July 4 in history — What Happened Today in History

A Boeing 707 crashes near Bangui M'Poko International Airport in Bangui, Central African Republic, killing 28.

Vladivostok Air Flight 352 crashes on approach to Irkutsk Airport, killing all 145 people on board.

Japan launches the Nozomi probe to Mars, joining the United States and Russia as a space exploring nation.

NASA's Pathfinder space probe lands on the surface of Mars.

Rwandan genocide: Kigali, the Rwandan capital, is captured by the Rwandan Patriotic Front, ending the genocide in the city.

Three Iranian diplomats and a journalist are kidnapped in Lebanon by Phalange forces, and their fate remains unknown.

Space Shuttle program: Columbia lands at Edwards Air Force Base at the end of the program's final test flight, STS-4. President Ronald Reagan declares the Space Shuttle to be operational.

The George Jackson Brigade plants a bomb at the main power substation for the Washington state capitol in Olympia, in solidarity with a prison strike at the Walla Walla State Penitentiary Intensive Security Unit.

Israeli commandos raid Entebbe airport in Uganda, rescuing all but four of the passengers and crew of an Air France jetliner seized by Palestinian terrorists.

Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago sign the Treaty of Chaguaramas in Chaguaramas, Trinidad and Tobago establishing the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). It replaces the Caribbean Free Trade Association as another step towards Caribbean regional integration.

U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Freedom of Information Act into United States law. The act went into effect the next year.

On its maiden voyage, the Soviet nuclear-powered submarine K-19 suffers a complete loss of coolant to its reactor. The crew are able to effect repairs, but 22 of them die of radiation poisoning over the following two years.

The 50-star flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia following the admission of Hawaii as the 50th U.S. state over ten months prior (August 21, 1959), in accordance with the Flag Acts.

Food rationing in Great Britain ends, with the lifting of restrictions on sale and purchase of meat, 14 years after it began early in World War II, and nearly a decade after the war's end.

Cold War: A court in Czechoslovakia sentences American journalist William N. Oatis to ten years in prison on charges of espionage.

William Shockley announces the invention of the junction transistor.

Cold War: Radio Free Europe first broadcasts.

The "Indian Independence Bill" is presented before the British House of Commons, proposing the independence of the Provinces of British India into two sovereign countries: India and Pakistan.

The Kielce pogrom against Jewish Holocaust survivors in Poland.

After 381 years of near-continuous colonial rule by various powers, the Philippines attains full independence from the United States.

World War II: The Battle of Kursk, the largest full-scale battle in history and the world's largest tank battle, begins in the village of Prokhorovka.

World War II: In Gibraltar, a Royal Air Force B-24 Liberator bomber crashes into the sea in an apparent accident moments after takeoff, killing sixteen passengers on board, including general Władysław Sikorski, the commander-in-chief of the Polish Army and the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile; only the pilot survives.

World War II: The 250-day Siege of Sevastopol in the Crimea ends when the city falls to Axis forces.

Nazi crimes against the Polish nation: Nazi troops massacre Polish scientists and writers in the captured Ukrainian city of Lviv.

World War II: The Burning of the Riga synagogues: The Great Choral Synagogue in German-occupied Riga is burnt with 300 Jews locked in the basement.

Lou Gehrig, recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, informs a crowd at Yankee Stadium that he considers himself "The luckiest man on the face of the earth", then announces his retirement from major league baseball.

First flight of the Lockheed Vega.

Mehmed V died at the age of 73 and Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI ascends to the throne.

Wude Ayalew, Ethiopian runner

Guram Kashia, Georgian footballer

Ömer Aşık, Turkish basketball player

Nguyen Ngoc Duy, Vietnamese footballer

Rafael Arévalo, Salvadoran tennis player

Willem Janssen, Dutch footballer

Terrance Knighton, American football player

Marte Elden, Norwegian skier

Kane Tenace, Australian footballer

Dimitrios Mavroeidis, Greek basketball player

Wason Rentería, Colombian footballer

Jin Akanishi, Japanese singer-songwriter

Melanie Fiona, Canadian singer-songwriter

Daniil Granin, Soviet and Russian author (born 1919)

Gene Conley, American MLB player and NBA player (born 1930)

Abbas Kiarostami, Iranian film director, screenwriter, poet, and photographer (born 1940)

Nedelcho Beronov, Bulgarian judge and politician (born 1928)

William Conrad Gibbons, American historian, author, and academic (born 1926)

Giorgio Faletti, Italian author, screenwriter, and actor (born 1950)

C. J. Henderson, American author and critic (born 1951)

Earl Robinson, American baseball player (born 1936)

Richard Mellon Scaife, American businessman (born 1932)

Onllwyn Brace, Welsh rugby player and sportscaster (born 1932)

Jack Crompton, English footballer and manager (born 1921)

James Fulton, American dermatologist and academic (born 1940)

Charles A. Hines, American general (born 1935)