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July 3: Pickett's Charge ends Gettysburg
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Maine Fast Fact: Noyes Mountain is named in honor of George Lorenzo Noyes, a state naturalist, mineralogist, writer, landscape artist and development critic who lived in Norway, Maine and spent his life painting and writing. Noyes Mountain and Harvard Quarry at its summit now attracts many rock and mineral collectors.
Births:
- 1935: Harrison Schmitt, American NASA astronaut, last person to walk and depart the moon
- 1956: Montel Williams, American talk show host
- 1962: Tom Cruise, American actor
- 1969: Kevin Hearn, Canadian musician, part of the group The Barenaked Ladies
- 1976: Andrea Barber, American actress, known for her role as Kimmy Gibbler on the sitcom Full House
Deaths:
- 1969: Brian Jones, English musician, part of the group The Rolling Stones
- 1971: Jim Morrison, American singer, part of the group The Doors
- 2005: Gaylord Nelson, American politician, founder of Earth Day
History:
- 1608: Samuel de Champlain establishes Québec City.
- 1775: George Washington takes command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts during the Revolutionary War.
- 1819: The first savings bank in America, the Bank of Savings in New York City, opens.
- 1848: Slaves are freed in the Danish West Indies (now the U.S. Virgin Islands) by Peter von Scholten after a year long plot by enslaved Africans.
- 1852: The second United States Mint opens in San Francisco, California.
- 1863: Pickett’s Charge brings the Battle of Gettysburg to an end.
- 1884: The first Dow Jones and Company stock average is published.
- 1886: The New York Tribune becomes the first newspaper to use a linotype machine instead of typesetting by hand.
- 1890: Idaho becomes the 43rd U.S. state.
- 1930: The Veteran’s Administration is created by the U.S. Congress.
- 1938: President Franklin D. Roosevelt lights the eternal flame at Gettysburg Battlefield and dedicates the Eternal Light Peace Memorial.
- 1952: The United States Congress approves Puerto Rico’s Constitution.
- 1979: U.S. President Jimmy Carter signs the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.
- 1986: U.S. President Ronald Reagan presides over a ceremony in New York Harbor for the relighting of the newly renovated Statue of Liberty.
- 2005: Spain’s national law legalizing same-sex marriage takes effect.
- 2006: An asteroid, Asteroid 2004 XP14, flies within 268,624 miles of Earth.
July 3 is Emancipation Day in the U.S. Virgin Islands. An official holiday, it commemorates the day Danish Governor Peter von Scholten freed the African slaves and slavery was abolished. It is also Independence Day in the country of Belarus in Eastern Europe, the day gained its freedom from Germany by Soviet troops in 1944. And July 3, 1962 Algeria gained its independence from France after 132 years under its rule.
The Battle of Gettysburg came to end on this day in 1863. Pickett’s Charge took place and was a Confederate Army infantry assault ordered by General Robert E. Lee on Major General George G. Meade’s Union Army on Cemetery Ridge. Lt. General James Longstreet led the charge and Major General George Pickett, whom the charge is named after, was one of three generals who led the assault under Longstreet. About 12,500 Confederate men advanced over the open fields but could not keep their hold and were defeated. It ended the battle and Lee’s advancement into Pennsylvania.
