Today in History
By Associated Press
June 14
In 1777, the Second Continental Congress approved the design of the original American flag.
In 1846, a group of U.S. settlers in Sonoma proclaimed the Republic of California.
In 1911, the British ocean liner RMS Olympic set out on its maiden voyage for New York, arriving one week later. (The ship’s captain was Edward John Smith, who went on to command the ill-fated RMS Titanic the following year.)
In 1919, John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown embarked on the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1940, German troops entered Paris during World War II; the same day, the Nazis began transporting prisoners to the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland.
In 1943, the U.S. Supreme Court, in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, ruled 6-3 that public school students could not be forced to salute the flag of the United States.
In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a measure adding the phrase “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.
In 1967, California Gov. Ronald Reagan signed a bill liberalizing his state’s abortion law.
In 1972, the Environmental Protection Agency ordered a ban on domestic use of the pesticide DDT, to take effect at year’s end.
In 1982, Argentine forces surrendered to British troops on the disputed Falkland Islands.
In 1993, President Bill Clinton nominated Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2005, Michelle Wie, 15, became the first female player to qualify for an adult male U.S. Golf Association championship, tying for first place in a 36-hole U.S. Amateur Public Links sectional qualifying tournament.
In 2013, The Associated Press reported Minnesota resident Michael Karkoc had been a top commander of a Nazi SS-led unit accused of burning villages filled with women and children, then lied to American immigration officials to get into the United States after World War II.
In 2017, fire ripped through the 24-story Grenfell Tower in West London, killing 71 people.
In 2018, a Justice Department watchdog report on the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe criticized the FBI and its former director, James Comey, but did not find evidence that political bias tainted the investigation.
June 15
In 1215, England’s King John put his seal to Magna Carta (“the Great Charter”) at Runnymede.
In 1775, the Second Continental Congress voted unanimously to appoint George Washington head of the Continental Army.
In 1864, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton signed an order establishing a military burial ground which became Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an act making the National Guard part of the U.S. Army in the event of war or national emergency.
In 1938, Johnny Vander Meer pitched his second consecutive no-hitter, leading the Cincinnati Reds to a 6-0 victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers in the first night game at Ebbets Field, four days after leaving the Boston Bees hitless by a score of 3-0.
In 1944, American forces began their successful invasion of Saipan during World War II. B-29 Superfortresses carried out their first raids on Japan.
In 1960, the Billy Wilder movie “The Apartment,” starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, premiered in New York.
In 1985, the Shiite Muslim hijackers of a TWA Boeing 727 beat and shot one of their hostages, U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem, 23, throwing him out of the plane to die on the tarmac at Beirut airport.
In 1991, Mount Pinatubo in the northern Philippines exploded in one of the biggest volcanic eruptions of the 20th century, killing about 800 people.
In 1996, Ella Fitzgerald, the “first lady of song,” died in Beverly Hills, California, at age 79.
In 2002, an asteroid with a diameter of between 50 and 120 yards narrowly missed the Earth by 75,000 miles — less than a third of the distance to the moon.
In 2018, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was jailed to await two criminal trials; a federal judge revoked his house arrest over allegations of witness tampering in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. (Manafort would be sentenced to more than seven years in prison on federal charges, but was eventually pardoned by then-President Donald Trump.)
In 2020, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, ruled that a landmark civil rights law protects gay, lesbian and transgender people from discrimination in employment.
In 2022, John Hinckley Jr., who shot and wounded President Ronald Reagan in 1981, was freed from court oversight, officially concluding decades of supervision by legal and mental health professionals.
—From AP reports
