This Week in History
by Dianne Hermann
“In the summer of 1776 our Founding Fathers sought to secure our independence and our liberties that remain the foundation of our nation today.” Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA)
June 1-7, 2026
June 1
1789 – The first U.S. congressional act became law. The law regulated the time and manner of administering oaths of office.
1813 – Capt. John Lawrence uttered the future Navy motto “Don’t give up the ship” after being mortally wounded during a battle between his U.S. Navy vessel Chesapeake and the British gunship Shannon. (Note: After his death, Lawrence’s crew gave up the ship to the British.)
1880 – The U.S. census exceeded 50 million people (50,155,783).
1890 – The U.S. census exceeded 60 million people (62,622,250). The population based on the 2025 census report estimates is about 342 million people.
1908 – John Krohn began his walk around the perimeter of the U.S. pushing a wheelbarrow. Krohn started westbound from Portland, Maine, walking 9,024 miles in 357 days. He wore out 11 pairs of shoes, 112 pairs of socks, and 5 wheels on the wheelbarrow. He wrote a book about his experiences called “The Walk of Colonial Jack.”
1936 – The Queen Mary arrived in New York, completing its maiden voyage. The ship departed Southampton, England, on May 27th. Watch a silent video of its arrival in New York.
1963 – Alabama’s Democrat Governor George Wallace vowed to defy an injunction that ordered the integration of the University of Alabama. On June 11th Wallace stood at the school’s entrance in a symbolic attempt to block integration. In his January 1963 inaugural address, he promised, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”
2007 – Jack Kevorkian was released from prison after serving eight years of his 10-25 year prison term for second-degree murder in the 1998 death of Thomas Youk, 52, of Oakland County, Michigan. Kevorkian died in 2011 at age 83.
2008 – NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander became the first spacecraft to scoop up Martian soil.
June 2
1897 – Mark Twain, at age 61, in responding to rumors that he had died, was quoted by the New York Journal as saying “the report of my death was an exaggeration.” Twain died in 1910 at age 74.
1924 – U.S. citizenship was granted to all indigenous people when President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act.
1966 – U.S. space probe Surveyor 1 successfully landed on the moon and starts sending photographs of the Moon’s surface back to Earth. It was the first attempt at a soft landing on the Moon. Watch a newsreel report and animation.
1998 – Voters in California passed Proposition 227. The act abolished the state’s 30-year-old bilingual education program and required that all children be taught in English. It was repealed by the passage of Proposition 58 in November 2016.
2004 – Ken Jennings began his record 74-game winning streak on the game show Jeopardy! where he ultimately wins $2 ½ million. Jennings also won the Jeopardy! “Greatest of all Time” championship tournament in January 2020. Watch Jennings lose his 75th game.
2015 – Congress passed new legislation to reform National Security Agency procedures, restricting the gathering of phone records.
June 3
1784 – Congress formally created the U.S. Army to replace the disbanded Continental Army, which is created on June 14, 1775, by the Second Continental Congress.
1800 – John Adams moved to Washington, DC. He was the first president to live in what later became the capital of the United States.
1916 – The ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) was established by Congress.
1943 – A mob of 60 people from the Los Angeles Naval Reserve Armory beat up everyone perceived to be Hispanic, starting the week long Zoot Suit Riots. Watch a report on the history of Zoot Suits and the riots.
1959 – The U.S. Air Force Academy held its first graduation. The Class of 1959 had 207 graduates. The Air Force was separated from the Army and formed into its own branch of the military in 1947.
1968 – Valerie Solanas, author of the radical feminist SCUM Manifesto (Society for Cutting Up Men), attempted to kill Andy Warhol by shooting him. She was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, but deemed fit to stand trial. She was sentenced to three years in prison, with the year she spent in a psychiatric ward counting as time served. Solonas continued to stalk Warhol, was arrested again in 1971, and then institutionalized. Warhol died in 1987 at age 58. Solonas died in 1988 at age 52.
1976 – The U.S. was presented with the oldest known copy of 1215 AD Magna Carta (Latin for Great Charter) by the British for the U.S. bicentennial.
1989 – Sports casting legend Vin Scully broadcast 23 innings of baseball in two different cities on one day. Scully died in 2022 at age 94.
2012 – Tiger Woods won his 73rd Professional Golf Association tournament and ties Jack Nicklaus’s record. Woods now has 82 PGA wins, and is tied with Sam Snead.
June 4
1794 – Congress passed the Neutrality Act, banning Americans from serving in the armed forces of foreign countries.
1919 – The Senate passed the Women’s Suffrage bill, granting women the right to vote. Black men were granted the right to vote in 1870 with the passage of the 15th Amendment.
1939 – Sylvan Goldman introduced the first shopping cart in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was actually a folding chair frame mounted on wheels. Watch a brief history of Goldman’s shopping cart.
1972 – Black activist Angela Davis was acquitted of aggravated kidnapping and first-degree murder in the 1970 death of a court judge and the wounding of a prosecutor and juror during the trial of Jonathon Jackson, even though it was proven that Davis purchased the weapons used in the attack. Davis is now 82 years old.
