July 4th Through History

Explanation: The Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia. Drafted mainly by Thomas Jefferson, it proclaims that all men are created equal. A remarkable fact: Jefferson himself died on July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years later, on the same day as John Adams, the second president of the United States.

Explanation: Marie Curie, born Maria Sklodowska in Poland in 1867, was the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize and the only person to have received two in two different scientific disciplines: physics in 1903 and chemistry in 1911. She died of aplastic anemia caused by her prolonged exposure to radioactive radiation.

Explanation: The discovery of the Higgs boson, nicknamed the "God particle," was confirmed by two independent experiments at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). This particle had been theorized since 1964 by Peter Higgs and other physicists. Its discovery explains why other particles have mass, which is fundamental to the standard model of particle physics.

Explanation: François-René de Chateaubriand, born in Saint-Malo in 1768, is one of the founding figures of French Romanticism. Author of Memoirs from Beyond the Grave, The Genius of Christianity and Atala, he was also a politician and ambassador. He died a few weeks after the start of the Revolution of 1848, which he watched from his Parisian window.

Explanation: Alice Liddell, daughter of the dean of Christ Church College in Oxford, inspired Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) to create the character of Alice. The rowing trip on the Thames with Alice and her sisters Lorina and Edith gave rise to the story told aloud that day, before it was written down and published in 1865 under the title Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Explanation: Alfredo Di Stéfano is considered one of the greatest footballers of all time. With Real Madrid, he won five consecutive European Cups between 1956 and 1960. He remained controversial because he represented Argentina, Colombia and Spain on national teams. He died on July 7, 2014, during the World Cup in Brazil.

Explanation: Klaus Barbie, nicknamed the "Butcher of Lyon," was the head of the Gestapo in Lyon during the Occupation. He was found guilty of seventeen crimes against humanity, notably for the deportation of Jewish children from Izieu and the torture of Jean Moulin. Sentenced to life imprisonment, he died in prison in 1991, four years after his conviction.

Explanation: Calvin Coolidge, 30th president of the United States, was the only American head of state born on the national holiday. He succeeded Warren Harding after his sudden death in 1923 and was elected to his own term in 1924. His reserved style and his refusal to run again in 1928 earned him the nickname "Silent Cal." He presided during the economic prosperity of the Roaring Twenties.

Explanation: The aphelion is the point in Earth's orbit farthest from the Sun, about 152 million kilometers away. Paradoxically, this happens in the middle of summer in the northern hemisphere. The seasons do not depend on the distance to the Sun but on the tilt of Earth's axis. In the boreal winter, on the contrary, Earth is at perihelion, its closest point to the Sun.

Explanation: CARICOM, founded by the Treaty of Chaguaramas, now brings together 15 member states and 5 associate members. It aims to promote economic integration, the coordination of foreign policies, and cooperation in areas such as health and education among the Caribbean nations. Its headquarters are in Georgetown, Guyana. It is one of the oldest regional blocs for economic integration in the Americas.