Friday, July 2, 1688

A landslide at a jade mine in Hpakant killed 175–200 miners, the deadliest mining accident in Burmese history.

In the Indonesian province of Aceh on the northern end of Sumatra, a Mw 6.1 strike-slip earthquake killed at least 35 people and injured 276 others.

The International Astronomical Union announced that the fourth and fifth moons of Pluto to be discovered would be named Kerberos and Styx, respectively.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling, the second novel of the Harry Potter series, was published.

Singing Revolution: The Soviet economic blockade of Lithuania (pictured) was lifted when the Lithuanian parliament agreed to suspend the effects of their act to re-establish Lithuania as a state.

More than a year after the end of the Vietnam War, North and South Vietnam officially merged under communist rule to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

The Civil Rights Act was signed into law, outlawing segregation in schools, at the workplace, and other facilities that served the general public in the United States.

A German SS unit arrived in Vilnius, Lithuania, and began the systematic execution of up to 100,000 people over the next three years.

U.S. president James A. Garfield (pictured) was fatally shot by Charles J. Guiteau at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station in Washington, D.C.

The French frigate Méduse ran aground off the coast of present-day Mauritania, with the survivors escaping on a makeshift raft, depicted in Théodore Géricault's painting The Raft of the Medusa.

American Revolutionary War: French troops landed near St. George's, Grenada, and began their capture of the island.

On the Feast of the Visitation, Bach led the first performance of his Meine Seel erhebt den Herren, BWV 10, based on the German Magnificat.