This Week in History
by Dianne Hermann
“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history
is the most important of all the lessons of history.” Aldous Huxley
June 8-14, 2020
June 8
1789 – James Madison introduces a proposed Bill of Rights in the House of Representatives.
1861 – The U.S. Sanitary Commission is given executive approval by President Lincoln to offer medical care and provide general welfare during the Civil War.
1915 – Three-time presidential candidate and former Senator William Jennings Bryan (D-NE) resigns as Secretary of State over President Wilson’s handling of the sinking of the “Lusitania” in May.
1968 – James Earl Ray, alleged assassin of Martin Luther King Jr. is captured at a London airport. The two-month manhunt was the largest and most expensive investigation in FBI history. Ray was convicted and sentenced to 99 years in prison. Ray died in prison in 1998 at age 70.
1978 – A Nevada jury rules that the Howard Hughes “Mormon Will” is a forgery. Melvin Earl Dummar claimed he saved Hughes in the desert and should be awarded $156 million of Hughes’ estate as stated in his will. In 2006, Dummar sued the Hughes estate, claiming conspiracy to defraud him based on perjured testimony. A judge dismissed Dummar’s lawsuit in 2007. Dummar died in 2018 at age 74.
1982 – Ronald Reagan becomes the first president to address a joint session of the British Parliament. Watch part of his historic speech.
1998 – The National Rifle Association elects Charlton Heston as its president, who serves until 2003.
2018 – Summit, the world’s most powerful supercomputer, is launched at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. It is capable of making 200 quadrillion mathematical calculations per second.
June 9
1628 – In the first deportation from what is now the U.S., Thomas Morton was sent away from Massachusetts after he was charged with sedition for being a Royalist agitator.
1860 – The book “Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter” by Ms. Ann Stevens is offered for sale for a dime. It was the first published “dime novel.”
1909 – Alice Huyler Ramsey, a 22-year-old housewife and mother from Hackensack, New Jersey, becomes the first woman to drive across the United States. She drove a Maxwell automobile with three female companions (none of whom could drive a car) the 3,800 miles from Manhattan, New York, to San Francisco, California, in 59 days.
1928 – Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith and Charles Ulm are the first to fly across the Pacific when they complete their flight from California to Australia. Both men disappeared during different trips while trying to set other distance records.
1931 – Robert Goddard patents the design of the first rocket-powered aircraft. He is considered the father of modern rocketry. Goddard died in 1945 at age 62.
1962 – Tony Bennett performs in a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The concert was released as a live album. Bennett is now 93 years old and is still performing.
1973 – Secretariat wins the Belmont Stakes and the Triple Crown ending a 25-year drought since Citation won in 1948. Secretariat set a track record in all three races that still stands. The most recent Triple Crown winner is Justify in 2018. Watch Secretariat’s record-setting run.
1985 – Thomas Sutherland, a professor at the American University of Beirut, is kidnapped and held hostage in Lebanon for 2,253 days (6 years, 2 months), making him the 2nd longest held Iranian captive after Terry Anderson. In June 2001, the Sutherland family won a $323 million verdict in a lawsuit against the frozen assets of the Iranian government. He has received $35 million. Sutherland died in 2016 at age 85.
2000 – Canada and the United States sign a border security agreement. The agreement called for the establishment of a border-enforcement team.
2014 – Laverne Cox (born Roderick Laverne Cox) becomes the first transgender person to appear on the cover of “Time” Magazine.
June 10
1793 – Washington, DC replaces Philadelphia as the U.S. capital.
1854 – The first class of the United States Naval Academy graduates 50 midshipmen.
1935 – Dr. Robert Smith and William Wilson of Akron, Ohio, form Alcoholics Anonymous.
1944 – The youngest player in major league baseball history pitches his first game. Joe Nuxhall was 15 years old (and 10 months, 11 days). Nuxhall died in 2007 at age 79. Watch a news report done in memory of Nuxhall.
1963 – President Kennedy signs a law for equal pay for equal work for men and women.
1978 – Affirmed wins the Triple Crown at the 110th Belmont Stakes with jockey Steve Cauthen in 2:26.8. The next horse to win the Triple Crown was American Pharaoh in 2015. Watch Affirmed win all three races in the Triple Crown.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apBIGFWMFr0
1998 – The Wisconsin Supreme Court rules that poor children in Milwaukee can attend religious schools at taxpayer expense.
2003 – The Spirit Rover is launched, beginning NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover mission. The Rover landed on Mars on January 2004 and transmitted information until March 2010.
June 11
1578 – England grants Sir Humphrey Gilbert a patent to explore and colonize North America.
1776 – The Continental Congress creates a committee (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston) to draft a Declaration of Independence.
1859 – The Comstock silver lode is discovered near Virginia City, Nevada, by two miners, Peter O’Riley and Patrick McLaughlin.
1895 – The first auto race held in the U.S. and runs from Chicago to Milwaukee between six cars. Charles Duryea’s Motorized Wagon won the race in about eight hours at an average speed of 7 mph.
1919 – Sir Barton becomes the first horse to win the Triple Crown (Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes). Since then, 12 horses have won the Triple Crown. In the last century, 35 horses have won two of the three legs of the Triple Crown.
1927 – Charles A. Lindbergh is presented with the first Distinguished Flying Cross.
