July 3 History, Fun Facts, and Trivia
July 3 Observances
July 3 is National Fried Clam Day, American Redneck Day, Disobedience Day, National Chocolate Wafer Day, National Eat Your Beans Day, Stay Out of the Sun Day, Compliment Your Mirror Day, and Plastic Bag Free Day. It also marks the beginning of the Dog Days of Summer (July 3–August 11) and Air Conditioning Appreciation Days (July 3–August 15), both of which exist because someone had to name the feeling of not wanting to go outside.
What Happened on July 3?
July 3 is the day Quebec was founded, the day George Washington took command of the Continental Army, the day Pickett’s Charge ended the Battle of Gettysburg, the day Back to the Future opened in theaters, and — in a coincidence that continues to astonish rock historians — the day both Brian Jones and Jim Morrison died, two years apart, both at age 27. It is also National Fried Clam Day, which originated on a slow July 3 in Essex, Massachusetts, in 1916, when a fisherman suggested frying the clams the way you’d fry a potato chip. The following day was the Fourth of July. It went well.
If you were born on July 3, you were likely conceived the week of October 10 of the prior year.
July 3 History Highlights
1035 — William the Conqueror became Duke of Normandy at approximately age 7 or 8, following the death of his father, Robert I. His illegitimate birth made his succession contested and his early years dangerous; several assassination attempts were made against him before he consolidated power. He would go on to conquer England in 1066 and fundamentally reshape the English language, legal system, and aristocracy.
1608 — Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec City on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, establishing one of the first permanent European settlements in North America. The name came from the Algonquin word kebec, meaning “where the river narrows.” Quebec City remains the only walled city north of Mexico in North America.
1775 — George Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the Cambridge Common. He found approximately 16,000 men — poorly trained, inadequately supplied, and without a functioning military structure. He had six years of war ahead of him and spent much of it keeping the army alive rather than winning battles, which turned out to be enough.
1863 — The Battle of Gettysburg ended on its third day with Pickett’s Charge — the Confederate assault on the Union center at Cemetery Ridge in which approximately 12,500 Confederate soldiers advanced across three-quarters of a mile of open field under direct artillery and rifle fire. The attack failed catastrophically. Confederate casualties exceeded 50 percent. General Robert E. Lee, watching the survivors return, said, “It is all my fault.” The battle’s three days produced approximately 51,000 combined casualties and effectively ended the Confederacy’s capacity for offensive operations in the East.
1884 — Dow Jones and Company published its first stock average, a simple calculation of 11 stocks — 9 railroad companies and 2 industrials — created by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser. The number was 40.74. The company originally sold a handwritten financial news sheet called the Customer’s Afternoon Letter, which became the Wall Street Journal in 1889.
1886 — The New York Tribune became the first newspaper to use a Linotype machine, which allowed operators to set entire lines of type from a keyboard rather than assembling individual letters by hand. The machine eliminated most typesetting jobs and made mass-circulation daily newspapers economically practical. Ottmar Mergenthaler, who invented it, was called the second Gutenberg.
1890 — Idaho was admitted as the 43rd US state.
1916 — Lawrence “Chubby” Woodman and his wife Bessie fried the first clam at their concession stand in Essex, Massachusetts, on a slow afternoon before the Fourth of July, following a suggestion from a regular customer named Tarr. The experiment went well enough that they offered fried clams at the following day’s Independence Day parade. The fried clam as an American institution traces directly to this transaction.
1953 — Hermann Buhl completed the first ascent of Nanga Parbat (26,660 feet) in Pakistan — the ninth-highest mountain in the world — entirely alone and without supplemental oxygen, after his climbing partner turned back. Buhl reached the summit at 7:00 p.m. and was forced to spend the night standing on a small ledge near the top, without a sleeping bag, at approximately 26,000 feet, before descending the following day. It remains one of the most extraordinary solo achievements in mountaineering history.
1969 — Brian Jones, co-founder and original guitarist of the Rolling Stones, was found dead in the swimming pool of his home in East Sussex at age 27. His death was ruled accidental drowning. He had been dismissed from the band he founded five weeks earlier. He was the first prominent member of what became known as the 27 Club.
