle Street, Suite 200 Chicago, Illinois 60654 United States © 2020 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. Privacy Policy • Help