02 July History
- 1298 - An army under Albert of Austria defeats forces led by Adolf of Nassua.
- 1625 - The Spanish army takes Breda, Spain, after nearly a year of siege.
- 1644 - Oliver Cromwell crushes the Royalists at the Battle of Marston Moor.
- 1747 - Marshall Saxe leads the French forces to victory over an Anglo-Dutch force under the Duke of Cumberland at the Battle of Lauffeld.
- 1776 - The Continental Congress resolves that the American colonies "are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States."
- 1822 - Denmark Vesey is executed in Charleston, South Carolina, for planning a massive slave revolt.
- 1858 - Czar Alexander II frees the serfs working on imperial lands.
- 1863 - The Union left flank holds at Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg.
- 1881 - Charles J. Guiteau fatally wounds President James A. Garfield in Washington, D.C.
- 1926 - Congress establishes the Army Air Corps.
- 1937 - American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart disappears in the Central Pacific during an attempt to fly around the world.
- 1961 - Novelist Ernest Hemingway commits suicide at his home in Ketchum, Idaho.
- 1964 - President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act into law.
- 1967 - The U.S. launches Operation Buffalo in Vietnam.
- 1976 - North and South Vietnam are officially reunified.
- 1980 - President Jimmy Carter reinstates draft registration for males 18 years of age.
02 July Birthdays
- 1489 - Thomas Cranmer, first Protestant archbishop of Cantebury (1533-1556).
- 1877 - Hermann Hesse, German novelist and poet.
- 1894 - Andre Kertesz, photographer.
- 1900 - Tyrone Guthrie, English theater director.
- 1908 - Thurgood Marshall, first African-American Supreme Court Justice.
- 1916 - Barry Gray, radio talk show host.
- 1918 - Robert Sarnoff, president of NBC.
- 1926 - Medgar Evers, American civil rights activist.