Tuesday 2 July 2024 Calendar with holidays, observances and special days

World Sports Journalists Day

Sports journalism is an essential element of any news media organization. Sports writers must have a foundation in competition coverage and analysis, as well as an unders..→

Holidays and observances

• Azerbaijan Police Day
• Bahia State Day in Brazil
• Commemoration of the Sivas massacre
• Corporate Wellness Week in South Africa
• Curaçao Flag Day
• I Forgot Day
• Kiss A Brunette Day
• National Agriculture Day in Argentina
• National Anisette Day in USA
• Palio di Provenzano (Siena, Italy)
• Taxpayer's Day of Ukraine
• Unity Day in Zambia (A public holiday is celebrated on the first Tuesday of July under the motto "One Zambia, one nation")
• Walmart Day
• World UFO Day

Events

• 2008 – Íngrid Betancourt, a member of the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia, is released from captivity after being held for six and a half years by FARC.
• 2002 – Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly solo around the world nonstop in a balloon.
• 2001 – The AbioCor self-contained artificial heart is first implanted.
• 2000 – Vicente Fox Quesada is elected the first President of México from an opposition party, the Partido Acción Nacional, after more than 70 years of continuous rule by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional.
• 1966 – The French military explodes a nuclear test bomb code-named Aldébaran in Moruroa, their first nuclear test in the Pacific.
• 1962 – The first Wal-Mart store opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas.
• 1937 – Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan are last heard from over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first equatorial round-the-world flight.
• 1921 – World War I: U.S. President Warren G. Harding signs the Knox–Porter Resolution formally ending the war between the United States and Imperial Germany.
• 1900 – The first Zeppelin flight takes place on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.
• 1897 – British-Italian engineer Guglielmo Marconi obtains a patent for radio in London.
• 1698 – Thomas Savery patents the first steam engine.
• 1613 – The first English expedition (from Virginia) against Acadia led by Samuel Argall takes place.

