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Events

• 1776 (250 years ago) American Revolution: The Continental Congress adopts the Lee Resolution severing ties with the Kingdom of Great Britain. The wording of the formal Declaration of Independence was agreed upon and publicly released two days later, on July 4.
• 1863 (163 years ago) American Civil War: On the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg - the Battle of Little Round Top takes place and results in a Union victory after the Confederate troops unsuccessfully try to assault the Union left flank.
• 1917 (109 years ago) In the leadup to the Battle of Aqaba, T. E. Lawrence and his Arab forces defeat a battalion of Ottomans at Abu al-Lissan.
• 1921 (105 years ago) World War I: U.S. President Warren G. Harding signs the Knox–Porter Resolution formally ending the war between the United States and Germany.
• 1964 (62 years ago) Civil rights movement: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 meant to prohibit segregation in public places.
• 1976 (50 years ago) End of South Vietnam; Communist North Vietnam annexes the former South Vietnam to form the unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
• 1986 (40 years ago) Rodrigo Rojas and Carmen Gloria Quintana are burnt alive during a street demonstration against the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile in the Quemados case.
• 1990 (36 years ago) In the 1990 Mecca tunnel tragedy, 1,400 Muslim pilgrims are suffocated to death and trampled upon in a pedestrian tunnel leading to the holy city of Mecca.

Births

• 1862 (164 years ago) William Henry Bragg, English physicist, chemist, and mathematician, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1942)
• 1877 (149 years ago) Hermann Hesse, German-born Swiss poet, novelist, and painter, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1962)
• 1906 (120 years ago) Hans Bethe, German-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2005)
• 1923 (103 years ago) Wisława Szymborska, Polish poet and translator, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2012)
• 1925 (101 years ago) Patrice Lumumba, Congolese politician, 1st Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (died 1961)
• 1929 (97 years ago) Imelda Marcos, Filipino politician; 10th First Lady of the Philippines
• 1986 (40 years ago) Lindsay Lohan, American actress and singer
• 1990 (36 years ago) Margot Robbie, Australian actress and producer

Deaths

• 1566 (460 years ago) Nostradamus, French astrologer and author (born 1503)
• 1778 (248 years ago) Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swiss philosopher and composer (born 1712)
• 1915 (111 years ago) Porfirio Díaz, Mexican general and politician, 29th President of Mexico (born 1830)
• 1961 (65 years ago) Ernest Hemingway, American novelist, short story writer, and journalist, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1899)
• 1977 (49 years ago) Vladimir Nabokov, Russian-born novelist and critic (born 1899)
• 1997 (29 years ago) James Stewart, American actor (born 1908)
• 1999 (27 years ago) Mario Puzo, American author and screenwriter (born 1920)
• 2016 (10 years ago) Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, activist, and author (born 1928)

All 294 events, births and deaths of July 2