July 1
Canada Day :
Canada. Known as Dominion Day
until 1982, this day celebrates the confederation of upper and lower Canada
into the Dominion of Canada in 1867.
Founding of
Communist Party : People's Republic of China. Public
holiday.
Republic Day
: Ghana. On this day in 1960,
Ghana gained independence within the Commonwealth of Great Britain.
SAR Establishment
Day : Hong Kong. * Public holiday.
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July 2
Thurgood Marshall
(1908–1993) : African American. Civil
rights leader and Supreme Court justice. As head of the legal services
division of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
from 1938 to 1962, Thurgood Marshall led the legal effort to advance the
civil rights of all Americans, particularly those belonging to minority
groups. His most famous victory was the 1954 Supreme
Court decision ending racial segregation in public schools. (See entry
for May 17.) He continued to work for civil
rights and equal opportunity as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals,
second circuit (1962–1965), Solicitor General of the United States
(1965–1967), and finally as the first African American associate
justice of the Supreme Court, where he served from 1967 to 1991.
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July 3
Independence
Day : Bahamas. This commemorates
the Bahamas' gaining independence within the Commonwealth of Great Britain
in 1973. This holiday is observed from July 3 through July 10.
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July 4
Giuseppe Garibaldi
(1807–1882) : Italian. Military
leader. Garibaldi led the military forces of the revolutionary movement
for the unification and independence of Italy from 1848 to 1867. A national
hero, Garibaldi is considered one of the great guerrilla generals of modern
times.
Edmonia Lewis
(1845–unknown date, after 1911) : African American and American Indian
(Ojibway). Sculptor. Lewis, largely
self-taught, first came to public attention in 1864 with a medallion of
the head of John Brown and a portrait bust of the late Civil War hero
Robert Gould Shaw. Sale of copies of the Shaw bust earned her enough to
travel to Rome, where she established a studio and pursued a successful
career, which peaked in the late 60s and early 70s. Much of her work is
lost today, but it is known to have included a number of works depicting
African American and American Indian themes.
Independence
Day : United States. This commemorates
the day in 1776 that delegates of the Thirteen Colonies signed the Declaration
of Independence announcing their separation from Great Britain and the
establishment of the United States of America.
Philippine-American
Friendship Day : Philippines. This
celebrates the day in 1946 that the United States granted independence
to the Philippines after ruling it since 1905.
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July 5
Bank Holiday
: Bangladesh, Egypt, Pakistan, Taiwan, Thailand. Public
holiday.
Independence
Day : Algeria. Ruled by the
Ottoman Turks since the mid-sixteenth century and populated mainly by
Arabs who introduced Islam as the country's predominant religion, Algeria
became a colony of France in 1848. A war of independence from France began
in 1954, and Algeria became independent in 1962.
Independence
Day : Venezuela. First colonized
by Spain in the fifteenth century, Venezuela began a war of independence
led by Francisco de Miranda and Simón Bolívar that lasted from 1810 to
1821. It is on this day in 1811 that Venezuela declared its independence
from Spain. This day is celebrated in Venezuela as a national holiday.
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July 6
Day of Statehood
: Lithuania. Public holiday.
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July 9
Independence
Day : Argentina. This marks
the establishment of an independent Argentina after its war with Spain
from 1810–1816.
King Hassan's
Birthday : Morocco. Public holiday.
Martyrdom of
the Bab : Baha'i. This holiday
commemorates the arrest, torture, imprisonment, and eventual execution
of the Bab in Tabriz, Persia, in 1850. The Bab's body is buried at the
Baha'i temple in Haifa, Israel.
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July 10
Arthur Ashe (1943–1993)
: African American. Athlete,
writer, and activist. The first Black tennis player to win the men's titles
at the U.S. Open (1968) and Wimbledon (1975), Arthur Ashe became known
for his power and skill as a player and for his dignity and eloquence
as a leader, particularly in efforts to combat racial discrimination.
He helped integrate professional sports in South Africa and founded and
worked to maintain tennis programs for inner-city youth in the United
States. After heart problems led to his retirement from professional play
in 1980, he researched and wrote The Hard Road to Glory, published
in 1988. After announcing in the spring of 1992 that he had contracted
AIDS through a blood transfusion, Ashe spent the last year of his life
campaigning for greater public awareness of the disease and raising funds
for research and treatment programs.
Nicolás Guillén
(1902–1989) : Cuban. Poet.
A Cuban of mixed European and African ancestry, Guillén became a major
exponent in the late 1920s and 1930s of poetry that is often called Afro-Cuban.
