July 3

987 When Hugh Capet was crowned King of France on July 3, 987, he became the first monarch of the Capetian dynasty. The Capetians held the throne for nearly eight centuries, making it one of the longest-lasting dynasties in European history. They played a crucial role in consolidating and expanding royal authority in France, laying the foundation for the centralized monarchy that would emerge in later centuries.

The Coronation of Hugh Capet from a 13th or 14th cent manuscript

1035 William the Conqueror became Duke of Normandy on July 3, 1035, succeeding his father, Duke Robert I, William faced several challenges on becoming duke, including his youth: the evidence indicates that he was either seven or eight years old at the time. Many Norman nobles wanted him out of the way for a time Normandy was in complete disorder. After quashing the rebellion, William began to establish his authority over the duchy, a process that was not complete until about 1060.

1749 Welsh mathematician William Jones died July 3, 1749. Until 1706 the ratio of a circle's perimeter to its diameter was known as “the quantity which, when the diameter is multiplied by it, yields the circumference." The Greek letter pi was introduced as a simpler definition by William Jones in his 1706 work A New Introduction to the Mathematics. He chose π the Greek for p as it was the first letter of “periphery” or “perimeter” which were the words then used for circumference.

1754 During the early months of the French and Indian War, George Washington established Fort Necessity to protect a storehouse. On the morning of July 3, 1754, a French force led by Coulon de Villiers attacked Fort Necessity with 900 men. Washington only had 140 troops and by the evening, he had asked for terms of surrender, the only time he surrendered to an enemy in his career. Villiers didn’t take any prisoners and allowed Washington and his troops to return home.

Reconcstructed Fort Necessity By Wilson44691

1766 In the summer of 1764 the political philosopher Thomas Paine was appointed an excise officer in Grantham, Lincolnshire where his salary was £50 a year. Paine was discharged from his post a year later for claiming to have inspected goods when in fact he had only seen the documentation. On July 3, 1766, Paine wrote a letter to the board of excise asking to be reinstated, and the next day the board granted his request to be filled upon vacancy.

1806 Michael Keens, a market gardener of Isleworth near London, exhibited the first cultivated strawberry that combined size, flavor, and color at the Royal Horticultural Society on July 3, 1806. Prior to this, wild strawberries and cultivated selections from wild strawberry species were the common source of the fruit.

1819 The Bank of Savings in New York City, the first savings bank in the United States, took its maiden deposits on Saturday, July 3, 1819. It was housed in the Old Alms House, and the apartment the bank took cost them nothing, apart from the occasional share in the repair of the building.

1839 The first state funded school specifically established for public teacher education in the United States, the forerunner to today's Framingham State College, opened in Lexington, Massachusetts with three female students on July 3, 1839. Cyrus Peirce was its first principal or president. The three young women took an examination which determined they were satisfactorily versed in the subjects taught by the ordinary district school, before being granted admission to this experimental program.

Site of Lexington Normal School,

1874 French physician and bacteriologist Paul-Félix Armand-Delille was born on July 3, 1874. In 1952, Armand-Delille introduced the contagious and deadly myxomatosis virus to kill rabbits on his estate. It spread out of control, killing up to 98% of rabbits in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Britain, Italy and Spain. He was later given a medal by the head of the Department of Rivers and Forests.

1878 4-year-old Harry Houdini and his family arrived in the US from Hungary on July 3, 1878.
They first lived in Appleton, Wisconsin, where his father served as Rabbi of the Zion Reform Jewish Congregation. Houdini discovered  aged 15 the autobiography of the greatest conjurer of the nineteenth century, French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin. He was fascinated by the book and stayed up all night reading it. Houdini later stated that the work sparked his enthusiasm for magic.

1884 On July 3, 1884, Dow Jones and Company published its first stock average index. The inaugural index was published as part of the "Customer's Afternoon Letter" and consisted of 11 stocks, nine of which were railroad stocks, since railroads were considered the largest and sturdiest companies in the U.S. at the time.

1886 The Benz Patent-Motorwagen (or motorcar) was officially unveiled by Karl Benz on July 3, 1886. It is widely regarded as the world's first automobile; that is, a vehicle designed to be propelled by an internal combustion engine. The original cost of the motor car was $1,000.

Benz Patent-Motorwagen

1886 The New York Tribune became on July 3, 1886 the first newspaper to use a linotype machine, eliminating the time-consuming process of setting type by hand. The machine was originally called "Blower" and later renamed "Linotype" (short for "Line of type"). Within six years, 1,000 Linotype machines had been made.

1890 Idaho was admitted as the 43rd U.S. State of the Union on July 3, 1890. It was the last of the 50 states to be explored by whites. The Seal of the Territory of Idaho was adopted in 1863, and redrawn several times before statehood in 1890. The state Great Seal was designed by Emma Edwards Green, the only woman to design a state seal. The state name "Idaho" is a made-up word that means nothing.

1901 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid committed their last robbery with their gang The Wild Bunch on July 3, 1901. It was a Great Northern train at Wagner, Montana. The pressures of being pursued, notably by the Pinkerton Detective Agency, forced Cassidy to flee with the Sundance Kid, and the latter's girlfriend, Etta Place. The trio fled first to Argentina and then to Bolivia, where Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were probably killed in a shoot-out in November 1908.

1938 LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard set a world speed record for a steam locomotive when it reached a speed of 126 mph (203 km/h) on July 3, 1938. It was pulling six carriages (plus a dynamometer car) on a slight downhill gradient near Grantham, Lincolnshire.

1962 The national flag of Algeria consists of two equal vertical bars, green and white, charged in the center with a red star and crescent. The flag was adopted on July 3, 1962. The flag's design was derived from the standard of Emir Abdel Kadir in the 19th century which consisted of two equal vertical bands, green and white.

1962 The actor Tom Cruise was born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, in Syracuse, New York on July 3, 1962. His parents were Mary Lee, a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. He has often referred to his father as an abusive coward who couldn't be trusted. Cruise was raised as Catholic and actually wanted to be a priest in his earlier days. He left seminary school a year after enrolling in order to pursue acting.

1981 The Associated Press ran its first story about AIDS on July 3, 1981. "Doctors in New York and California have diagnosed among homosexual men 41 cases of a rare and often rapidly fatal form of cancer,” Lawrence K. Altman’s article began. “Eight of the victims died less than 24 months after the diagnosis was made.” There are two types of the Aids virus and in December 1981 the first one HIV-1 was conclusively identified in the United States.

1999 The video game Pac-Man was licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway and released in October 1980. Within 15 months of Pac-Man's U.S. release, Americans had spent over $1,000,000,000 in quarters playing the game. The maximum possible score is 3,333,360 points. Billy Mitchell was the first player to achieve a perfect Pac-Man score on July 3, 1999 at Funspot Family Fun Center in New Hampshire.

1999 The star and crescent of Tunisia's red and white flag, adopted in 1959, recalls the Ottoman flag and is therefore an indication of Tunisia's history as a part of the Ottoman Empire. The current official design dates to July 3, 1999.

2002 American aviator Steve Fossett became the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon on July 3, 2002, completing an almost 14-day trip after landing in Queensland, Australia. Seven years earlier, Fossett had become the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.

2010 On July 3, 2010 the Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo announced the birth of his son, Cristiano Ronaldo Jr. He requested his privacy when he posted a reference on social media and has never publicly revealed the identity of his son's mother.

July 1 is not the mid-point of the year. The exact halfway point comes at 1pm BST on July 3 in a non-leap year.