Taipei, July 3 (CNA) Today is Thursday, July 3, or the first day of the sixth month of the Year of the Rat according to the lunar calendar. Following is a list of important events that have occurred on this date in the past: 

   A.D. 323: Constantine I, Roman emperor in the West, defeats Licinius, the Eastern emperor, near Adrianople. 

   1863: With more than 51,000 dead and wounded, the Battle of Gettysburg ends, with the Confederate Army having been routed. 

   1898: The U.S. Navy defeats the Spanish fleet in the harbor of Santiago, Cuba, in the Spanish-American War. 

   1898: Captain Joshua Slocum sails into Newport, Rhode Island, in his boat Spray, becoming the first solo round-the-world sailor. 

   1940: Over 1,000 French sailors die when the French fleet in Miers-el-Kebr, Algeria, is destroyed on the orders of Winston Churchill to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. 

   1946: The Republic of China Supreme National Defense Council votes to convene the National Assembly on Nov. 12, 1946. 

   1962: French properties in Algeria are taken over as the country gains its independence. 

   1966: U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk arrives in Taipei to confer with Chinese leaders. 

   1971: Vice President and Foreign Minister of Swaziland Z. A. Khumale arrives in Taipei for a six-day visit. 

   1976: Bjorn Borg, 20-year-old Swedish tennis player, becomes the youngest ever men's single winner at Wimbledon, defeating Ilie Nastase of Romania, 6-4, 6-2, 9-7. 

   1978: The Kaohsiung Youth String Orchestra of the ROC wins the top prize in the strings division at the World Music Contest held in Holland. 

   1981: Chen Wen-cheng, a Taiwanese scholar who had studied in the United States, dies on the campus of National Taiwan University. The cause of his death remains unknown. 

   1984: The ROC National Science Council decides to set up a liaison office in Silicon Valley, Calif. 

   1985: Hsu Pu-liao, a noted Chinese comedian, dies of illness at the age of 35. 

   1986: The ROC Legislative Yuan passes the Laws on Examination, Appointment, Evaluation and Payment of Public Functionaries. 

   1988: The USS Vincennes, based in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war, shoots down an Iranian airliner with 290 people aboard in the mistaken belief that it is a bomber. 

   1989: Huang Teh-pei, a reporter from Taiwan, is arrested by Beijing authorities for helping Wang Dan, a noted Chinese student leader, to flee the Chinese mainland in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre. 

   1990: Anatoli Grishchenko, the Russian who braved radioactive fallout at the heart of Chernobyl to save the world from an even worse catastrophe, dies of leukemia in an American hospital. 

   1992: The ROC Legislative Yuan passes a revision of the Law on Civic Organizations, which calls for a Political Party Review Committee to be formed under the Ministry of the Interior. 

   1996: British Prime Minister John Major announces that the historic Stone of Scone, the ancient symbol of Scottish kings stolen by the English, is to be removed from London's Westminster Abbey and returned to Scotland after 700 years. 

   1997: West Samoa simplifies its name to Samoa. 

   1999: The ROC Cabinet passes a resolution extending the period for which foreign laborers are permitted to work in Taiwan from three years to six years. 

   2000: Premier Tang Fei pays a courtesy call on James Soong, chairman of the People First Party, to solicit his advice on national affairs. 

   2001: Former ROC President Lee Teng-hui returns to Taipei from a nine-day visit to the United States. 

   Confucius' lesson of the day: "In the conduct of government, the fourth bad principle to be avoided is meanness; to treat your subordinates as if bartering with them exactly and meanly: that is called behaving like professional men and not like gentlemen." ENDITEM