1948 – The V-2 Blossom rocket is launched into space from White Sands, New Mexico, carrying Albert I the Rhesus monkey. Albert did not survive the flight. Watch a report about V-2 rockets and four Albert monkey’s flights.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0auNCID7-o
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The Importance of Prayer: How a Christian Gold Company Stands Out by Defending Americans’ Retirement
1977 – Seattle Slew wins the Belmont Stakes and the Triple Crown. The previous Triple Crown winner is Secretariat in 1973. The most recent was Justify in 2018.
1984 – The U.S. Supreme Court declares illegally obtained evidence (Exclusionary Rule) may be admitted at trial if it could be proved that it would have been discovered legally.
1990 – The Supreme Court says the law prohibiting desecration of the U.S. flag is unconstitutional.
1998 – Mitsubishi of America agrees to pay $34 million to end the largest sexual harassment case filed by the U.S. government. The federal lawsuit claimed that hundreds of women at a plant in Normal, Illinois, had endured groping and crude jokes from male workers.
2004 – Ronald Reagan’s funeral is held at the Washington National Cathedral. Former President Reagan died on June 5th at age 93. Watch the solemn procession.
June 12
1665 – England installs a municipal government in New York City (the former Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam).
1908 – The Lusitania arrives in New York City after crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a record 4 days 15 hours. A German torpedo sank the ship during World War I in June 1915 on a voyage from New York to England. The ship sank in 18 minutes, with a loss of 1,195 of the 1,959 people on board, including 123 Americans.
1939 – The Baseball Hall of Fame opens in Cooperstown, New York.
1948 – Eddie Arcaro becomes the only jockey to win the Triple Crown twice. He won in 1941 on Whirlaway and in 1948 on Citation. Watch a report, including an interview of Arcaro.
1967 – The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ends laws against interracial marriages.
1979 – Bryan Allen of California flies the man-powered Gossamer Albatross over the English Channel in the first human-powered aircraft. The flight took 2 hours, 49 minutes. American aeronautical engineer Paul MacCready, Jr. designed the craft.
1987 – President Reagan publicly challenges Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Watch the president make his historic and prophetic demand.
1996 – Cincinnati Reds president and CEO Marge Schott gives up day-to-day operations because of her numerous insensitive comments about Adolf Hitler, working women, and Asians.
2009 – All television broadcasts in the U.S. switch from analog to digital transmissions.
2016 – A terrorist claiming allegiance to the Islamic State opens fire the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 and injuring 53, making it the worst mass shooting in the U.S.
June 13
1774 – Rhode Island becomes the first colony to prohibit the importation of slaves.
1777 – Marquis de Lafayette of France lands in the U.S. He served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, becoming life-long friends with George Washington.
1920 – The U.S. Post Office Department rules that children may not be sent by parcel post. The rule stemmed from a 1914 incident when 5-year-old Charlotte May Pierstorff was mailed to her grandparents by parcel post for 53 cents to avoid the train cost of $1.55. Charlotte May arrived safely.
1948 – Babe Ruth’s bids a final farewell to fans at Yankee Stadium on the 25th anniversary of the stadium. He died August 16th.
1957 – A full-scale reproduction of the Mayflower sails from Plymouth, England, and reaches Plymouth, Massachusetts. Watch a narrated newsreel film.
1966 – The Supreme Court rules on the Miranda case and decides that suspects must be informed of their rights.
1971 – The New York Times begins publishing “The Pentagon Papers.”
1979 – The Sioux Nation receives $100 million in compensation from the U.S. for taking Black Hills, South Dakota.
1983 – Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to leave our Solar System.
1996 – A group called the Montana Freeman give up to FBI following an 81-day standoff. Three of their members were arrested by the FBI on March 25th, which sparked the standoff. The FBI decided not to force out the Freemen after disastrous results at Ruby Ridge in 1992 and Waco in 1993.
1997 – American fugitive Ira Einhorn is arrested in France for the murder of Holly Maddux after 16 years on the run, although he was not extradited until four years later. He was convicted in 2002 and is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole. Einhorn is now 80 years old.
2002 – The U.S. withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
2005 – A jury in Santa Maria, California, acquits singer Michael Jackson of molesting a 13-year-old boy at his Neverland Ranch. Jackson died in 2009 at age 50.
June 14
1777 – The Continental Congress adopts the Stars and Stripes flag, replacing the Grand Union flag.
1834 – The hardhat diving suit is patented by Leonard Norcross of Dixfield, Maine.
1922 – President Warren G. Harding, while addressing a crowd at the dedication of a memorial site for Francis Scott Key, the composer of the “Star Spangled Banner,” becomes the first president to have his voice transmitted by radio.
1943 – The Supreme Court rules that schoolchildren cannot be made to salute the flag if doing so conflicts with their religious beliefs.
1949 – Albert II, a rhesus monkey, makes the second V2 rocket flight. Despite what the narrator says, the monkey died on impact after a parachute failure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0auNCID7-o
1954 – President Eisenhower signs an order adding the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.
1973 – President Richard Nixon’s administration imposes a 60-day nation-wide wage and price freeze.
1989 – President Ronald Reagan is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
1990 – The Supreme Court rules that police DUI checkpoints for drunk drivers are constitutional.
2013 – The U.S. government charges former CIA employee Edward Snowden with violating the Espionage Act and theft of government property by leaking classified NSA information. Snowden, now 35 years old, was granted asylum in Russia.
Image from: bloodhorse.com
