Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Today is Monday, July 3, the 184th day of 2006 with 181 to follow. The moon is waxing. The morning stars are Venus, Uranus and Neptune. The evening stars are Mercury, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn and Pluto. Advertisement Those born on this date are under the sign of Cancer. They include actor, singer, composer George M. Cohan in 1878; Welsh poet and writer William Henry Davies ("The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp") in 1871; Czech novelist Franz Kafka in 1883; actor George Sanders in 1906; journalist and columnist Dorothy Kilgallen in 1913; Jerry Gray, band leader, arranger for Glenn Miller, in 1915; English filmmaker Ken Russell in 1927 (age 79); clarinetist and New Orleans jazz great Pete Fountain in 1930 (age 76); English playwright Tom Stoppard in 1937 (age 69); humorist Dave Barry and actress Betty Buckley, both in 1947 (age 59); exiled Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier in 1951 (age 55); talk show host Montell Williams in 1956 (age 49); pop singer Laura Branigan in 1957 (age 49); actors Tom Cruise and Thomas Gibson ("Dharma & Greg"), both in 1962 (age 44); and pop singer Taylor Dayne in 1963 (age 43). Advertisement On this date in history: In 1608, French explorer Samuel de Champlain founded the Canadian town of Quebec. In 1775, George Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Mass. In 1863, the Union army under command of Gen. George Meade defeated Confederate forces commanded by Gen. Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg, Pa. The same day, Vicksburg, Miss., surrendered to Union troops led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. In 1928, the first color television transmission was accomplished by John Logie Baird in London. In 1971, rock star Jim Morrison, 27, was found dead in a bathtub in Paris of heart failure. In 1976, Israeli commandos raided the airport at Entebbe, Uganda, rescuing 103 hostages held by Arab terrorists. In 1986, U.S. President Ronald Reagan re-lit the Statue of Liberty's torch in New York Harbor after a $66 million restoration of the statue was completed during the 100th anniversary year of its dedication. Also in 1986, Rudy Vallee, one of the nation's most popular singers in the 1920s and '30s, died at the age of 84. Advertisement In 1988, missiles fired from the USS Vincennes brought down an Iranian airliner in the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard. In 1992, the U.S. Air Force joined the international airlift of food and medical supplies to besieged residents of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. In 1993, exiled Haitian President Aristide and Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, who led the coup in 1991 that ousted him, announced an agreement that would put Aristide back in power by October. Cedras later broke the agreement. In 1996, Boris Yeltsin was re-elected president of Russia, defeating Gennadi Zyuganov in a runoff. In 2000, blasts caused by suicide bombers in Chechnya killed at least 37 Russian soldiers. In 2003, the U.S. Labor Department reported that June unemployment had climbed to a 9-year high of 6.4 percent. In 2004, the United States planned to evacuate more than 500 U.S. citizens from the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain due to the threat of terrorism. Also in 2004, a U.N. panel of experts from 60 countries met in Geneva to discuss international standards for storage and classification of fireworks. In 2005, the Israeli Cabinet overwhelmingly rejected a move to postpone the pullback from the Gaza Strip and from four settlements in the northern West Bank. Advertisement Also in 2005, water temperatures in the lower Great Lakes were reported at a 5-year high. A thought for the day: Flaubert said, "Of all lies, art is the least untrue."
