This Day in History: July 4

On this day, July 4 ...

1776: The Declaration of Independence is adopted by delegates to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

Also on this day:

• 1802: The United States Military Academy officially opens at West Point, New York.
• 1817: Ground is broken for the Erie Canal in Rome, N.Y. The middle section of the waterway takes three years to complete; the entire canal would be finished in 1825.
• 1826: Fifty years to the day after the Declaration of Independence was adopted, former presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both die.
• 1831: James Monroe, the nation's fifth president, dies in New York City at age 73.

• 1910: In what is billed as "The Fight of the Century," black world heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson defeats white former champ James J. Jeffries in Reno, Nevada.
• 1929: Al Davis, longtime owner of the NFL's Oakland Raiders, is born in Massachusetts.
• 1930: George Steinbrenner, longtime owner of MLB's New York Yankees, is born in Ohio.

NEW YORK - JULY 4, 1939. Lou Gehrig, first baseman for the New York Yankees, is shown at the microphone during Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day, a farewell to the slugger, at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939. (Photo by Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics, Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Lou Gehrig

• 1939: Lou Gehrig delivers his famous farewell speech in which he called himself "the luckiest man on the face of the Earth."
• 1987: Klaus Barbie, the former Gestapo chief known as the "Butcher of Lyon", is convicted by a French court of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison.
• 1997: NASA's Pathfinder spacecraft lands on Mars, inaugurating a new era in the search for life on the red planet.
• 2009: The Statue of Liberty’s crown is reopened to tourists for the first time since the Sept.11, 2001 attacks.
• 2017: The United States confirms that North Korea had launched an intercontinental ballistic missile, as the North had boasted and the U.S. and South Korea had feared.

• 2019: With the Lincoln Memorial in the background and flanked on both sides by camouflaged Bradley fighting vehicles, President Trump uses his "Salute to America" celebration to praise the men and women of the Armed Forces and American exceptionalism.