July third

Today's Highlight in History:
On July third, 1930, Congress created the US Veterans Administration.

On this date:
In 1608, the city of Quebec was founded by Samuel de Champlain.

In 1775, General George Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In 1863, the three-day Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, ended in a major victory for the North as Confederate troops retreated.

In 1890, Idaho became the 43rd state of the Union.

In 1898, the US Navy defeated a Spanish fleet in the harbor at Santiago, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War.

In 1944, during World War Two, Soviet forces recaptured Minsk.

In 1962, Algeria became independent after 132 years of French rule.

In 1971, singer Jim Morrison of The Doors died in Paris at age 27.

In 1986, President Reagan presided over a gala ceremony in New York Harbor that saw the relighting of the renovated Statue of Liberty.

In 1988, the USS "Vincennes" shot down an Iran Air jetliner over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.

Ten years ago: In Moscow, Kremlin hard-liner Yegor K. Ligachev received an enthusiastic reception at a Communist Party congress as he criticized reforms by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, saying perestroika had been marred by "limitless radicalism."

Five years ago: Irish Republican Army sympathizers rioted in Northern Ireland's two largest cities in outrage over the early parole of a British soldier convicted of killing a Roman Catholic woman.

One year ago: President Clinton, acting to head off potential problems with the safety of imported food, said in his weekly radio address he was ordering inspectors at American ports to brand all unsafe and rejected food products, "Refused US."

"To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer."

-- Paul Ehrlich, American scientist.