03 July History
- 1775 - George Washington takes command of the Continental Army.
- 1790 - In Paris, the Marquis of Condorcet proposes granting civil rights to women.
- 1844 - American ambassador Caleb Cushing successfully negotiates a commercial treaty with China.
- 1863 - Confederate forces attack the center of the Union line at Gettysburg, but fail to break it.
- 1878 - John Wise flies the first dirigible in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
- 1901 - The Wild Bunch, led by Butch Cassidy, commits its last American robbery near Wagner, Montana, taking $65,000 from a Great Northern train.
- 1903 - The first cable across the Pacific Ocean is spliced between Honolulu, Midway, Guam and Manila.
- 1916 - The Battle of the Somme begins. More than 100,000 men are killed in the first day.
- 1944 - The U.S. First Army opens a general offensive to break out of the hedgerow area of Normandy, France.
- 1945 - U.S. troops land at Balikpapan and take Sepinggan airfield on Borneo in the Pacific.
- 1950 - U.S. carrier-based planes attack airfields in the Pyongyang-Chinnampo area of North Korea in the first air-strike of the Korean War.
- 1954 - Food rationing ends in Great Britain almost nine years after the end of World War II.
- 1962 - Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
- 1967 - North Vietnamese soldiers attack South Vietnam's only producing coal mine at Nong Son.
03 July Birthdays
- 1683 - Edward Young, English poet, dramatist and literary critic (Night Thoughts).
- 1844 - Dankmar Adler, architect and engineer.
- 1871 - William Henry Davies, Welsh poet.
- 1878 - George M. Cohan, American entertainer and songwriter.
- 1883 - Franz Kafka, Prague-born German novelist (The Metamorphosis, The Trail).
- 1908 - M.F.K. Fisher, food witer.
- 1912 - Elizabeth Taylor, novelist and short story writer.
- 1921 - Francois-Arnold Reichenbach, documentary filmmaker.
- 1937 - Tom Stoppard, British playwright (Rosencrantz and Gilderstern are Dead).