Today In History in 1863 The Battle of Gettysburg begins; in 1908 SOS is adopted as the international distress signal; and in 1963 ZIP Codes are introduced for United States mail.

Our on this day in history archives contain over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

July 1 is the 182nd day of the year (183rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar; 183 days remain until the end of the year.

EVENTS

1520 – Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés fight their way out of Tenochtitlan after nightfall.

1523 – Jan van Essen and Hendrik Vos become the first Lutheran martyrs, burned at the stake by Roman Catholic authorities in Brussels.

1643 – First meeting of the Westminster Assembly, a council of theologians ("divines") and members of the Parliament of England appointed to restructure the Church of England, at Westminster Abbey in London.

1770 – Lexell's Comet is seen closer to the Earth than any other comet in recorded history, approaching to a distance of 0.0146 astronomical units (2,180,000 km; 1,360,000 mi).

1819 – Johann Georg Tralles discovers the Great Comet of 1819, (C/1819 N1). It is the first comet analyzed using polarimetry, by François Arago.

1823 – The five Central American nations of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica declare independence from the First Mexican Empire after being annexed the year prior.

1837 – A system of civil registration of births, marriages and deaths is established in England and Wales.

1858 – Joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's papers on evolution to the Linnean Society of London.

1862 – Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, second daughter of Queen Victoria, marries Prince Louis of Hesse, the future Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse.

1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Malvern Hill takes place. It is the last of the Seven Days Battles, part of George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign.

1863 – American Civil War: The Battle of Gettysburg begins.

1870 – The United States Department of Justice formally comes into existence.

1881 – The world's first international telephone call is made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine, United States.

1890 – Canada and Bermuda are linked by telegraph cable.

1898 – Spanish–American War: The Battle of San Juan Hill is fought in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba.

1903 – Start of first Tour de France bicycle race.

1908 – SOS is adopted as the international distress signal.

1922 – The Great Railroad Strike of 1922 begins in the United States.

1931 – United Airlines begins service (as Boeing Air Transport).

1931 – Wiley Post and Harold Gatty become the first people to circumnavigate the globe in a single-engined monoplane aircraft.

1963 – ZIP codes are introduced for United States mail.

1968 – The United States Central Intelligence Agency's Phoenix Program is officially established.

1979 – Sony introduces the Walkman.

1980 – "O Canada" officially becomes the national anthem of Canada.

1984 – The PG-13 rating is introduced by the MPAA.

1987 – The American radio station WFAN in New York City is launched as the world's first all-sports radio station.

1997 – Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on STS-94, a re-flight of the prematurely-ended STS-83 mission with the same crew.

2007 – Smoking in England is banned in all public indoor spaces.

2020 – The United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement replaces NAFTA.