July 1, 1863 - The Battle of Gettysburg began.  It was a major and pivotal battle of the Civil War. It was at the site of the battle that President Abraham Lincoln gave his famous "Gettysburg Address”.

July 1, 1916 - The Coca Cola Company introduced its iconic rounded bottle.

 July 1, 1948 - Idlewild Airport, now JFK Airport, opened.

 July 1, 1963 - The ZIP code was introduced. It stands for Zone Improvement Plan Code.

 July 2, 1964 - President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law.

 July 3, 1962 - Jackie Robinson was named to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball.

 July 4, 1776 - The Continental Congress, meeting in what came to be called Independence Hall, adopted the Declaration of Independence.

 July 4, 1826 - On the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, former Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died. They had both contributed to the writing of the Declaration. 

 July 4, 1900 - Jazz legend Louis Armstrong, nicked-name "Satchmo," was born.

 July 4, 1903 - The first TransPacific cable was completed.  It reached from San Francisco to Manila.  President Theodore Roosevelt sent the first message.

 July 6, 1775 - Congress issued the "Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms" against the British.

 July 6, 1854 - The newly formed Republican Party gathered in opposition to slavery. The first candidate for President was John Charles Fremont. He lost to James Buchanan. Fremont and his wife, Jessie, were outspoken against slavery. The second nominee, Abraham Lincoln, won in 1860 and again four years later.

 July 6, 1957 - Althea Gibson won the women's singles at Wimbledon, the first African-American to do so.

 July 6, 1976 - The United States Naval Academy admitted women for the first time. Eighty-one women were inducted.

 July 8, 1776 - The first public reading of the Declaration of Independence was given at the State House in Philadelphia. The Liberty Bell was rung for the first time.

 July 9, 1776 - The Declaration of Independence was read aloud in Manhattan on Bowling Green. Afterwards, some of the colonists tore down the statue of King George III. Parts of it were sent to a foundry in Connecticut to be made into bullets. 

 July 9, 1778 - Congress approved the Articles of Confederation, five years before the Peace Treaty with England.

 July 10, 1870 - Mary McLeod Bethune was born. A child of enslaved parents, she became an educator and civil rights activist. She founded a school for African-Americans, now called the Bethune-Cookman University. It is in South Carolina.

 July 11, 1804 - Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel, with pistols, in Weehawken, NJ as dueling was illegal in New York. They had battled politically for years. Hamilton died the next day.

  His widow, Elizabeth, was one of the founders of the Orphan Asylum Society now named Graham Windham. The OAS was founded in 1806. She served the OAS for almost 50 years. She lived to be 97 and was a remarkable woman.

 July 11, 1905 - The Niagara Movement, the forerunner to the NAACP, was organized. 

 July 13, 1960 - Then Senator John F. Kennedy was nominated for President by the Democratic Party. He was elected the following November. 

 July 13, 1965 - Thurgood Marshall, the future Supreme Court Justice, became the first African-American appointed to be Solicitor General of the United States

 July 15, 1775 - Olive Branch Petition was sent to King George III to end the armed tension in the American Colonies.

 July 18, 1921 - Future astronaut and Senator, John Glenn, was born.

 July 19, 1848 - A Women's Rights Convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York. Women did not get the right to vote until 1920. This was the beginning of the Women's Rights movement.   The Anti-slavery movement was assisted by the Convention.

 July 20, 1969 - At 9:56pm (earth time!) astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to step on the moon's surface, having traveled there on Apollo 11.

 July 21, 1775 - New York patriots observed a day of "Fasting & Devotion".

 July 24, 1897 - Aviator Amelia Earhart was born. She set numerous aviation records. She disappeared in a flight over the Pacific Ocean in 1937. Some believe she was on a spying mission for the government. Others believe she survived and lived on an island in the Pacific Ocean and died a few years later.

 July 26, 1788 - New York State ratified the United States Constitution.

 July 26, 1948 - President Harry S. Truman signed an Executive Order stating that there should be "equality of treatment and opportunity without regard to race, color, religion or national origin" in the United States Armed Forces.

 July 28, 1868 - The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution went into effect. It granted African-Americans full citizenship rights.

 July 30, 1941 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the law which established the WAVES: Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service during World War II.

July 31, 1777 - The Marquis de Lafayette was appointed a Major General in the Continental Army. He served under George Washington and alongside Alexander Hamilton, the future Secretary of the Treasury. When he was later imprisoned during the French Revolution, his son came here and lived with the Hamilton family. Hamilton translated as he spoke French, although not very well according to other French soldiers!

 July 31, 1921 - Former Urban League President, Whitney Young, Jr. was born.