He is also known for his poetry of social protest and his other writings
advocating political and social reform.
Independence
Day : Bahamas. This commemorates
the Bahamas' gaining independence within the Commonwealth of Great Britain
in 1973. This holiday is observed from July 3 through July 10.
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July 11
Flemish Community
Holiday : Belgium. Celebrated
in Flemish communities in Belgium, this day commemorates the battle in
1302 in which the Flemish declared their independence from France.
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July 12
Constantine Brumidi
(1805–1880) : Italian American. Painter.
A successful painter in Italy, Brumidi came to the United States in 1852
as a political refugee. In 1855 he began a quarter century of work at
the U.S. Capitol building, decorating it with frescoes on patriotic themes.
His most famous work is "The Apotheosis of Washington" in the Capitol
dome.
Gunnar Dybwad
(1909-2002). Advocate for people with disabilities. A
Professor of human development at Brandeis University, Dybwad Dybwad was
one of the first to articulate the issues facing people with disabilities
as civil rights issues and not only as medical and social issues. He played
a significant role in convincing the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded
Children to sue on behalf of children with disabilities. The 1972 case
led to establishment of the right of disabled children to receive a public
education and helped spur the enactment of laws dealing with disability
rights.
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July 14
Isaac Bashevis
Singer (1904–1991) : Jewish American. Writer.
Singer was the leading writer in the Yiddish language after World War
II and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978. Most of his
works have been translated into English.
Bastille (bass-steel)
Day : France. This celebrates
the fall of the Bastille prison, marking the beginning of the French Revolution
in 1789 and the eventual end of monarchial rule and the creation of a
French Republic.
When Thomas Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase
from France in 1803, French-speaking populations were incorporated into
the United States. This included the French-speaking Acadians, who emigrated
from Acadia in Canada in the mid-1700s and settled primarily in the Lafayette
Parish region of southern Louisiana. Joined by other settlers such as
Creoles, descendants of African, West Indian, and European pioneers, they
over time formed a new cultural group that came to be known as “Cajuns.”
Given their French heritage, many Louisiana “parishes,” including
New Orleans and Kaplan, sometimes called “the most Cajun place on
earth,” hold Bastille Day festivals featuring Cajun food, music,
and dance.
Battle of Boyne
Day : Northern Ireland. Public
holiday.
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July 15
(Saint) Frances
Xavier Cabrini (1850–1917) : Italian American. Founder
of a religious order. A woman of phenomenal energy and organizational
genius, Sister Frances Cabrini founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred
Heart, an order of nuns devoted to service in schools, orphanages, hospitals,
and prisons. Under her direction the order spread between 1880 and 1910
from a single convent in her native Italy to an international institution,
with 65 houses spread across Europe and the Americas and 1,500 sisters.
She became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1909. Canonized
in 1946, she is the first American saint.
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July 16
Ida B. Wells-Barnet
(1862–1931) : African American. Journalist
and civil rights activist. Ida B. Wells-Barnet devoted her life to drawing
attention to the widespread practice of lynching—the murder of Blacks
by mobs of whites—in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth
century. She launched her crusade in 1892 in the pages of the Memphis,
Tennessee, weekly newspaper, of which she was part owner. After a white
mob destroyed her newspaper office, she moved to New York City, where
she continued writing against lynching and carried her crusade on lecture
tours of the United States and Britain.
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July 17
Constitution
Day : South Korea. After the
division of Korea into North Korea and South Korea at the end of World
War II, South Korea formed a republic with its capital in Seoul and Syngman
Rhee as its first president.
Luis Muñoz Rivera
(1859–1916) : Puerto Rico. Poet,
journalist, and political leader. When Spain granted political autonomy
to Puerto Rico in 1898, Luis Muñoz Rivera became its leader. Only five
months later, however, the United States invaded and took possession of
the island, and Muñoz Rivera spent the rest of his life working to regain
the independence of his nation. As Resident Commissioner in Washington
in 1916, he denounced the proposed Jones Act, which was to give citizenship
to Puerto Ricans but retain the island as a U.S. possession. The act was
passed shortly after his death. (See entry for March
2.)
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July 19
Alice Dunbar-Nelson
(1875–1935) : African American. Author,
teacher, and social worker. Briefly married to the poet Paul Laurence
Dunbar, Alice Dunbar-Nelson was an accomplished writer of poems and short
stories, newspaper columns, diaries, and speeches. Her career as an educator
included 18 years of teaching and administration at Howard High School
in Wilmington, Delaware, and 4 years at a school she helped to found for
delinquent African American girls. Deeply committed to racial equality,
women's rights, and world peace, she devoted much of her energy to writing,
lecturing, and political organizing in support of these causes.
