July 2
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1992: The Canadian cod fishery collapse
On this day in 1992, the Canadian government confirmed what thousands of people in Newfoundland and Labrador already knew: Cod fishingâand life as they knew itâwas over. Officials announced a two-year moratorium on cod fishing to give the population stocks time to recover. The collapse had been decades in the making, thanks in large part to industrial fishing, poor management, and destructive and indiscriminate bottom trawling. The moratorium was repeatedly renewed until 2024, when a cautiously managed commercial cod fishery reopened.
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Miroslav Halama/Shutterstock.com; Photo Illustration EncyclopĂŠdia Britannica, Inc.
Featured Event
Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum; photograph, Cecil Stoughton
Civil Rights Act signed
On this day in 1964, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, perhaps the most important U.S. law on civil rights since Reconstruction (1865â77) and a hallmark of the American civil rights movement. [Read about 10 milestones in U.S. civil rights history.]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
National Archives, Washington, D.C. (2803441)
Thurgood Marshall, born this day in Baltimore in 1908, greatly influenced civil rights legislation in the United States, first as a lawyer and chief counsel for the NAACP and then as the first African American member of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Famous Birthdays
More on July 2
© Allan TannenbaumâArchive Photos/Getty Images
2016
Romanian-born Jewish writer Elie Wiesel, who won the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize for his works that provide a sober yet passionate testament of the nearly complete extermination of European Jews by Nazi Germany, died at age 87. [Test your knowledge of the Nobel Prize.]
Helene C. Stikkel/U.S. Department of Defense
2015
The 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal was first exposed by journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown, founder of the blog Sarawak Report. One of the largest corruption scandals in modern history, it helped topple Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
© Sipa/Shutterstock.com
2008
More than six years after being taken hostage by FARC guerrillas, Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt was freed during a rescue mission in which army soldiers posed as international aid workers. [Take our quiz about Latin American history.]
NASA
2002
Steve Fossett became the first balloonist to circumnavigate the world alone. [Test your knowledge of aircraft and aviation.]
Culver Pictures
1997
Motion-picture actor James Stewartâwho came to personify a decent everyman struggling to overcome difficult circumstances while rising to heroic stature in the processâdied at age 89. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about A-list actors.]
© Romeo GacadâAFP/Getty Images
1994
AndrĂ©s Escobar was shot dead in MedellĂn, Colombia, just a few days after he accidentally scored an own goal during a 1994 World Cup match against the United States. The exact motives for his murder remain unclear.
© Stanley Marquardt/Fotolia
1979
The United States first issued the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin, making the leader of the womenâs suffrage movement the first woman to be depicted on U.S. currency. [Take our quiz about famous firsts for women.]
© Andrei StanescuâiStock/Getty Images
1962
Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store, in Rogers, Arkansas. It was the start of what would become the largest retail sales chain in the United States.
Culver Pictures
1937
The airplane piloted by Amelia Earhart disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean during her attempt to fly around the world. [Find out more about seven puzzling plane disappearances.]
UPI/Bettmann Archive
1932
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt coined the term âNew Dealâ in his acceptance speech for the Democratic presidential nomination. [How much do you know about U.S. presidents?]
© Archive Photos
1925
Medgar Evers, the Black civil rights activist whose murder in 1963 received national attention and made him a martyr to the cause of the civil rights movement, was born in Decatur, Mississippi. [Read a timeline of the American civil rights movement.]
AP Images
1925
Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1960), was born in Onalua in what was then called the Belgian Congo. [Why was Patrice Lumumbaâs death so controversial?]
Czarek SokolowskiâAP/REX/Shutterstock.com
1923
Poet WisĆawa Szymborskaâwho rejected Socialist Realism to pen intelligent and empathetic verse that explored philosophical and moral issues, for which she won the 1996 Nobel Prize for Literatureâwas born in Poland. [Test your knowledge of Nobel laureates in literature.]
EncyclopĂŠdia Britannica, Inc.
1900
The first flight of a zeppelin took place as the airship departed a floating hangar on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany. [Take our quiz about the history of flight.]
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
1881
Shot on this day, U.S. President James A. Garfield died several weeks later, on September 19.
Yale University Art Gallery
1839
Enslaved people carried out a rebellion on the ship Amistad near the coast of Cuba. In their trial the following year, they were acquittedâa victory for American abolitionism.
© Andy Murphy/Alamy
1822
Denmark Vesey was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, for planning the most extensive slave revolt in U.S. history. [Take our quiz about slavery and resistance through history.]
National Archives, Washington, D.C.
1776
After a dramatic all-night ride, Delaware delegate Caesar Rodney arrived just in time to cast the decisive vote approving the Declaration of Independence. [Take our quiz about famous documents.]
Photos.com/Jupiterimages
1644
At the Battle of Marston Moor, Parliamentary forces handed the Royalists their first major defeat in the English Civil Wars. [Match the battle with the war in our quiz.]