On This Day: Saturday July 2, 2005 This is the 183rd day of the year, with 182 days remaining in 2005. Fact of the Day: Gettysburg In 1863, after the Southern success at Chancellorsville, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee led his forces on an invasion of the North. They were headed for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, but then formed the battle lines at Gettysburg. On the climactic third day of the battle (July 3), Lee ordered an attack on the middle of the Union line, later known as Pickett's Charge. The rebels, with about 1/3 casualties, were defeated by the North and Lee's forces retreated to Virginia. With more than 50,000 casualties, it was the worst battle of the Civil War. Holidays Feast day of Saints Processus and Martinian, St Monegundis, and St Otto of Bamberg. Events 1776 - The Continental Congress passed a resolution saying that "these United Colonies are, and of right, ought to be, Free and Independent States." 1777 - Vermont became the first American colony to abolish slavery. 1788 - The Constitution went into effect after nine states ratified it. 1839 - Africans on the Cuban schooner Amistad rose up against their captors, killing two crewmembers and seizing control of the ship, which had been transporting them to a life of slavery on a sugar plantation at Puerto Príncipe, Cuba. 1850 - The gas mask was patented by B.J. Lane of Cambridge, MA. 1857 - New York City's first elevated railroad opened for business. 1881 - Only four months into his administration, President James A. Garfield was shot at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Depot in Washington, DC; he died in September from his mortal wounds. 1890 - Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act. 1900 - Count Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin successfully demonstrated the world's first rigid airship. 1900 - The second modern Olympic Games opened in Paris. 1926 - The United States Army Air Corps was created. 1937 - Aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first round-the-world flight at the equator. 1947 - A UFO crashed near Roswell, New Mexico. 1955 - "The Lawrence Welk Show" premiered on television. 1964 - US President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964, sweeping legislation prohibiting racial discrimination in employment and education, and outlawing racial segregation in public facilities. 1976 - The Supreme Court ruled the death penalty was not inherently cruel or unusual. Births 1855 - Clarence Barron, American financial editor and publisher. 1877 - Hermann Hesse, German poet and novelist. 1905 - Jean Rene Lacoste, founder of Lacoste tennis clothing. 1908 - Thurgood Marshall, first black US Supreme Court Justice.