Births

• 1992 – Madison Chock, American ice dancer. The two represented the United States at the 2014 and 2018 Winter Olympics.
• 1990 – Merritt Mathias, American soccer player. Merritt Elizabeth Mathias (born July 2, 1990) is an American soccer forward currently playing for North Carolina Courage in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL).
• 1989 – Alex Morgan, American soccer player. Alexandra Morgan Carrasco (born Alexandra Patricia Morgan; July 2, 1989) is an American soccer player for the Orlando Pride of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), the highest division of women's professional soccer in the United States, and the United States women's national soccer team.
• 1986 – Brett Cecil, American baseball player. He previously played for the Toronto Blue Jays.
• 1986 – Lindsay Lohan, American actress and singer. Having appeared as a regular on the television soap opera Another World at age 10, her breakthrough came in the Walt Disney Pictures film The Parent Trap (1998).
• 1985 – Ashley Tisdale, American actress. She achieved mainstream success as Maddie Fitzpatrick in the Disney Channel series The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.
• 1985 – Chad Henne, American football player. Chad Steven Henne (/ˈhɛni/; born July 2, 1985) is an American football quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League (NFL).
• 1985 – Rhett Bomar, American football player. He played college football at the University of Oklahoma and Sam Houston State.
• 1984 – Johnny Weir, American figure skater. John Garvin Weir (born July 2, 1984) is an American figure skater, fashion designer, and television commentator.
• 1983 – Michelle Branch, American singer-songwriter and guitarist. She won a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals with Santana for "The Game of Love".
• 1980 – Nicole Briscoe, American model and journalist. She is married to IndyCar Series driver Ryan Briscoe, whom she wed in an outdoor ceremony in Hawaii in 2009.
• 1980 – Nyjer Morgan, American baseball player. Morgan has mainly played center field during his MLB career.
• 1979 – Sam Hornish Jr., American race car driver. He last competed part-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the No. 22 Ford Mustang for Team Penske in 2017.
• 1976 – Tomáš Vokoun, Czech-American ice hockey player. He played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Washington Capitals, Florida Panthers, Nashville Predators and the Montreal Canadiens, with whom he was originally drafted in the ninth round, 226th overall, in the 1994 NHL Entry Draft.
• 1974 – Sean Casey, American baseball player and sportscaster, was an Irish politician.
• 1971 – Troy Brown, American football player and actor. Troy Fitzgerald Brown (born July 2, 1971) is a former American football wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL).
• 1970 – Derrick Adkins, American hurdler. Derrick Ralph Adkins (born July 2, 1970) is a former American track and field athlete who specialized in the 400-meter hurdles.
• 1964 – Joe Magrane, American baseball player and sportscaster. Joseph David Magrane (born July 2, 1964) is a former Major League Baseball pitcher and is currently a color commentary broadcaster for the MLB Network.
• 1964 – Jose Canseco, Cuban-American baseball player and mixed martial artist. He won the Rookie of the Year (1986), and Most Valuable Player award (1988), and was a six-time All-Star.
• 1964 – Ozzie Canseco, Cuban-American baseball player, coach, and manager. He is the identical twin brother of former Major League Baseball player José Canseco.
• 1961 – Clark Kellogg, American basketball player and sportscaster. Clark Clifton Kellogg, Jr. (born July 2, 1961) is the former VP of player relations for the Indiana Pacers, the lead college basketball analyst for CBS Sports, and a former player in the National Basketball Association (NBA).
• 1957 – Purvis Short, American basketball player. Purvis Short (born July 2, 1957) is a retired American professional basketball player who played with the Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets and New Jersey Nets of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1978 to 1990.
• 1956 – Jerry Hall, American model and actress. Jerry Faye Hall (born July 2, 1956) is an American model and actress.
• 1952 – Johnny Colla, American guitarist, saxophonist, and songwriter. He has been heavily involved in the San Francisco Bay Area music scene for decades, having been in several other bands, including Rubicon, Sly and the Family Stone, Van Morrison, Sound Hole, and Johnny Colla & The Lucky Devils.
• 1948 – Gene McFadden, American singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2006), was an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as one of the key members of the Philadelphia International record label, and was one-half of the successful team of McFadden & Whitehead with John Whitehead.
• 1947 – Larry David, American actor, comedian, producer, and screenwriter. Lawrence Gene David (born July 2, 1947) is an American comedian, writer, actor, director, and television producer.
• 1946 – Richard Axel, American neuroscientist and biologist, Nobel Prize laureate. Richard Axel (born July 2, 1946) is an American molecular biologist and university professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
• 1946 – Ron Silver, American actor, director, and political activist (d. 2009), was an American actor, director, producer, radio host, and political activist. As an actor, he portrayed Henry Kissinger, Alan Dershowitz and Angelo Dundee.
• 1943 – Larry Lake, American-Canadian trumpet player and composer (d. 2013). Larry Lake is the name of:
• 1939 – John H. Sununu, American engineer and politician, 14th White House Chief of Staff, was the 75th Governor of New Hampshire (1983–89) and later White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W.
• 1937 – Polly Holliday, American actress. Her character's tagline of "Kiss my grits!" remains perhaps the most memorable line associated with the series Alice.
• 1937 – Richard Petty, American race car driver and sportscaster. Richard Lee Petty (born July 2, 1937), nicknamed The King, is a former NASCAR driver who raced from 1958 to 1992 in the former NASCAR Grand National and Winston Cup Series (now called the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series).
• 1935 – Gilbert Kalish, American pianist and educator. Gilbert Kalish (born July 2, 1935) is an American pianist.
• 1929 – Imelda Marcos, Filipino politician; 10th First Lady of the Philippines, was First Lady of the Philippines for 21 years, during which she and her husband are widely believed to have illegally amassed a multi-billion U.S. dollar personal fortune, the bulk of which still remains unrecovered. Her fortune was estimated to be at $24bn in 1979, and today is estimated to be at least $30bn.
• 1927 – Brock Peters, American actor (d. 2005). In later years, he gained recognition among Star Trek fans for his portrayals of Fleet Admiral Cartwright in two of the Star Trek feature films and Joseph Sisko, father of Benjamin Sisko, in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
• 1925 – Marvin Rainwater, American singer-songwriter (d. 2013), was an American country and rockabilly singer and songwriter who had several hits during the late 1950s, including "Gonna Find Me a Bluebird" and "Whole Lotta Woman", which hit #1 on the UK Singles Chart. He was known for wearing Native American-themed outfits on stage and claimed to have quarter-blood Cherokee ancestry.
• 1925 – Medgar Evers, American soldier and activist (d. 1963), was an American civil rights activist in Mississippi, the state's field secretary for the NAACP, and a World War II veteran who had served in the United States Army. He worked to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi, end the segregation of public facilities, and expand opportunities for African Americans, which included the enforcement of voting rights.
• 1923 – Cyril M. Kornbluth, American soldier and author (d. 1958). Kornbluth (July 2, 1923 – March 21, 1958) was an American science fiction author and a member of the Futurians.
• 1920 – John Kneubuhl, Samoan-American historian, screenwriter, and playwright (d. 1992), was an American Samoan screenwriter, playwright and Polynesian historian. He wrote for American television series such as The Fugitive, Gunsmoke, The Wild Wild West, Star Trek, The Invaders and Hawaii Five-O.
• 1919 – Jean Craighead George, American author (d. 2012), was an American writer of more than one hundred books for children and young adults, including the Newbery Medal-winning Julie of the Wolves and Newbery runner-up My Side of the Mountain. Common themes in George's works are the environment and the natural world.
• 1917 – Leonard J. Arrington, American author and academic, founded the Mormon History Association (d. 1999). He is known as the "Dean of Mormon History" and "the Father of Mormon History" because of his many influential contributions to the field.
• 1916 – Ken Curtis, American actor and singer (d. 1991), was an American singer and actor best known for his role as Festus Haggen on the CBS western television series Gunsmoke. Although he appeared on Gunsmoke earlier in other roles, he was first cast as Festus in season 8 episode 13, December 8, 1962 "Us Haggens".
• 1914 – Ethelreda Leopold, American actress (d. 1988), was an American film actress. She appeared in approximately 65 films between 1934 and 1972.
• 1914 – Frederick Fennell, American conductor and educator (d. 2004), was an internationally recognized conductor and one of the primary figures in promoting the Eastman Wind Ensemble as a performing group. He was also influential as a band pedagogue, and greatly affected the field of music education in the USA and abroad.
• 1908 – Thurgood Marshall, American lawyer and jurist, 32nd Solicitor General of the United States (d. 1993), was an American lawyer who served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was the Court's 96th justice and its first African-American justice.
• 1906 – Hans Bethe, German-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2005), was a German-American nuclear physicist who made important contributions to astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics and solid-state physics, and won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis.
• 1881 – Royal Hurlburt Weller, American lawyer and politician (d. 1929), was a United States Representative from New York.
• 1877 – Rinaldo Cuneo, American artist ("the painter of San Francisco") (d. 1939), was an American artist known for his landscape paintings and murals.
• 1820 – George Law Curry, American publisher and politician, 5th Governor of the Oregon Territory (d. 1878), was a United States political figure and newspaper publisher predominantly in what became the state of Oregon. A native of Pennsylvania, he published a newspaper in St.
• 1665 – Samuel Penhallow, English-American soldier and historian (d. 1726), was a Cornish colonist and historian and militia leader in present-day Maine during Queen Anne's War and Father Rale's War. He was the commander at Fort Menaskoux and was attacked during the Northeast Coast Campaign (1724).

