1097 – The Crusaders defeated the Turks at Dorylaeum.

1841 – The Erie Railroad rolled out its first passenger train.

1859 – Charles Blondin became the first person to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope.

1894 – Korea declared independence from China and asked for Japanese aid.

1908 – A meteor explosion in Siberia knocked down trees in a 40-mile radius and struck people unconscious some 40 miles away.

1912 – Belgian workers went on strike to demand universal suffrage.

1913 – Fighting broke out between Bulgaria and Greece and Spain. It was the beginning of the Second Balkan War.

1915 – During World War I, the Second Battle Artois ended when the French failed to take Vimy Ridge.

1921 – U.S. President Warren G. Harding appointed former President William Howard Taft chief justice of the United States.

1922 – Irish rebels in London assassinate Sir Henry Wilson, the British deputy for Northern Ireland.

1930 – France pulled its troops out of Germany’s Rhineland.

1934 – Adolf Hitler purged the Nazi Party by destroying the SA and bringing to power the SS in the “Night of the Long Knives.”

1935 – Fascists caused an uproar at the League of Nations when Haile Selassie of Ethiopia speaks.

1936 – Margaret Mitchell’s book, “Gone with the Wind,” was published.

1950 – U.S. President Harry Truman ordered U.S. troops into Korea and authorizes the draft.

1951 – On orders from Washington, General Matthew Ridgeway broadcasts that the United Nations was willing to discuss an armistice with North Korea.

1953 – The first Corvette rolled off the Chevrolet assembly line in Flint, MI. It sold for $3,250.

1955 – The U.S. began funding West Germany’s rearmament.

1957 – The American occupation headquarters in Japan was dissolved.

1958 – The U.S. Congress passed a law authorizing the admission of Alaska as the 49th state in the Union.

1960 – The Katanga province seceded from Congo (upon Congo’s independence from Belgium).

1964 – The last of U.N. troops left Congo after a four-year effort to bring stability to the country.

1970 – The Cincinnati Reds moved to their new home at Riverfront Stadium.

1971 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government could not prevent the Washington Post or the New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers.

1971 – The Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 11 returned to Earth. The three cosmonauts were found dead inside.

1971 – The 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified when Ohio became the 38th state to approve it. The amendment lowered the minimum voting age to 18.

1974 – Russian ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov defected in Toronto, Canada.

1974 – The July 4th scene from the Steven Spielberg movie “Jaws” was filmed.

1977 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced his opposition to the B-1 bomber.

1986 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that states could outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults.

1998 – Officials confirmed that the remains of a Vietnam War serviceman buried in the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery were identified as those of Air Force pilot Michael J. Blassie.

2000 – U.S. President Clinton signed the E-Signature bill to give the same legal validity to an electronic signature as a signature in pen and ink.

2004 – The international Cassini spacecraft entered Saturn’s orbit. The craft had been on a nearly seven-year journey.

In Germany, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler orders a bloody purge of his own political party, assassinating hundreds of Nazis whom he believed had the potential to become political enemies in the future. The event became known as the Night of the Long Knives.

The leadership of the Nazi Storm Troopers (SA), whose four million members had helped bring Hitler to power in the early 1930s, was especially targeted. Hitler feared that some of his followers had taken his early “National Socialism” propaganda too seriously and thus might compromise his plan to suppress workers’ rights in exchange for German industry making the country war-ready.

Source: history.com for the complete article