This Day in History: July 2

This Day In History: July 2

Take a look at all of the important historical events that took place on July 2.

On this day, July 2 … 

1937: Aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappear over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first round-the-world flight along the equator.

Also on this day:

President James Garfield.
(AP, File)

  • 1881: President James A. Garfield is shot by Charles J. Guiteau at the Washington railroad station; Garfield would die the following September. (Guiteau would be hanged in June 1882.)
  • 1890: Congress passes the Sherman Antitrust Act.
  • 1892: The Populist Party (also known as the People’s Party) opens its first national convention in Omaha, Neb.
  • 1917: Rioting erupts in East St. Louis, Ill., as White mobs attack Black residents. Nearly 50 people, most of them Black, are believed to have died in the violence.

  • 1961: Ernest Hemingway shoots himself to death at his home in Ketchum, Idaho.
  • 1962: The first Walmart store opens in Rogers, Ark.

  • 1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law a sweeping civil-rights bill passed by Congress. 
  • 1976: The U.S. Supreme Court, in Gregg v. Georgia, rules 7-2 the death penalty is not inherently cruel or unusual.
  • 1979: The Susan B. Anthony dollar coin is issued, the first circulating coin to feature a woman.

The trial of Erik Menendez, left, and Lyle Menendez was covered heavily by Court TV.
(Getty Images, File)

  • 1996: Seven years after they shot and killed their parents in the family’s Beverly Hills mansion, Lyle and Erik Menendez are sentenced to life in prison without parole.
  • 2002: Steve Fossett becomes the first man to fly nonstop solo around the world in a balloon.
  • 2014: Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who survived a bomber crash in the Pacific Ocean, spent weeks adrift at sea and then years as a Japanese prisoner of war and became the subject of a celebrated book and movie, dies in Los Angeles at age 97.
  • 2018: Rescue divers in Thailand find 12 boys and their soccer coach, who had been trapped by flooding as they explored a cave over a week earlier.

  • 2019: Alex Morgan’s first-half goal and Alyssa Naeher’s late, clutch penalty save lift the U.S. to a stunning 2-1 victory over England and advance the team to the Women’s World Cup final.

  • 2019: A jury finds decorated Navy SEAL Edward “Eddie” Gallagher not guilty on almost all charges he was facing, including murder and attempted murder, in the killing of a teenage Islamic State member in Iraq.

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