July 4 is the big day for American celebration, and that day in 1776 burns bright in the historical record for good reason.

However, the first week of July has seen more than its share of great turning points in history, and some of those moments, usually battles, are worth thinking about today, because had they not been fought, or had they not come to their eventual outcomes, our world would be unrecognizable.

Thus, for Americans, the first week of July in 1863, marks the greatest crisis, the moment when Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia came closest to defeating the Union Army and winning the Civil War for the South. That threat ended at Gettysburg, a three day battle, the largest and most costly of that war, leaving 51,000 casualties.

Gettysburg did not end that war, which would continue for two more years, but it ended the hopes of a Confederate victory. After Gettysburg the South could only delay the inevitable.

And for America, that meant the extinction of slavery and the long, slow, struggle for civil rights for African Americans. Had Gettysburg gone the other way, then our nation would not exist in its current form, and quite possibly would not exist at all. The history of the world would have been very different.

Another July, that of 1916, witnessed the beginning of the five-month long Battle of the Somme, in northern France. On the very first day, the British Army suffered 57,000 casualties (19,000 dead), and by November, when this cataclysm of trench warfare petered out, more than million men had been killed or wounded. It was described as the "muddy grave" of the German field army, and can also be seen as the event that doomed the British Empire. Though the seeds of eventual Allied Victory in WWI were planted there, (this battle saw the introduction of the first tanks), it was to haunt popular memory for a generation afterwards; and the cost, in blood and treasure, would weaken the British Empire and advance its eventual demise.

Before that could happen, of course, World War II would erupt. That war saw any number of huge battles, and we in the west are justly proud of the invasion of Normandy, in June 1944

. But a year before that, beginning July 4, 1943, the German Army launched Operation Citadel, and began the climactic battle of Kursk in south western Russia. Nine hundred thousand German soldiers, with 2,700 tanks, grouped in two Panzer Armies, attacked from north and south of Kursk.

They were anticipated, and the assault bogged down as it attempted to advance through miles of prepared defenses. The Panzers rode into a barbed wire trap and there they met their doom. After Kursk, the Germans never regained the initiative, and, ultimately, were overwhelmed by the Red Army.

For us that meant the end of Nazism and its threat to the rest of the world.

Few celebrate Gettysburg today, and none celebrate the Somme. In Russia, WWII is known as the "Great Patriotic War" and they do indeed celebrate battles such as Kursk and Stalingrad. But then, they literally faced extermination had the Germans won the war.

As we watch the fireworks and celebrate the Declaration of Independence, and the beginning of a new nation founded in freedom and liberty, it behooves us to recall some of the other great events from the first week of July that have shaped our world, and, indeed, allowed us to be here to enjoy the celebration.