Today in History: Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi overthrown by military

The following are some of the major events to have occurred on July 3:

1904 – Theodor Herzl, Hungarian-born Zionist leader, died. In 1897 he became first president of the World Zionist Organisation.

1928 – John Logie Baird transmitted the world’s first colour television pictures in London.

1940 – British ships destroyed the French fleet at Oran and Mers-el-Kebir in Algeria to prevent them falling into enemy hands. Over 1,000 French sailors died.

1962 – President de Gaulle of France declared Algeria independent.

1971 – Jim Morrison, lead singer with the American rock group The Doors, died in Paris.

1987 – In France, Klaus Barbie, the Nazi “butcher of Lyon”, was jailed for life for wartime crimes against humanity.

1988 – The American warship Vincennes shot down an Iranian Airbus A300 over the Gulf in the last weeks of the Iran-Iraq war, killing all 290 aboard.

1996 – Stone of scone is returned to Scotland.

2000 – Mexican opposition candidate Vicente Fox beat Francisco Labastida of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), ending the PRI’s 71-year rule in a presidential ballot.

2004 – The Cassini spacecraft pierced the haze enveloping Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, to reveal surface details that shattered theories about its composition.

2013 – Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi is overthrown by military.

(Reuters)