Content by F T.Bear
Good morning! Rise and shine!
Today in history is a place for you early risers to exercise your brains as you wait for the day to begin. Please, by all means, bring your own bits of history to the comments section and add your memories of what YOU did on this day however many years ago.
The beauty of an early morning historical post is that the date can mean the event happened today “our time” or today “other side of the world” time.
From the life and death of Plato through to the latest most recent history as it happens, we intend on bringing you stimulating and educational historical knowledge.
July 4
1997: After travelling 120 million miles in seven months NASA’s Mars Pathfinder landed on Mars. It was the first US spacecraft to land on Mars in 2 decades. It used a simple parachute and air bag system to cushion it’s fall to the red planet’s surface. It also had a rover that travelled 171 ft during its 30-day mission and sent back a wealth of information on Mars’ makeup including 10,000 pictures.
1776: The amended Declaration of Independence is approved and signed by the President of the Continental Congress, John Hancock, and Charles Thomson, Congress secretary. It proclaimed the independence of the United States of America from Great Britain and it’s king.
1976: An Israeli raid at Entebbe airport in Uganda rescues 105 hostages. A week earlier a French Airbus A300 with 248 passengers had been hijacked on it’s way from Tel Aviv to Paris. 148 non-Israelis were released, 94 others, mainly Israelis plus the 12 French crew were threatened with death unless the hijackers’ demands were met. The raid by IDF commandos rescued 102, with 4 being killed in the action. 5 commandos were injured with 1 other being killed (Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, elder brother of Benjamin) The hijackers and 45 Ugandan soldiers were killed. In the aftermath, Idi Amin issued orders to kill all Kenyans in Uganda (the Kenyans had supported the Israeli raid) 245 were slaughtered with over 3000 others escaping the country.