Deaths

• 2016 – Michael Cimino, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1939)
• 2015 – Charlie Sanders, American football player and sportscaster (b. 1946)
• 2015 – Jim Weaver, American football player and coach (b. 1945)
• 2014 – Harold W. Kuhn, American mathematician and academic (b. 1925)
• 2014 – Louis Zamperini, American runner and captain (b. 1917)
• 2013 – Anthony G. Bosco, American bishop (b. 1927)
• 2013 – Anthony Llewellyn, Welsh-American chemist, academic, and astronaut (b. 1933)
• 2013 – Douglas Engelbart, American computer scientist, invented the computer mouse (b. 1925)
• 2012 – Betty Meggers, American archaeologist and academic (b. 1921)
• 2012 – Ed Stroud, American baseball player (b. 1939)
• 2012 – Julian Goodman, American journalist (b. 1922)
• 2008 – Natasha Shneider, Russian-American singer, keyboard player, and actress (b. 1956)
• 2007 – Beverly Sills, American operatic soprano and television personality (b. 1929)
• 2006 – Jan Murray, American comedian, actor, and game show host (b. 1916)
• 2005 – Ernest Lehman, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1915)
• 2005 – Norm Prescott, American actor, composer, and producer, co-founded Filmation Studios (b. 1927)
• 2003 – Briggs Cunningham, American race car driver and businessman (b. 1907)
• 1999 – Mario Puzo, American author and screenwriter (b. 1920)
• 1997 – James Stewart, American actor (b. 1908)
• 1993 – Fred Gwynne, American actor (b. 1926)
• 1991 – Lee Remick, American actress (b. 1935)
• 1990 – Snooky Lanson, American singer (b. 1914)
• 1986 – Peanuts Lowrey, American baseball player and manager (b. 1917)
• 1973 – Betty Grable, American actress, singer, and dancer (b. 1916)
• 1973 – George McBride, American baseball player and manager (b. 1880)
• 1972 – Joseph Fielding Smith, American religious leader, 10th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (b. 1876)
• 1964 – Fireball Roberts, American race car driver (b. 1929)
• 1963 – Alicia Patterson, American publisher, co-founded Newsday (b. 1906)
• 1961 – Ernest Hemingway, American novelist, short story writer, and journalist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1899)
• 1929 – Gladys Brockwell, American actress (b. 1894)
• 1920 – William Louis Marshall, American general and engineer (b. 1846)
• 1903 – Ed Delahanty, American baseball player (b. 1867)