| 3 July 987 | France [political events] | Hugh Capet, Duke of the Franks, is elected to succeed Louis V and is crowned king of France, so founding the Capetian dynasty. King Hugh's authority is weak and his own duchy of Neustria disintegrates as his vassals make themselves effectively independent. |
| 3 July 1187 | Kingdom of Jerusalem, Ayyubid Sultanate [Crusades (1095–1272)] | The army of the kingdom of Jerusalem, advancing to raise the siege of Tiberias, is trapped and destroyed by Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria at the Horns of Hattin; King Guy of Jerusalem is captured and Reynald of Châtillon beheaded. The kingdom of Jerusalem is left virtually defenceless as Saladin takes the Franks' castles one by one. |
| 3 July 1281 | Venice, Sicily, Italy, Latin Empire of Constantinople, Byzantine Empire [treaties] | By the Treaty of Orvieto, the Venetians undertake to assist Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily, to restore the Latin Empire in Constantinople. Pope Martin IV declares Michael VIII Palaeologus, the Byzantine emperor, deposed. |
| 3–5 July 1450 | England [political events] | The rebellious peasants of Kent and Sussex, under the Irish rebel leader ‘Jack Cade’, control the English capital, London. |
| 3 July 1778 | Prussia, Habsburg Monarchy, Saxony, Austria-HM [wars] | Prussia, in alliance with Saxony, declares war on the Habsburg Monarchy following the Austrian occupation of Lower Bavaria. Skirmishes between Prussia and Austria continue until May 1779. |
| 3 July 1849 | Papal States [revolution] | French troops enter Rome despite resistance by the Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi, and restore Pope Pius IX, ending the radical Roman Republic. |
| 3 July 1866 | Prussia, Austrian Empire [Seven Weeks War (1866)] | The Prussians defeat the Austrians at Sadowa (Königgrätz), Bohemia, in the decisive battle of the Seven Weeks War. |
| 3 July 1883 | Bohemia [births and deaths] | Franz Kafka, Bohemian-born German writer, born in Prague, Bohemia (–1924). |
| 3 July 1886 | USA [tools] | The New York Tribune is the first newspaper to put into operation the linotype machine, an automatic typesetting machine invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1884. |
| 3 July 1940 | UK, Algeria, France [World War II (1939–45)] | Britain's Royal Navy destroys most of the French fleet at Mers el-Kebir, Algeria, to prevent them being commandeered by the Germans. |
| 3 July 1972 | UK [television] | The first paying cable television service in Britain is supplied by Greenwich Cablevision. Designed as a community television service, it has around 9,000 subscribers. |
