July 1 History, Fun Facts, and Trivia
July 1 Observances
July 1 is Canada Day, American Zoo Day, National Creative Ice Cream Flavor Day, International Chicken Wing Day, National Postal Workers Day, Early Bird Day, and Second Half of the New Year Day — which is either motivating or alarming depending on how your resolutions are going. It is also, technically, Resolution Renewal Day, which exists precisely because most New Year’s resolutions have not survived to see it.
If you were born on July 1, you were likely conceived during the week of October 8
What Happened on July 1?
July 1 is a day that introduced the postage stamp, the zip code, the SOS distress signal, the Tour de France, and the first television commercial — all on different July Firsts across different centuries. It is also Canada Day, the birthday of Diana, Princess of Wales, and, in the fictional universe of Indiana Jones, the birthdate of the most famous archaeologist in cinema. Not a bad day for a calendar square.
July 1 History Highlights
1770 — Lexell’s Comet passed closer to Earth than any other comet in recorded history, approaching within roughly 1.4 million miles — closer than any known comet before or since.
1847 — The United States issued its first official postage stamps: a 5-cent stamp bearing Benjamin Franklin’s portrait and a 10-cent stamp bearing George Washington’s. Before this, postage was typically paid by the recipient, not the sender.
1862 — The Internal Revenue Service was established by President Lincoln to help fund the Civil War, through the Revenue Act of 1862. Americans have had complicated feelings about it ever since.
1874 — The Philadelphia Zoological Garden opened as the first zoo in the United States, featuring 1,000 animals at an admission price of 25 cents. The zoo had been planned since 1859, but its opening was delayed by the Civil War for fifteen years. It remains in operation today.
1874 — The Sholes and Glidden typewriter, the first commercially successful typewriter, went on sale on the same day.
1881 — The world’s first international telephone call was made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine — a conversation across a border that cost considerably less than a transatlantic cable and required considerably less engineering.
1898 — The Battle of San Juan Hill was fought in Santiago de Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Theodore Roosevelt’s charge up the hill with the Rough Riders became one of the most famous military actions in American popular history, significantly aided by his own account afterward.
1903 — The first Tour de France bicycle race began. The inaugural edition covered approximately 1,500 miles over 19 days and was won by Maurice Garin. The race was created by the newspaper L’Auto to boost circulation — a marketing strategy that produced one of the most demanding sporting events in history.
1908 — SOS was adopted as the international maritime distress signal at the International Radiotelegraphic Convention. The sequence — three dots, three dashes, three dots — was chosen for its simplicity and distinctiveness, not as an abbreviation for anything. “Save Our Ship” and “Save Our Souls” came later, as retroactive explanations.
1916 — The Battle of the Somme began on the Western Front during World War I, lasting until November 13. The first day alone produced approximately 57,470 British casualties — the bloodiest single day in British military history. The battle lasted four and a half months and moved the front line approximately seven miles.
1941 — The first television commercial in American history aired on NBC during a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies at Ebbets Field. Bulova Watches paid $9 for the 10-second spot, which showed a clock face against a map of the United States with the words “America runs on Bulova time.” The investment has appreciated considerably.
1943 — Tokyo City formally merged with Tokyo Prefecture and was dissolved as a city. Since this date, Tokyo has technically not been a city under Japanese law — it is a metropolis (to), a unique administrative designation. When someone asks what city Tokyo is, the technically correct answer is that it isn’t one.
1963 — ZIP (Zone Improvement Plan) codes were introduced for US mail, providing a five-digit system to speed sorting and delivery. The first digit represents a broad geographic area; the following four narrow it to a specific post office or delivery zone. Most Americans have known their ZIP code by heart since childhood and have no idea what it actually means.
1968 — Medicare went into effect in the United States, providing health insurance to Americans 65 and older following its passage under President Johnson in 1965.
1971 — The United States Post Office Department, which had operated since 1792, was reorganized as the United States Postal Service — an independent agency rather than a cabinet department.
1976 — The Apple I computer was reportedly offered for sale, Steve Wozniak’s hand-built machine priced at $666.66. Approximately 200 units were produced. One sold at auction in 2014 for $905,000.
1979 — Sony introduced the Walkman in Japan for 33,000 yen. The device — a portable cassette player with lightweight headphones — permanently altered the relationship between music and daily life. It sold 50,000 units in its first two months.
1980 — O Canada officially became the national anthem of Canada, 100 years after the music was composed. The English lyrics were written in 1908; the French original dates to 1880.
1984 — The PG-13 rating was introduced by the Motion Picture Association of America, created in response to parental concerns about violence in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins, both released in 1984. The first film to carry the new rating was Red Dawn, released on August 10, 1984.
1985 — Nick at Nite launched on Nickelodeon, airing classic television reruns in the evening hours. The channel’s programming — I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched — introduced a generation of children to television that they had not been alive to watch the first time.
1991 — Court TV began airing in the United States, broadcasting live coverage of trials and legal proceedings. It later became truTV.
2007 — Smoking was banned in all public indoor spaces in England, extending a prohibition already in effect in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
2007 — The Concert for Diana was held at the new Wembley Stadium in London on what would have been Diana, Princess of Wales’s 46th birthday, broadcast in 140 countries. Performers included Elton John, Rod Stewart, Duran Duran, and her sons’ selected artists.
Canada Day
July 1 is Canada Day, marking the anniversary of the Constitution Act of 1867, which united three British colonies — the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia — into the Dominion of Canada. The date was originally called Dominion Day and was renamed Canada Day in 1982. It is celebrated with fireworks, outdoor concerts, and a national affection for the country that is, by most measures, genuinely warranted.
