This Day in History: July 2

On this day, July 2 … 

1937: Aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappear over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first round-the-world flight along the equator.

Also on this day:

• 1881: President James A. Garfield is shot by Charles J. Guiteau at the Washington railroad station; Garfield would the following September. (Guiteau would be hanged in June 1882.)
• 1890: Congress passes the Sherman Antitrust Act.
• 1892: The Populist Party (also known as the People’s Party) opens its first national convention in Omaha, Neb.

• 1961: Ernest Hemingway shoots himself to death at his home in Ketchum, Idaho.
• 1962: The first Walmart store opens in Rogers, Ark.

• 1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law a sweeping civil rights bill passed by Congress. 
• 1979: The Susan B. Anthony dollar coin is issued, the first circulating coin to feature a woman.

The trial of Lyle and Erik Menendez was covered heavily by Court TV, which is returning to screens in America.
(Getty Images)

• 1996: Seven years after they shot-gunned their parents to death in the family’s Beverly Hills mansion, Lyle and Erik Menendez are sentenced to life in prison without parole.
• 2002: Steve Fossett becomes the first man to fly nonstop solo around the world in a balloon.
• 2018: Rescue divers in Thailand find 12 boys and their soccer coach, who had been trapped by flooding as they explored a cave more than a week earlier.