history at a glance

TODAY is Sunday June 4 the 155th day of the year. There are 210 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:

1928 – The President of the Republic of China, Zhang Zuolin, is assassinated by Japanese

agents. 1932 – Marmaduke Grove and other Chilean military officers lead a coup d’état establishing

the short-lived Socialist Republic of Chile. 1939 – The Holocaust: The MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied per mission to land in Florida, in the United States, after already being turned away from Cuba. Forced to return to Europe, more than 200 of its passengers later die in Nazi concentration camps. 1940 – World War II: The Dunkirk evacuation ends: British forces complete evacuation of 338,000 troops from Dunkirk in France. To rally the morale of the country, Winston Churchill delivers, only to the House of Commons, his famous “We shall fight on the beaches” speech. 1942 – World War II: The Battle of Midway begins. The Japanese Admiral Chuichi Nagumo

orders a strike on Midway Island by much of the Imperial Japanese Navy. 1943 – A military coup in Argentina ousts Ramón Castillo. 1944 – World War II: A hunter-killer group of the United States Navy captures the German submarine U-505: The first time a U.S. Navy vessel had captured an enemy vessel at sea since the 19th century. 1944 – World War II: Rome falls to the Allies, the first Axis capital to fall. 1961 – In the Vienna summit, the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev sparks the Berlin Crisis by threatening to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany and ending American, British and French access to East Berlin. 1970 – Tonga gains independence from the United Kingdom. 1974 – During Ten Cent Beer Night, inebriated Cleveland Indians fans start a riot, causing the

game to be forfeited to the Texas Rangers. 1979 – Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings takes power in Ghana after a military coup in which

General Fred Akuffo is overthrown. 1986 – Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top secret United States mili

tary intelligence to Israel. 1988 – Three cars on a train carrying hexogen to Kazakhstan explode in Arzamas, Gorky Ob

last, USSR, killing 91 and injuring about 1,500. 1989 – Ali Khamenei is elected as the new Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran by

the Assembly of Experts after the death and funeral of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. 1989 – The Tiananmen Square protests are violently ended in Beijing by the People’s Libera

tion Army, with at least 241 dead. 1989 – Solidarity’s victory in the first (somewhat) free parliamentary elections in post-war Po land sparks off a succession of peaceful anti-communist revolutions in Eastern Europe, leads to the creation of the so-called Contract Sejm and begins the Autumn of Nations. 1989 – Ufa train disaster: A natural gas explosion near Ufa, Russia, kills 575 as two trains

passing each other throw sparks near a leaky pipeline. 1996 – The first flight of Ariane 5 explodes after roughly 37 seconds. It was a Cluster mission. 2001 – Gyanendra, the last King of Nepal, ascends to the throne after the massacre in the

Royal Palace. 2010 – Falcon 9 Flight 1 is the maiden flight of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which launches

from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 40. 2012 – The concert for Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee takes place outside Buckingham Palace

in London. 2015 – An explosion at a gasoline station in Accra, Ghana, killing over 200 people.