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• Today is Friday, July 4, the 185th day of 2014. There are 180 days left in the year. This is Independence Day.
• Today's Highlight in History:
• On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted by delegates to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
• On this date:
• In 1802, the United States Military Academy officially opened at West Point, New York.
• In 1831, the fifth president of the United States, James Monroe, died in New York City at age 73.
• In 1863, the Civil War Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, ended as a Confederate garrison surrendered to Union forces.
• In 1872, the 30th president of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, was born in Plymouth, Vermont.
• In 1912, the 48-star American flag, recognizing New Mexico statehood, was adopted. A train wreck near Corning, New York, claimed 39 lives.
• In 1939, Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees delivered his famous farewell speech in which he called himself "the luckiest man on the face of the earth."
• In 1942, Irving Berlin's musical review "This Is the Army" opened at the Broadway Theater in New York.
• In 1959, America's 49-star flag, recognizing Alaskan statehood, was officially unfurled.
• In 1960, America's 50-star flag, recognizing Hawaiian statehood, was officially unfurled.
• In 1976, Israeli commandos raided Entebbe (en-TEH'-bee) airport in Uganda (yoo-GAHN'-dah), rescuing almost all of the passengers and crew of an Air France jetliner seized by pro-Palestinian hijackers.
• In 1982, the space shuttle Columbia concluded its fourth and final test flight with a smooth landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Heavy metal rocker Ozzy Osbourne married his manager, Sharon Arden, in Maui, Hawaii.
• In 1999, white supremacist Benjamin Nathaniel Smith shot himself to death as police closed in on him in southern Illinois, hours after he'd apparently shot and

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