GOOD MORNING – TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, July 1, the 182nd day of 2015 with 183 to follow. Sunrise in the Boston area is @ 5:10 and sunset is @ 8:25. The Full Buck Moon is exact @ 10:21. The morning stars are stars are Neptune & Uranus. The evening stars are Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn & Venus.

ON THIS DAY IN: 1751 – The first volume of Denis Diderot’s “Encyclopédie” was published in Paris.

1838 – Charles Darwin presented a paper on his theory of evolution to the Linnean Society in London.

1847 – The United States Post Office issued its first stamps, a five-cent stamp honoring Benjamin Franklin and a ten-cent stamp for George Washington.

1859 – The first intercollegiate baseball game was played, between Amherst and Williams College.

1862 – The Bureau of Internal Revenue was established by an act of Congress.

1863 – In the Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg began.

1873 – The province of Prince Edward Island joined the confederation of Canada.

1874 – The first zoo in the United States opened, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1898 – In the Spanish-American War, Teddy Roosevelt and his “Rough Riders” waged a victorious assault on San Juan Hill and El Caney in Cuba.

1916 – In World War I, the British launched a massive offensive against German forces in the Somme River region of France.

1934 – The Federal Communications Commission, as mandated in the “Communications Act of 1934,” replaced the Federal Radio Commission as the regulator of broadcasting in the United States.

1941 – Mammoth Cave National Park was established in Kentucky.

1943 – “Pay as you go” income-tax withholding started.

1963 – The U.S. Post Office began using the 5-digit ZIP Code system.

1966 – Medicare went into effect.

1968 – The United States, Britain, Soviet Union, and 58 other nations signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

1969 – Britain’s Prince Charles was dubbed the Prince of Wales.

1971 – The U.S. Post Office became the U.S. Postal Service.

1979 – The Sony Walkman was introduced.

1980 – “O Canada” was proclaimed the national anthem of Canada.

1991 – Court TV debuted.

1991 – The “Warsaw Pact,” the last vestige of the Cold War-era Soviet bloc, was formally disbanded.

1994 – PLO chairman Yasser Arafat drove from Egypt into Gaza, returning to Palestinian land after 27 years in exile.

1997 – Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule after 156 years as a British colony.

2000 – Vermont’s civil unions law went into effect, granting gay couples most of the rights, benefits, and responsibilities of marriage.

2000 – The Confederate flag was removed from South Carolina’s Statehouse.

2005 – Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her intention to retire.

2006 – The Qinghai-Tibet Railway in the People’s Republic of China begins operation.

2007 – England bans smoking in virtually all enclosed public places and workplaces.