1973 – A patent for the ATM (Automated Teller Machine) was granted to Don Wetzel, Tom Barnes, and George Chastain.
1985 – The Supreme Court in a 6-3 ruling on Wallace v. Jaffree struck down the Alabama “moment of silence” law citing its purpose is to endorse religion and return voluntary prayer into public schools.
2003 – The House of Representatives passed a bill with a 282-139 vote that bans “partial birth” abortions after the fifth month of pregnancy. President Bush signed the bill is into law. The Supreme Court upheld the law in a 5-4 decision in 2007.
June 5
1752 – Benjamin Franklin flew a kite for the first time to demonstrate that lightning is a form of electricity.
1884 – Civil War General William T. Sherman refused the Republican presidential nomination by saying, “I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected.”
1917 – Ten million U.S. men began registering for the draft during World War I.
1947 – Secretary of State George C. Marshall outlined the “Marshall Plan,” or European Recovery Program, after World War II.
1968 – Robert F. Kennedy, age 42, was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan in Los Angeles after Kennedy wins the California presidential primary. Watch an ABC report that includes Kennedy’s speech and assassination aftermath.
1977 – The first personal computer, the Apple II designed by Steve Wozniak, went on sale. By the end of production in 1993, between 5 and 6 million computers had been produced. The Woz is now 75 years old.
1981 – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that five men in Los Angeles are suffering from a rare pneumonia found in patients with weakened immune systems. They were the first recognized cases of what became known as AIDS.
2012 – A gubernatorial recall election was held in Wisconsin. Republican Governor Scott Walker won and became the first governor to survive a recall election.
2013 – The first article based on NSA documents leaked by former CIA employee Edward Snowden was published by the Guardian Newspaper in the U.K. Snowden, now 42 years old, took up temporary asylum in Russia. In October 2022, Snowden was granted permanent residency in Russia.
June 6
1816 – Ten inches of snow fell in New England during the “year without a summer.” It may have been caused by a series of volcanic eruptions of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1815.
1850 – Levi Strauss made his first pair of blue jeans using rivets at the points of strain. Strauss died in 1902 at age 73 and left an estate estimated at $6 million.
1925 – Chrysler Corporation was founded by Walter Percy Chrysler. Future Chrysler head Lee Iacocca was 8 months old.
1944 – The D-Day invasion of Europe took place on the beaches of Normandy, France, with 400,000 Allied American, British, and Canadian troops.
1966 – Stokely Carmichael launched the “Black Power” movement. He headed the Black Panther Party from 1967-1969. He moved to Africa in 1969 and changed his name to Kwame Ture and espoused anti-American, anti-Semitic, and Pro-Communist ideas. Carmichael died in 1998 at age 57 of prostate cancer, blaming the U.S. government for “infecting” him.
1981 – American sculptor and artist Maya Yang Lin won the competition for the design the Vietnam War Memorial. The Wall was dedicated in November 1982.
1983 – Betty White became the first woman to win Outstanding Game Show Host at the Daytime Emmy Awards for NBC’s “Just Men!” The show aired for only one season. White died in 2021 at age 99, just 2 1/2 weeks before her 100th birthday.
2005 – The Supreme Court ruled in Gonzales v Raich that federal authorities can prosecute sick people who smoke marijuana on doctor’s orders. The ruling concluded that state medical marijuana laws do not protect the production and use of homegrown cannabis from the federal ban on the drug.
2015 – American Pharaoh became the 12th horse to win the Triple Crown. Watch the end of the 37-year-drought.
June 7
1775 – The United Colonies changed their name to the United States.
1776 – Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed a resolution calling for a Declaration of Independence to the Continental Congress.
1909 – “America’s Sweetheart” Mary Pickford made her screen debut at the age of 16 in “Mrs. Jones Entertains.” She was one of the 36 original founding members of the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences. Pickford died in 1979 at age 87. Watch her receive an honorary Oscar from the Academy in 1976.
1912 – Capt. Charles De Forest Chandler performed U.S. Army tests using the first machine gun mounted on a plane. Pilot Lieutenant Thomas De Witt Milling made several passes over a Maryland airfield at 50 miles per hour while Chandler fired a “Lewis” gun mounted on a swiveling turret at a cloth target on the ground, scoring hits with 45 out of 50 rounds. The Lewis gun was designed in 1911 by U.S. Army Col. Isaac Newton Lewis.
1955 – The game show “The $64,000 Question” premiered on CBS-TV and airs until 1958. This and other game shows failed when it was discovered that the games were rigged or the contestants were coached.
1965 – Sony introduced its home video tape recorder, priced at $995.
1977 – Anita Bryant led a successful crusade against Miami’s gay rights laws. Bryant, a singer, beauty pageant winner, and spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Commission, was an outspoken critic of homosexuality. Bryant died in 2024 at age 84. Watch one of her orange juice commercials.
1994 – The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia declared that the RMS Titanic, Inc. is “Salvor in Possession” of the wreck and the wreck site of the RMS Titanic.
2000 – U.S. Federal Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered the breakup of Microsoft Corporation. Judge Jackson’s order that Microsoft be divided into two companies was overturned on appeal.
Image from: wtnh.com