Cheshiresoft CDAY Almanac

Today is Saturday, July 4, 2009.

Birthdays

1753 Jean-Pierre-Francois Blanchard, 1st balloon flights.
1804 Nathaniel Hawthorne, American author (The Scarlet Letter)
1807 Giuseppe Garibaldi, unifier of Italy.
1826 Stephen Foster, American composer, "Oh, Susanna"
1867 Stephen Mather, organizer of the US National Park Service.
1872 Calvin Coolidge, 30th President (1923-1929)
1878 George M. Cohan, American songwriter, playwright, producer.
1883 Rube Goldberg, made the easy outrageously difficult.
1900 Louis Armstrong, "Satchmo"
1902 George Murphy
1910 Gloria Stuart
1911 Mitch Miller
1918 Abigail Van Buren
1918 Ann Landers
1924 Eva Marie Saint
1927 Gina Lollobrigida
1927 Neil Simon
1930 George Steinbrenner
1943 Geraldo Rivera

Events

United States Independence Day
1054 Brightest known supernova starts shining, for 23 days.
1057 Crab Nebula supernova recorded by Chinese & Japanese astronomers.
1776 Future U.S. issues the Declaration of Independence from Britain
1802 US Military Academy officially opens at West Point, NY
1828 first US passenger railroad started, The Baltimore & Ohio
1845 Thoreau moves into his shack on Walden Pond.
1862 Lewis Carroll begins inventing "Alice in Wonderland" for his friend Alice Pleasance Liddell during a boating trip.
1876 1st public exhibition of electric light in San Francisco.
1882 Telegraph Hill Observatory opens.
1884 Statue of Liberty is presented to the United States, in Paris.
1894 Republic of Hawaii established.
1894 Elwood Haynes successfully tests one of the first US autos
1903 Pacific Cable (San Francisco, Hawaii, Guam, Phillipines) opens. President Roosevelt sends a message to the Phillipines, then a message around the world in 12 minutes.
1933 Work begins on the Oakland Bay Bridge.
1946 Philippines gains independence from US
1965 Mariner 4 flies past Mars, sends first close-up photos.
1967 Freedom of Information Act goes into effect
1976 Raid on Entebbe - Israel rescues 229 Air France passengers

That's all for today.