July 4 birthdays & history

Famous people born on July 4

• 1872Calvin Coolidge, American lawyer and politician, 30th President of the United States
• 1804Nathaniel Hawthorne, American novelist and short story writer
• 1927Gina Lollobrigida, Italian actress and photographer
• 1926Alfredo Di Stéfano, Argentinian-Spanish footballer and coach
• 1868Henrietta Swan Leavitt, American astronomer and academic
• 1910Gloria Stuart, American actress
• 1959Victoria Abril, Spanish actress and singer
• 1995Post Malone, American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer
• 1924Eva Marie Saint, American actress
• 1790George Everest, Welsh geographer and surveyor

What happened on July 4

• 414Byzantine emperor Theodosius II proclaimed his elder sister Aelia Pulcheria as Augusta.
• 1054Chinese astronomers recorded the sudden appearance of a "guest star", later identified as the supernova that created the Crab Nebula.
• 1776In Philadelphia, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, announcing that the thirteen American colonies were no longer a part of the British Empire.
• 1803The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the public.
• 1817In Rome, New York, construction on the Erie Canal begins.
• 1818U.S. Flag Act of 1818 goes into effect creating a 13-stripe flag with a star for each state. New stars are to be added on the July 4 following the admission of each new state to the Union.
• 1832John Neal delivers the first public lecture in the U.S. to advocate the rights of women.
• 1837The Grand Junction Railway, the world's first long-distance railway with steam traction, opened between Birmingham and Newton Junction.
• 1862In a boat on the River Thames from Oxford to Godstow, author Lewis Carroll told Alice Liddell and her sisters a story that later formed the basis for his book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
• 1951William Shockley announced the invention of the junction transistor, for which he, John Bardeen, and Walter Houser Brattain later won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• 1988Kylie Minogue's first album, Kylie, was released, and went on to top the charts in the UK and New Zealand.
• 1998The monster movie Pulgasari, the most-widely-seen North Korean film ever made, premiered in Tokyo, Japan.

Also observed on July 4

• CARICOM Day
• The first evening of Dree Festival, celebrated until July 7 (Apatani people, Arunachal Pradesh, India)
• Independence Day (United States)
• Liberation Day (Northern Mariana Islands)
• Liberation Day (Rwanda)
• Republic Day (Philippines)