In the week ending July 3, 1997, the Dow gained 208 points (+2.7%), the fourth weekly 200+ point gain in the 11 weeks from April to July 3, 1997.  In those 11 weeks, the Dow gained 23.5%.

The First Dow Jones Index

On July 3, 1884, Journalists Charles Dow and Edward Jones published their first stock price index.  Their first index was mostly composed of railroads, the dominant sector at the time.  The Industrial index was not launched until 1896. Also in 1884, Dow and Jones first reported on the stock market in The Customer's Afternoon Stock Letter, which became The Wall Street Journal.

Washington's Army Born

On July 3, 1754, young George Washington, 22, surrendered to the French at Fort Necessity (in the French & Indian War, when he represented Virginia colony). He would live to fight again:

On July 3, 1775, General Washington arrived in Cambridge, Mass., to take charge of the new "United States Army," but he found a rag-tag mob of 12,000 unruly soldiers, with another 5,000 sick or wounded.  New Englanders were unsure they would follow a Virginian into battle.

On July 3, 1814: American forces captured Fort Erie, Canada near the end of the War of 1812.

On July 3, 1898, the Spanish American War virtually ended, less than 90 days after it began, and just two days after Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders took San Juan Hill.  On this date, the U.S. beat the Spanish at Santiago.  Spain lost 323 dead and 151 wounded.  The U.S. lost one man. 

Famous Firsts on July 3

1608: The City of Quebec was founded by Samuel de Champlain, on his 41st birthday.

1819: The first bank in the U.S. opened in New York City.  Total deposits that day: $2,807.

1839: The first state normal school in the U.S. opened, in Lexington, Mass, with 3 students

1852: Congress authorized the first U.S. mint outside Philadelphia (in San Francisco, Calif)

1871: The first narrow-gauge locomotive was called the "Montezuma".

1878: John Wise of Lancaster, Pennsylvania was pilot for the maiden flight of a dirigible.

1922: "Fruit Garden and Home" (later renamed "Better Homes and Gardens") debuted.

1930: The Veterans Administration was created.

1934: The first payment by the FDIC went to Lydia Losiger of East Peoria, Illinois.

High Tech News in the 1990s on This Date

On July 3, 1991, IBM and Apple signed a pact to form a jointly owned software company to create a new operating system.  The pact came out of a secret meeting in April between Apple chairman John Sculley and top officials at IBM.  The joint venture produced the PowerPC.

1996: In the lower-tech arena, Union Pacific and Southern Pacific merged on this day.

1997: The German parliament approved a measure to regulate the Internet and track the identity of anyone sending material through the Web. As a result, Germany is not an Internet leader today.

1998: A U.S. district court ruled that encryption software did not qualify for protection under the First Amendment.  Because the code was indecipherable to most, it did not qualify as speech.

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