On this day in history - July 2

What Happened On This Day – July 2

• 2002 American businessman, Steve Fossett completes the first solo around-the-world Balloon Flight

  This was Fossett's 6th attempt to circumnavigate the world. It took him 13 days in a balloon called Spirit of Freedom to cover 20,000 miles.

• 2001 World's First Self-Contained Artificial Heart Transplant

  59-year old American Robert L. Tools became the first person to receive the a self-contained artificial heart transplant called the AbioCor at the Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. The AbioCor is an artificial heart that is not connected to wires or an external pump.

• 1937 American aviator Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan are heard for the last time before disappearing

  They were attempting to make the first around-the-world flight in a Lockheed Model 10 Electra. Neither they nor the plane has ever been found and that has led to speculation about what happened to them. An accomplished pilot, Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

• 1900 The Zeppelin Takes Off for the First Time

  The rigid aircraft named after Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, the inventor of the dirigible and founder of the Zeppelin Airship Construction Company, made its first flight over Lake Constance in Germany. Unlike blimps or balloons, Zeppelins are built by stretching material over a rigid framework, usually made of metal. Zeppelins can be steered and they were used by the German Air Force to conduct aerial attacks during the First World War.

• 1843 Alligator Falls Out of the Sky in Charleston, South Carolina during a thunderstorm.

  It is believed that the strange incident happened when a waterspout carried an alligator from a body of water and dropped in on the city.