• 1613 – The first English expedition from Massachusetts against Acadia led by Samuel Argall takes place.
• 1644 – English Civil War: Battle of Marston Moor.
• 1679 – Europeans first visit Minnesota and see headwaters of Mississippi in an expedition led by Daniel Greysolon de Du Luth.
• 1698 – Thomas Savery patents the first steam engine.
• 1776 – The Continental Congress adopts a resolution severing ties with the Kingdom of Great Britain although the wording of the formal Declaration of Independence is not approved until July 4.
• 1777 – Vermont becomes the first American territory to abolish slavery.
• 1823 – Bahia Independence Day: the end of Portuguese rule in Brazil, with the final defeat of the Portuguese crown loyalists in the province of Bahia.
• 1839 – Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, 53 rebelling African slaves led by Joseph Cinqué take over the slave ship Amistad.
• 1853 – The Russian Army crossed the Pruth river into the Danubian Principalities, Moldavia and Wallachiaundefinedproviding the spark that set off the Crimean War.
• 1871 – Victor Emmanuel II of Italy enters Rome after having conquered it from the Papal States.
• 1881 – Charles J. Guiteau shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President James Garfield, who eventually dies from an infection onSeptember 19.
• 1890 – The U.S. Congress passes the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
• 1897 – Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi obtains a patent for radio in London.
• 1900 – The first Zeppelin flight takes place on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.
• 1917 – The East St. Louis Riots end.
• 1934 – The Night of the Long Knives ends with the death of Ernst Röhm.
• 1937 – Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan are last heard from over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first equatorial round-the-world flight.
• 1940 – Indian independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose is arrested and detained in Calcutta.
• 1962 – The first Wal-Mart store opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas.
• 1964 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 meant to prohibit segregation in public places.
• 1966 – The French military explodes a nuclear test bomb codenamed Aldébaran in Mururoa, their first nuclear test in the Pacific.
• 1976 – Fall of the Republic of Vietnam; Communist North Vietnam declares their union to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
• 1986 – Rodrigo Rojas and Carmen Gloria Quintana where burnt alive during a street demonstration against the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile.
• 1993 – 37 participants in an Alevi cultural and literary festival are killed when a mob of demonstrators set fire to their hotel in Sivasduring a violent protest.
• 2000 – Vicente Fox Quesada is elected the first President of México from an opposition party, the Partido Acción Nacional, after more than 70 years of continuous rule by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional.
• 2001 – The AbioCor self contained artificial heart is first implanted.
• 2002 – Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly solo around the world nonstop in a balloon.
• 2010 – The South Kivu tank truck explosion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo kills at least 230 people.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 3, 2012                                        

VA Exceeds Government-Wide Goal for Veteran-Owned Business Procurement

WASHINGTON - The Department of Veterans Affairs exceeded by more than six times the Small Business Administration (SBA) goal of government procurements to Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSB) according to the SBA scorecard released today.  That total surpassed the combined procurements from the rest of the civilian agencies of the federal government. 

“Our results demonstrate VA’s commitment to the success of Veteran-owned small businesses,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki.  “Veterans possess the vision and abilities to help build an enduring and vibrant economy.  VA is doing its part to help translate those traits into results.”

VA has statutory responsibilities under Public Law 109-461 that place SDVOSB and Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (VOSB) first and second, respectively, in the hierarchy of its small business preferences.

In support of this policy, Secretary Shinseki has established a department goal of 10 percent for SDVOSB procurements. VA continued to make SDVOSB its first priority even after it met its own expanded goal, resulting in the department nearly doubling its own SDVOSB goal. The Department of Veterans Affairs awarded more than 18.3 percent of its procurement dollars to SDVOSB.

Secretary Shinseki also established a department goal of 12 percent for VOSB.  In 2011, VA spent 20 percent of its procurement dollars with VOSB, again far exceeding its own goal.

At the National Veteran Small Business Conference in Detroit last week, the largest crowd of Veteran businesses and government procurement decision makers gathered anywhere in the country this year, Secretary Shinseki announced additional steps to ensure that VA meets its commitment to Veteran-owned businesses. 

·         Any contract not going to a Veteran-owned small business must be reviewed by a senior executive and concurred with by a senior contracting executive.

·         All senior executive performance evaluations will include a small business performance metric.

·         For the first time, VA has established small business procurement goals all the way down to the lowest senior executive level that exercises procurement responsibilities; for instance, at a medical center or a regional office or a cemetery. Within overall departmental goals, senior executives are now accountable for specific goals.

For more information about VA’s services for Veteran-owned small businesses, please visit: http://www.vetbiz.gov/