First Special
Olympics Games (1968) : United States. On
this date the first Special Olymimages, an athletic competition for children
and adults with cognitive disabilities, opened at Soldiers Field in Chicago.
The first Special Olymimages had 1,000 participants from the United States
and Canada; by 1995, this competition had expanded to include Winter Special
Olymimages (added in 1977) and to involve 7,000 participants from all
50 states and 143 countries. The program of events has also grown dramatically,
from three at the first Special Olymimages to more than twenty. The international
competition is held in the year before the regular Olymimages.
National Liberation
Day : Nicaragua. The family
of Anastasio Somoza ruled Nicaragua as a dictatorship from 1937 to 1979.
After an uprising led by the National Liberation Army, the Somoza family
fled Nicaragua on this day in 1979.
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July 20
Independence
Day : Colombia. Beginning in
the fourteenth century, the region that is now Colombia was the center
of the Spanish colony known as New Granada, which included Panama and
most of Venezuela. Beginning in 1810, Simón Bolívar led a war of independence
from Spain, which ended with his victory over Spanish forces on this day
in 1819. This day is celebrated in Colombia as a national holiday.
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July 21
Marine Day :
Japan. Public holiday.
National Holiday
: Belgium. This marks the day
in 1831 that Belgium became independent from the Netherlands and Leopold
I ascended the throne as Belgium's first king.
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July 23
Revolution Day
: Egypt. This day marks the
beginning of the military coup in 1952 that led to the proclamation of
the Egyptian republic.
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July 24
Bella Abzug (1920–1998)
: Jewish American. Women's rights
advocate and politician. A graduate of Hunter College and Columbia Law
School, where she was an editor of the Law Review, Abzug began
her career as a civil rights lawyer and became a leading advocate for
equal rights, peace, and political reform. In the 1960s she became a fervent
antiwar activist and a founder of Women Strike for Peace, a group opposing
nuclear testing and the war in Vietnam. In 1970, Abzug won a seat in the
United States Congress and served until 1976, when she ran unsuccessfully
for the Democratic nomination for the Senate. While in the House, she
cosponsored the Equal Rights Amendment and the Freedom of Information
Act, as well as the legislation that established August 26 as Women's
Equality Day. After leaving Congress, Abzug dedicated the rest of her
life to achieving women's rights as a founder of the lobbying groups National
Women's Political Caucus and Women USA, as well as the Women's Environment
and Development Organization.
Pioneer Day
: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This
marks the day in 1847 that Brigham Young led other believers in the teachings
of Joseph Smith, the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, into the valley of the Great Salt Lake, where they would establish
the center of their Church and build Salt Lake City.
Simón Bolívar
(1783–1830) : Ecuador and Venezuela. Military
and political leader. This public holiday honors Bolívar. Known as "The
Liberator," Simón Bolívar led the rebellion against Spanish rule that
established the independence of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and
Bolivia.
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July 25
Constitution
Day : Puerto Rico. The constitution
of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico was approved in 1952 on this day, which
is now commemorated each year with official government ceremonies.
Republic Day
: Tunisia. This day commemorates
the end of the Tunisian monarchy and the establishment of a republic in
1957.
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July 26
Hector P. Garcia
(1914–1996) : Hispanic American. Medical
doctor and civil rights activist.
Americans with
Disabilities Act (1990) : United States. Signed
into law on this date, this milestone of U.S. civil rights legislation
protects people with disabilities from discrimination in the areas of
employment, transportation, and public accommodation. (Earlier legislation
had addressed discrimination in housing.) The law requires a wide range
of public and private establishments to make new and renovated facilities
accessible to people with disabilities and to make "readily achievable"
changes to existing facilities in order to increase accessibility.
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July 27
José Celso Barbosa's
Birthday : Puerto Rico. This
is a public holiday honoring Barbosa, a doctor and a politician born on
this day in 1857. In 1899, he founded the Republican Party of Puerto Rico
that advocated statehood for the island.
Qaid-i-Azam's
Birthday celebrated : Pakistan. * (See
December 25) Public holiday.
Tisha B'av : Jewish.
This holiday commemorates the destruction of the
Jewish temple in Jerusalem in both 586 B.C.E. and again in 70 C.E. (m)
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July 28
Independence
Day celebrated : Peru. Public
holiday.
(See entry for December
9.)
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