Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Today is July 3. On this day in 1863, the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Confederate General Robert E. Lee's last attempt at breaking the Union line ends in disastrous failure, bringing the most decisive battle of the Civil War to an end. The following November, President Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg Address while dedicating a national cemetery on the battlefield in southern Pennsylvania. Advertisement It was on this date in 1976 that Israeli commandos staged a raid of the airport at Entebbe, Uganda, and rescued 103 hostages on an Air France airliner hijacked by Arab terrorists. On this date in 1988, Iran Air Flight 655 was destroyed by two surface-to-air missiles fired from the USS Vincennes in the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard. The official explanation was that the jetliner was mistaken for a hostile F-14 fighter. The city of Quebec was founded on this date in 1608 by French explorer Samuel de Champlain. A $66 million restoration of the Statue of Liberty was capped on this date in 1986 when President Reagan re-lit the torch in New York Harbor. Advertisement We now return you to the present, already in progress.