Billboard Number One on July 1
1967: Windy — The Association (held the top spot July 1–28)
1972: Song Sung Blue — Neil Diamond (July 1–7)
1989: Baby Don’t Forget My Number — Milli Vanilli (July 1–7) — a number one that aged poorly when it emerged in 1990 that neither member of Milli Vanilli had sung a word of it
2006: Do I Make You Proud — Taylor Hicks (July 1–7)
Born on July 1
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) — German physicist and satirist who wrote The Waste Books, a collection of aphorisms that influenced Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Wittgenstein. He was the first person to use a plus sign and the minus sign as we understand them today.
George Sand (1804–1876) — French novelist, born Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin, who adopted a male pen name to be taken seriously, wrote more than 70 novels, and had relationships with Frédéric Chopin and Alfred de Musset while wearing men’s clothing in public and smoking in cafés — all of which were considered scandalous in 19th-century Paris and which she considered Tuesday.
Charles Laughton (1899–1962) — English-American actor whose performances in The Private Life of Henry VIII, Mutiny on the Bounty, and Witness for the Prosecution established him as one of the most technically accomplished actors of his generation.
Estée Lauder (1906–2004) — American businesswoman who co-founded the Estée Lauder Companies in 1946 and built it into one of the most successful cosmetics enterprises in history. She is the only woman on Time magazine’s 1998 list of the 20 most influential business geniuses of the 20th century.
Olivia de Havilland (born 1916) — British-American actress who won two Academy Awards for Best Actress — for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949) — and who successfully sued Warner Bros. over restrictive contract practices in a 1944 case that established actors’ rights in Hollywood. She lived to age 104.
Jamie Farr (born 1934) — American actor best known as Corporal Maxwell Klinger on M*A*S*H, a character who spent eleven seasons trying to get discharged from the Army by wearing women’s clothing and was eventually promoted instead.
David Prowse (1935–2020) — English actor and weightlifting champion who provided the body of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy. His voice was dubbed by James Earl Jones. He did not know until the screening of The Empire Strikes Back that his reveal line — “I am your father” — had been kept secret from him during filming; he had been given a different line to deliver on set.
Wally Amos (born 1936) — American entrepreneur who founded Famous Amos cookies in 1975, became one of the first Black entrepreneurs to achieve national brand recognition in the food industry, and subsequently lost control of the company. He started two more cookie companies afterward and seemed genuinely unbothered about the whole thing.
Debbie Harry (born 1945) — American singer, songwriter, and actress who was the lead vocalist of Blondie, one of the defining acts of the new wave era. Heart of Glass, Call Me, and Rapture — the first rap song to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 — are among her recordings.
Fred Schneider (born 1951) — American singer and co-founder of the B-52s, whose spoken-word delivery on Rock Lobster and Love Shack established a unique approach to lead vocals that nobody has successfully imitated.
Dan Aykroyd (born 1952) — Canadian actor, screenwriter, and comedian, co-founder of the Blues Brothers, co-writer of Ghostbusters, and original cast member of Saturday Night Live. He has a deep personal interest in the paranormal and co-founded the House of Blues restaurant chain. He also owns a vodka company. He contains multitudes.
Diana, Princess of Wales (1961–1997) — Born Diana Frances Spencer on July 1, 1961, she married Prince Charles on July 29, 1981, before an estimated 750 million television viewers, became the most photographed person in the world, and was killed in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997. An estimated 2.5 billion people watched her funeral. Elton John sang a rewritten Candle in the Wind in her honor.
Pamela Anderson (born 1967) — Canadian-American model and actress whose appearance on Baywatch from 1992 to 1997 made her one of the most recognized faces in the world. She has been an animal rights advocate for PETA since 1992 and has been significantly more consistent about that commitment than about most other things she has been associated with.
July 1 Birthday Quotes
“Perhaps in time, the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.”
— Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
“One is happy as a result of one’s own efforts, once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness — simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self-denial to a point, love of work, and, above all, a clear conscience.”
— George Sand
“Family is the most important thing in the world.”
— Diana, Princess of Wales
“We’re on a mission from God.”
— Elwood J. Blues (Dan Aykroyd), in The Blues Brothers
“Eventually you just have to realize that you’re living for an audience of one. I’m not here for anyone else’s approval.”
— Pamela Anderson
Random Trivia for July 1
There is only one country between North Korea and Norway. That country is Russia, which shares a border with Norway in the far north and with North Korea in the far east, making it the most geographically stretched answer to a geography quiz question.
Stevie Wonder’s real name is Steveland Hardaway Judkins. He was renamed Steveland Morris after his mother remarried, and signed to Motown as Little Stevie Wonder at age 11.
Neanderthals did not rely on lightning to start fires. They used manganese dioxide on wood as a chemical catalyst to lower the ignition temperature — a technique that requires both materials knowledge and planning. They were doing chemistry approximately 50,000 years before chemistry was named.
The capital of Samoa is Apia, on the island of Upolu, with a population of approximately 37,000, making it one of the smaller national capitals in the world.
Madonna did her own hair, makeup, and wardrobe in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985). The film’s costume designer later confirmed that the look was entirely Madonna’s, which explained why it looked so specifically like Madonna.
Historians are not certain when Sacagawea died. One account places her death in 1812 at approximately age 24; another places it in 1884 at approximately age 94. The 70-year gap in the historical record is one of the more significant uncertainties in American frontier biography.