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THE DAY IN HISTORY · JULY 4

July 4 in history

What happened on July 4: 5 moments from the Maps of History atlases, in 1187, 1776, 1838, 1863 and 1946, each linked to the map that shows it.

— Battle of Hattin

4 Jul 1187 — lured onto a waterless plateau, the army of Jerusalem is destroyed by Saladin. The True Cross is captured and the kingdom left almost undefended. The single worst day in Outremer’s history.

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE CRUSADES MAP → · THE FULL STORY →

The Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident…”

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE AGE OF REVOLUTIONS MAP →

— Huskar Pit disaster

4 Jul 1838 — A storm floods the ventilation drift of this South Yorkshire colliery and drowns 26 children, the youngest seven years old. The outcry helps produce the Mines Act of 1842.

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION MAP → · THE FULL STORY →

— Siege of Vicksburg

4 Jul 1863 — After a campaign of feints, five battles in eighteen days, and a 47-day siege, the fortress on the bluffs surrenders with 30,000 men — the day after Pickett’s Charge. The Confederacy is cut in two.

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR MAP → · THE FULL STORY →

— Kielce pogrom

4 Jul 1946 — A false rumour of a kidnapped child becomes a pogrom in which soldiers, police and townspeople kill 42 Jews, survivors of the Holocaust. In the months that follow some 90,000 to 100,000 Jews leave Poland, most of them for the American zone of Germany. Remember them.

READ THIS MOMENT → · SEE IT ON THE UPROOTED MAP → · THE FULL STORY →

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