On This Day (July 2)

[MSFixR]

• 1566 - Nostradamus, French astrologer died. (b. 1503) (Michel de Nostredame usually Latinized to Nostradamus, was a French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous world-wide. He is best known for his book Les Propheties, the first edition of which appeared in 1555. Since the publication of this book, which has rarely been out of print since his death, Nostradamus has attracted an enthusiastic following who, along with the popular press, credit him with predicting many major world events.)
  
  
  Nostradamus: original portrait by his son Cesar
  
  
• 1644 – The Battle of Marston Moor, one of the decisive encounters of the English Civil War, was fought near York.
• 1714 - Christoph Willibald von Gluck, German composer born. (d. 1787) (Gluck was a composer of the 18th century, most noted for his operatic works.)
  
  
  Dance of the Blessed Spirits from Orfeo ed Euridice
  
  
• 1776 - The Continental Congress adopts a resolution severing ties with Great Britain; wording of the formal Declaration of Independence is not approved until July 4.
• 1839 – 53 African slaves mutinied on the slave ship La Amistad off the coast of Cuba.
• 1877 - Hermann Hesse, German-born writer, Nobel laureate born. (d. 1962) (Hesse a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. His best known works include Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game (also known as Magister Ludi) which explore an individual's search for spirituality outside society.)
• 1900 – First Zeppelin flight occurred over Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.
• 1937 – Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight.
• 1947 - An object speculated to be a UFO crashes near Roswell, New Mexico, though the United States Air Force claims it is a weather balloon.
• 1962 - The first Wal-Mart store opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas.
• 1961 - Ernest Hemingway, Nobel Prize laureate died. (b. 1899) (Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. He was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, and one of the veterans of World War One later known as "the Lost Generation," a term Gertrude Stein used according to his posthumous memoir A Moveable Feast. ("'That's what you are. That's what you all are,' Miss Stein said. 'All of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation.'" Stein had overheard a garage owner use the phrase to criticize a mechanic.) He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for The Old Man and the Sea, and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.)
• 1973 - Betty Grable, American actress died. (b. 1916)
  
  
  Betty Grable's famous "pin-up" shot, taken by 20th Century Fox studio photographer Frank Powolny.
  
  
• 1976 – North and South Vietnam united under communist rule to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
• 1977 - Vladimir Nabokov, Russian-born writer died. (b. 1899) (Nabokov was a multilingual Russian-American novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist. He also made significant contributions to entomology and had an interest in chess problems. Nabokov's Lolita (1955) is frequently cited as his most important novel, and is his most widely known, exhibiting the love of intricate wordplay and descriptive detail that characterized all his works.)
• 1997 – The Thai baht rapidly lost half of its value, marking the beginning of the 1997 East Asian financial crisis.

Picture of the Day



A Tau Emerald (Hemicordulia tau) dragonfly in flight over a creek. Insects are the only group of invertebrates to have evolved powered flight. Insects possess some remarkable flight characteristics and abilities, superior in many ways to anything created by mankind.