Today in History July 1

70 – Roman General Titus and his forces set up battering rams to assault the walls of Jerusalem

251 – The Battle of Abrittus is won by the Goths against the Romans.Roman Emperors Decius and Herennius Etruscus are killed.

1517 – First burning of Protestants at stake in Netherlands

1535 – Sir Thomas More goes on trial in England charged with treason

1656 – First Quakers, Mary Fisher and Ann Austin arrive in Boston and subsequently imprisoned.

1798 – Napoleon’s fleet reaches Alexandria Egypt

1836 – President Andrew Jackson announces to Congress a bequest by James Smithson of 100,000 gold sovereigns to found institution in Washington.

1858 – The joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace’spapers on evolution to the Linnean Society.

1862 – Internal Revenue Law imposes first federal taxes on inheritance, tobacco an on incomes over $600 (progressive rate)

1863 – Battle of Gettysburg, Pa; Lee’s northward advance halted

1873 – Henry Ossian Flipper of Georgia one of the first African Americans enters West Point Military Academy

1874 – First US zoo opens in Philadelphia

1879 – Charles Taze Russell publishes the first edition of the religious magazine The Watchtower.

1917 – Race riots in East St Louis Illinois, 40 to 200 reported killed

1919 – 1st class postage drops from 3 cents to 2 cents

1934 – First x-ray photo of entire body, Rochester, NY

1946 – US drops atom bomb on Bikini atoll (4th atomic explosion)

1948 – NYC subway fare goes to 10 cents, bus fare to 7 cents and combo fare at 12 cents

1959 – Israeli Knesset agrees to weapon sales to West-Germany

1960 – Fidel Castro nationalizes Esso, Shell and Texaco

1960 – USSR shoots down US RB-47 reconnaissance plane

1963 – ZIP Codes are introduced for United States mail.

1967 – Beatles’ “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” goes #1 for 15 weeks

1968 – The CIA’s Phoenix Program is officially established.

1972 – Ms. magazine begins publishing

1979 – Sony introduces the Walkman.

1788 – Jean-Victor Poncelet, mathematician, founded projective geometry

1869 – William Strunk Jr., American grammarian (d. 1946)

1872 – Louis Bleriot, 1st man to fly an airplane across English Channel

1902 – Billy Wyler, director (Ben Hur, Mrs. Miniver)

1906 – Estée Lauder,  CEO (Estée Lauder cosmetics) (d. 2004)

1900 – Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand (36) weds countess Sophie Chotek (32) in Reichstadt, Bohemia

1916 – Dwight Eisenhower marries Mary `Mamie’ Geneva Doud in Denver, Colorado

1982 – Over 2000 Unification Church couples marry at NY Madison Square Garden

1989 – Hugh Hefner weds Kimberly Conrad

1784 – Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, composer, son of J.S. Bach, dies at 73

1860 – Charles Goodyear, American inventor, dies at 59

1896 – Harriet Beecher Stowe, US author (Uncle Tom’s Cabin), dies at 85

1958 – Harry Nicholls Holmes, Dr (crystallized vitamin A), dies at 78

1995 – Wolfman Jack, disc jockey (Midnight Special), dies at 57

1983 – R Buckminster Fuller, inventor/philosopher, dies in LA at 87

2004 – Marlon Brando, actor  dies at 80