1971 — Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, died in Paris at age 27, officially of heart failure. No autopsy was performed. He had moved to Paris earlier in the year, intending to focus on his poetry. He was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery, where his grave remains one of the most visited in Paris. That both Morrison and Jones died on July 3, two years apart, both at 27, is the kind of coincidence that numerologists and rock mythologists have been discussing ever since.
1979 — President Carter signed the first presidential directive authorizing covert aid to opponents of the Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan, six months before the Soviet invasion in December 1979. The program that followed, Operation Cyclone, became the largest covert operation in CIA history. Some of the organizational infrastructure and weapons it created had a long subsequent history.
1985 — Back to the Future, directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, opened in American theaters and immediately became one of the most beloved films of the decade. The time machine was a modified 1981 DeLorean DMC-12 powered by plutonium and a flux capacitor. The film grossed $381 million on a $19 million budget and has never lost its audience.
1988 — The USS Vincennes, a US Navy guided-missile cruiser operating in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War, shot down Iran Air Flight 655, killing all 290 people aboard, after misidentifying the commercial Airbus A300 as an attacking military aircraft. The United States expressed regret and paid compensation to the families, but did not formally apologize. The commanding officer was later awarded the Legion of Merit.
2013 — The Egyptian military removed President Mohamed Morsi from power following mass protests against his government. Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood, had been Egypt’s first democratically elected president, having won office in 2012 following the Arab Spring. General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi assumed control. Morsi was later tried and died in custody in 2019.
Billboard Number One on July 3
1982: Don’t You Want Me — The Human League (July 3–23) — the Sheffield synth-pop duo’s defining recording, built around a conversation between a man who discovered a woman and a woman who disputes his version of events
Born on July 3
George M. Cohan (1878–1942) — American playwright, composer, lyricist, and performer who wrote Give My Regards to Broadway, You’re a Grand Old Flag, and The Yankee Doodle Boy, among dozens of other songs and plays. He was the first civilian to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, awarded by President Roosevelt in 1936 for his World War I compositions. James Cagney played him in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and won the Academy Award for Best Actor doing it.
Franz Kafka (1883–1924) — Czech-Austrian author whose novels and stories — The Metamorphosis, The Trial, The Castle — depicted individuals trapped in incomprehensible bureaucratic or existential situations without explanation or resolution. He instructed his friend Max Brod to burn his manuscripts after his death. Brod did not. The word “Kafkaesque” now describes any experience of inexplicable institutional obstruction, which is to say it is used approximately 40 million times per year.
George Sanders (1906–1972) — Russian-born British actor who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for All About Eve (1950) and voiced Shere Khan in Disney’s The Jungle Book (1967). His suicide note read, in part: “Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough.” It remains the most elegantly written suicide note in the history of British acting.
Kurtwood Smith (born 1943) — American actor best known as the intimidating Red Forman on That ’70s Show, a character whose primary parenting technique involved the phrase “dumbass” and threats involving a foot and a posterior. He is also, in a different register, the villain Clarence Boddicker in RoboCop (1987).
Dave Barry (born 1947) — American humor columnist and author who won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1988 and whose explanation of that fact — “I have no idea what I did wrong” — is probably not entirely accurate. His column ran in 500 newspapers at its peak. He has written approximately 30 books, all of which are funnier than their titles suggest.
Laura Branigan (1952–2004) — American singer best known for Gloria (1982), which spent 36 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 — the longest chart run for any single by a female artist at that time. She died of a brain aneurysm at age 51.
Tom Cruise (born 1962) — American actor whose films — including the Mission: Impossible series, Top Gun, Jerry Maguire, and Born on the Fourth of July — have grossed over $10 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing box office stars in history. He performs most of his own stunts, a fact his insurance providers find significantly less exciting than his audiences do.
Yeardley Smith (born 1964) — American actress and voice artist who has provided the voice of Lisa Simpson since 1987, the longest continuous voicing of the same animated character by the same actor in American television history. She auditioned for Bart and was redirected to Lisa, a casting dec