Friday, July 3

Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected president, was confined to a room at the Republican Guard headquarters. The defense minister, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, appeared on television. He suspended the constitution, announced a roadmap for new elections, and installed Adly Mansour, the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court, as interim president. The announcement came after four days of protests where millions demanded Morsi's resignation. The military gave him a 48-hour ultimatum to resolve the crisis, which he dismissed as illegitimate. Morsi would spend the next six years in prison.

This event is often framed as a military coup. Its supporters labeled it a popular revolution, citing the scale of the protests against Morsi's year-long rule, which was criticized as inept and increasingly authoritarian. The Muslim Brotherhood, from which Morsi hailed, called it a betrayal of the 2011 Arab Spring. The distinction mattered for international response and domestic legitimacy. The United States avoided legally defining it as a coup, which would have triggered an aid cutoff.

The removal unraveled Egypt's brief democratic experiment. A violent crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins weeks later killed hundreds. A new government under el-Sisi, who later became president, restored authoritarian control more firmly than the Mubarak regime it had replaced. The July 3 intervention reset the Egyptian state, trading contested democracy for a stability defined by repression.

The document was a presidential finding, a legal requirement for covert action. Jimmy Carter signed it on July 3, 1979. It authorized the CIA to provide propaganda and non-lethal aid to Afghan insurgents, known as mujahideen, who were fighting the government of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. The amount was modest, initially just over half a million dollars for pamphlets and medical supplies. The Soviet Union had not yet invaded; that would come on December 24. Carter's action was a warning shot, an attempt to raise the cost for Moscow's client regime in Kabul.

Common belief holds that the massive American arming of the mujahideen began after the Soviet invasion. The pipeline started six months earlier. Carter's directive was a cautious, limited probe. It was based on a Cold War calculus to contain Soviet influence, not a foresighted plan to create a quagmire. The program expanded under President Ronald Reagan into a multi-billion dollar operation that supplied Stinger missiles and other weapons.

The initial trickle of aid became a river that helped bleed the Soviet army over a decade. It also empowered fundamentalist factions within the mujahideen, creating networks and arsenals that outlasted the war. The consequences of that first signed page would include the rise of the Taliban and the incubation of al-Qaeda. Carter sought to send a message. He set a process in motion that would far outstrip its original intent.

The final chords of 'Rock 'n' Roll Suicide' faded. David Bowie, drenched in sweat and blue spotlight, held the microphone. 'Of all the shows on this tour, this particular show will remain with us the longest because not only is it the last show of the tour, but it's the last show that we'll ever do.' A wave of confusion and gasps rolled through the Hammersmith Odeon. He thanked the crowd and left the stage. His backing band, the Spiders from Mars, had no prior warning. Guitarist Mick Ronson looked shattered. Bowie had just killed his most famous creation, the androgynous alien rock star Ziggy Stardust, at the peak of its fame.

The announcement was a piece of theater, not a retirement from music. Bowie was terminating the character, the band, and the exhausting persona that had begun to consume him. He told a journalist later that he felt he was 'drowning in Ziggy.' The decision was a ruthless act of artistic self-preservation. It freed him to reinvent himself as the soul-influenced 'Thin White Duke' and explore other personas. The concert was filmed, cementing the moment as a landmark in rock mythology.

Bowie demonstrated that a pop star's identity could be a mutable project, not a fixed fate. The shock of the retirement created a template for artistic reinvention that prioritized narrative over mere album cycles. It turned his career into a series of deliberate acts. That night at Hammersmith did not end a career. It established the method for everything that followed.

Most people remember the Titanic or the Queen Mary. The fastest passenger liner ever built was the SS United States. On its westbound return from its maiden voyage, it sliced through the North Atlantic at an average speed of 35.59 knots, over 40 miles per hour. It stripped the Blue Riband, the unofficial speed prize for Atlantic crossing, from the British RMS Queen Mary. The voyage from New York to Bishop's Rock took 3 days, 10 hours, and 40 minutes. It broke the eastbound record a few days prior. The ship was so fast it could outrun most contemporary warships.

The public saw a sleek, modern liner with patriotic red, white, and blue funnels. Its true design was a state secret. Built with substantial funding from the U.S. Navy, it was a convertible troopship. Its hull was divided into 26 watertight compartments. It was constructed almost entirely of aluminum, save for the famously flammable fittings which were deliberately minimal to reduce fire risk. Even the on-board pianos were aluminum. The Navy could requisition it within 48 hours to transport 14,000 troops. Its speed and construction details were classified until the 1970s.

The record still stands. No passenger liner has crossed the Atlantic faster. Its career was brief, rendered obsolete by jet travel by 1969. The ship's dominance was a Cold War artifact, a civilian vessel with a military skeleton. It represented peak mid-century national ambition, where luxury travel doubled as strategic asset. It now sits rusting in Philadelphia, a ghost of dual purposes.