July 4 is the 185th day of the year (186th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 180 days remaining until the end of the year.
Aphelion, the point during its orbit, when the Earth is furthest from the Sun, occurs around this date.
1744 - The Treaty of Lancaster, in which the Iroquois cede lands between the Allegheny Mountains and the Ohio River to British colonies, is signed in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
1892 – Samoa experiences two occurrences of July 4, as the International Date Line is shifted to its west, meaning that Samoa has the experience of a 367-day year in 1892. This change is reversed when Samoa skips December 30, 2011.
1898 - French passenger steamer La Bourgogne is hit by a British sailingboat in thick fog off Nova Scotia, Eastern Canada, killing 565 out of the 730 people on board, including all but one of the women on the steamer.
1901 – 2000
1903 - The Philippine-American War officially ends.
1954 - One of the most notorious cases in US criminal history occurs when Marilyn Sheppard is murdered in the home she shared at Lake Erie with her husband Sam Sheppard. The case remains unsolved.
1976 – Israeli commandos raid Entebbe Airport in Uganda, rescuing all but four of the passengers and crew of an Air France jetliner that was seized by Palestinian terrorists.